[ConservingFreedom]

Indeed all true and valid points, but you also have to keep all the moral busybodies in check that will most assuredly crawl out of the woodwork in Joe’s defense. They will bash us over the head with all of the “we have to take care of the downtrodden”, “we need to give him a helping hand”, “we can’t just let him die”, “we must keep him from starving”, it was his upbringing, etc, etc, ad-nauseum.

Agreed - we must keep those moral busybodies in check along with the moral busybodies who say “we must keep him from clouding his mind.”

[jurroppi1]

All right, I’ll bite then. We keep people from forbidding others to cloud their minds (a moral absolute), and we keep people from committing crimes when they do so by punishing them after the fact, thus hopefully creating a deterrent effect (an assumption based on a moral supposition).

No matter what way you slice it the system will be designed by humans and will inevitably be imperfect.

We ultimately would allow more liberty for some than others regardless. I guess I would prefer to protect liberty for those who produce over those who ultimately cause productive liberty seekers harm.