Crime of Power

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said "capital punishment for corporate crime". I agreed, because someone who bilks millions of people out of thousands of dollars each is much worse than one murderer or one thief. How many murderers and thieves were forced into existence by the Enron scandal?

Power and free will are more or less synonymous. I think that the magnitude of the crime should equal the amount of power taken from the victim. In the case of assault or murder, the use of force is to deny the victim their free will, so violent crime is still stealing power.

Murder and assault would be high-grade crimes, given that they have lasting effects of the ability of the victim to use their power properly. In the case of theft, it would have to be proven that the victim was indeed impacted in the long term, but that would not be hard in the case of corporate crime.

The crime of damaging the national economy for one's own gain or perpetrating a war for profit would be astronomical, and would certainly carry the death penalty.

Drugs would be legal, but selling drugs to kids is a power crime. Adults are likely to misuse their free will in a number of ways, drugs being only one vice. Kids have to be told what to do- to tell them to damage themselves with drugs is to deny them free will as they grow older.

Public urination and indecent exposure would have a sliding scale. Exposing one's self is a way of denying free or of at least exerting power over someone, and can easily have lasting effects. But if no one sees you naked, or if the victims see you naked of their own free will, then there's no crime.

Free will is probably the most important thing, but not like people think. Free willed motivations that lead to understanding are the most important aspect. Giving someone a fish is helpful, teaching someone to fish is kind, but telling someone that there is fish to eat and allowing them to invent a fishing pole - that is enlightenment.