CyberWiz Beezer said:

So an interesting twist. Our NMP sleuths have answered question 1) but not of the original assumption. Sounds to me like the line he crossed has become the TRUTH line. If I’m reading you guys correctly he’s perpetrating a fraud, which MAY be the real reason RTLNM exited the scene and not that they wimped out. I know some RTLNM folks, maybe I’ll get a chance to ask.

That’s what it looks like from here. I’ll defer to Bill E. as to what actually happened there.

what say ye about the first half of #4.

I think that in fifty years, the question will become irrelevant, in that doctors will be able to transplant the fetus from someone who isn’t able or willing to provide a decent home and upbringing to a compatible person who is capable and willing to do so, as easy as transplanting a kidney today. Call it a “pre-natal adoption,” if that makes it easier. They’re already doing this with “test tube babies” – have been since the 1980s – this just extends the idea a bit further.

Abortion as it is today will go the way of trepanning and phrenology.

Consider this without comparing the severity of one crime vs another: With regard to culpability, who’s at fault, who’s a victim, a big question in the courts has been “What’s the roll of a drunk driver’s passenger?”. I’m trying to ask I guess, is there really such a thing as a victimless crime?

There’s really only two types of crimes: malum in se offenses – they’re illegal because they’re inherently bad things to do, in that one person is coercively harming another, as opposed to malum prohibitum – things that are illegal because a majority of those amongst the Legislature think that they’re “bad for you.”

Offshore poker is another example that comes to mind.

In light of what I’ve posted above, I don’t see any real problems with onshore poker (or blackjack or baccarat or roulette or craps). But if you have some buddies over to play cards and there’s money involved, it’s a fourth-degree felony in New Mexico, simply because the Legislature says so.

Prostitution always carried that tag.

Seems to work OK in Nevada. Is there something special about that State, or is it just that 49 other Legislatures “know best” for their constituents better than those constituents know for themselves?

Probably a dozen more. I contend if you dig deep enough there’s always a victim, and sometimes it’s the taxpayer. Gambling away the welfare check? Receiving unemployment for 99 weeks without really trying?