Mr. Veeder, A clumsily constructed sentence allowed your interpretation. Protection against coercion AND compensation for losses incurred as the result of fraud are together the premier issue. These form the backbone of criminal law by which the state shall use its power of coercion to apprehend and incarcerate adequately identified criminals. But I did not say this was the only issue. Next in line is the issue of agreements, either formal (contractual) or informal (common), and the arbitration of disputes where one citizen may ask for the state to exercise its force to reinstate property lost in a claimed malfeasance. I include agreements such as standard contracts, which may be used by and enforced on behalf of those incapable of understanding contracts, the young, senile, incapacitated, etc. This is the area in which we could spend most of our intellectual energy for it is wide open and all too easy to migrate into regulations and penalties before the act of a malfeasance. For lack of a better example, take speeding laws which are enforced at the same speed, day or night, in heavy or light traffic on either competent or incompetent drivers all in the absence of a contemporaneous loss. While the careless and incompetent who create most of the havoc are allowed to continue after a hand slap. On the other side of the same coin are the losses within which the relevance of malfeasance is debatable ... gambling, consensual sex, euthanasia, suicide, abortion and, say, the starving child who steals a loaf of bread ... these, to some degree, may have to be left between the perpetrator and his spiritual mentor. I believe that justice is a social device to mollify our feral imperative for revenge. It is a cultivated confidence that the group's power will be used to prevent or dissuade the criminal from creating further losses and to exact restoration of the loss where possible. A good thesis with which to begin a discussion might be, as you said, "justice is really just a matter having enforceable laws against fraud?" I would prefer, how do we allow the use of force to concentrate in the hands of a few and yet prevent its misuse? I guess my concern is that I am finding ideas here which require the use of force on non-criminals or which allow the use of deceit for in order to achieve a "greater good." This just validates the criminal use of force and deceit. So whoever holds the gun wins and the Glorious Revolution Merry-Go-Round never even slows down. Don Brayton On Sun, 18 May 1997 11:56:22 -0400 Harry Veeder <[log in to unmask]> writes: > >So the most importance principle in life is "don't commit fraud" and >justice >is really just a matter having enforceable laws against fraud? > >Harry Veeder >