Crime and punishment

Ilkka is asking why most people would disapprove of a law that punishes every crime with a life sentence. I think the answer is simple: because most of us like to break laws if we can get away with it, and do, and we are afraid that if sometimes our judgement as to whether or not we can get away with it slips up we will be up the shit creek without a paddle.

We break laws ("we" here refers to normal people who go to work, pay taxes, don't beat people up in front of hot dog kiosks and don't steal the battery from their neighbors' car). We sometimes break the speed limit, cross streets on red light, drink alcohol in public places where it is not allowed. Most of us have posessed and drunk alcohol while underage, and those of us who like marijuana usually smoke it when they think they cannot get caught. Many of us would have cheated on our taxes if we could, even though few actually can. Some of us have had sex with underage people while barely overage. Some of us don't wear seatbelts or helmets. Some of us would not hesitate to get an illegal abortion if we found ourselves over the time limit for a legal one. Some of us don't pay the TV tax, or only pay it because it's embarassing to order cable while claiming not to own a TV. Most of us, I think, would commit murder if the circumstances were right, and the circumstances would be right if we knew that somebody is seriously planning to kill us unless we kill him/her first. Even such a crime as punching somebody in the face at a hot dog kiosk, which is usually abhorrent to all normal people because that is not a crime that we usually would do, can sometimes be "committed" by a normal person: somebody attacks you, you punch them in the face in self-defence and then you fail to prove self-defence in court.

I am not sure about the accuracy of Ilkka's claim that a normal person can easily live without committing petty crimes, but I don't think most normal people would want to.

On the other hand, when people commit crimes that we are unlikely to commit ourselves but consider a threat to ourselves, we want them punished, and punished harshly, but I think Ilkka has already covered that topic.