zlacker

So should it also happen for burglary? Shoplifting? Illegal immigration (actually, I’m all for much more open borders)? Drunk driving?

>>scarfa+(OP)
If any of those crimes were being prosecuted in a poor way, or created by some sort of addressable avoidable problem, and happening in such a widespread normalized basis, then perhaps we should look at how enforcement is handled, yes. Perhaps the same can be said of internet piracy, an issue that has been hashed out ad nauseum for decades.

You seem to operate under the misapprehension that I'm saying that if a crime is widespread then it is not a crime. What I'm saying that it may not be a crime, or the current approach of prosecution of the crime is wrongheaded and should be reevaluated. And most importantly, the root causes should be examined to determine how society should progress.

If burglary and shoplifting is happening everywhere because we live in pre-revolutionary France and the sans-culottes are starving and stealing bread to survive, well. We've all read A Tale of Two Cities. Or for a later period of the same country, we've all seen Les Miz. Crimes must be analyzed in their social context.