Maybe I can shed a little light here. When I was first out of Straight I was caught like a leaf riding the spring run-off in the legal system. My parents were trying to get me ordered back into their custody from the state and the state was investigating Straight. They wanted testimony of abuse. I couldn't give them any. I wasn't lying, I wasn't covering for anyone. I simply didn't view what I had experienced and witnessed as having been abuse. I thought I deserved to get sat on for refusing to say what I knew they wanted me to say.
I knew that was pretty messed up, but at the same time, I knew that I could have avoided it if I had done as I was told. Actually, I
thought I could, I believed it, but these days I'm inclined to think that I was just lucky for a number of reasons having nothing to do w/ my choices or behavior.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I was confused and conflicted and I needed desperately to go sort myself out. The HRS people helped me do that. I wish I could remember the name of my caseworker/lawyer because she understood that and really did represent my interests.
But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of the government is really capable of suppressing them or that, even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open up a Pandora's box of other dangers, no less mischievous than alcoholism and morphinism.
http://www.mises.org/liberal/ch1sec11.asp' target='_new'>Ludwig Von Mises
