Nature vs nurture

Don't blame me for your own intellectual shortcomings.

You are confusing writing well with writing badly. Using complex words in complex sentence structures does not make you an intellectual, it makes you a poor wordsmith. There is not a trace of substance in any of your posts, just vacuous rubbish which you have repeatedly failed to clarify.

The problem lies with your lack of understanding of basic sociological arguments.

I have repeatedly told you that you are not presenting an argument, so I cannot contradict you at all.

I will ask you this one final time, before I save any further time wasted in conversing with you:

Outline your argument. Try to write clearly and cut the crap.

That was actually a very good question. How do you define what a crime is? How do you define the boundaries? Who is to have the authority to define the boundaries? I think you'll find that it is pretty tricky to have an absolutist moral stance on anything. What we define as criminal behaviour is arbitrarlily labeled by societies.
I think you missed the point of the question, seeing as your answer seems to be pretty pointless.

I didn't miss anything, you are creating complications which don't exist. The emboldened text confuses moral law with criminal law. Who said anything about morality? I think you'll find they're very different things. A crime is an action or lack of action which goes contrary to law. It really is that simple; you seem intent on over-complicating it.

I

Outline your argument. Try to write clearly and cut the crap.

I'm gonna jump in on this one.

Lets rephrase the question. What constitutes a crime?
That is what I think was meant by "define a criminal".

I personally would argue that is not a stupid question, because it doesn't have a simple answer (if you choose not to use some circular explanation).

IMO, you appear to not have understood the point being made by s.aley. Which is that, in any discussion over what makes people criminal, it is useful, nay necessary, to unpack what criminal means as it is a socially constructed concept, i.e. who is it that gets to define what is criminal and what isn't, how does this happen, how do they come to be in this position of power, in whose interests do they act etc etc.

capiche?

Our law is given credence by the fact that it has been created by democratically elected representatives.

Your completely avoiding the question i'm trying to get at. Your answer is more of a tautology than a definition.
If you will allow me to rephrase again, what qualities does an act need defy the law of a state?

This is getting closer to the type of answer I was looking for with the question.
By what criteria do democratically elected representatives create laws?

If this was the sort of answer you have been looking for you have asked you questions very badly. Instead of asking: 'what defines a crime?', you should surely have been asking: 'what gives our laws legitimacy?' I am not at fault for your ineloquence. Please phrase your last question better. It doesn't mean anything. There are no 'criteria' for creating laws; MPs simply raise issues which they feel need addressing, such as tax, and debate measures to confront the problem before voting on the issue. There is no 'legal mark scheme', it's done on a problem-solving basis.

I admit the grammar of the question was wrong but you clearly knew what I was trying to get at.

You've been asking completely the wrong questions. You've been asking what defines a crime when you've mean to be asking what grants our laws legitimacy. Because of this, when I have repeatedly and correctly told you that a crime is simply an act which defies law, you have complained that I haven't answered the question which you meant to ask, but didn't.

OK. After thorough revision and correction, I pose the question, what grants our laws legitimacy?

At last, a clear post.

To see why I said to s.aley what I said you will need to read our entire conversation, but I stand by it.

In your case you seem to be questioning the legitimacy of our laws and the powers of those who make them (see italics).

What you seem to be missing is that while you may question the legitimacy of our laws (many would argue that our law is given credence by the fact that it has been created by democratically elected representatives)

whether or not it is the law is not in question. It is the law, because the state in which we live enforces it, and anyone who contradicts it is a criminal by definition.

Question the moral standards of our law all you want, but it won't change the fact that it is our law. As with s.aley, you have phrased your questions very badly and ended up asking wrong ones, only to be frustrated by my correct responses.

Is everyone in this thread high? I'm not avoiding a question, you're just not asking it very well. What on earth does 'what qualities does an act need defy the law of a state?' mean anyway? What is so difficult to understand about crime? There are very clear laws in place to stop people doing things in society. Example: murder. If you murder someone, you have committed a crime. What is so complex about that? If you do something which goes contrary to law, you have committed a crime.

You've been asking completely the wrong questions. You've been asking what defines a crime when you've mean to be asking what grants our laws legitimacy. Because of this, when I have repeatedly and correctly told you that a crime is simply an act which defies law, you have complained that I haven't answered the question which you meant to ask, but didn't.

The fact that they are created by democratically elected representatives. In a sense, by extension, we the people write the laws ourselves since they are written by those we elect to office on manifestos promising to enact certain change. In practice, this is fallible since many of our elected representatives either do not fulfil certain promises (e.g. Labour's EU referendum) or even do the contrary (e.g. Clegg and tuition fees) once elected. I don't have an opinion on the question but I hope this has enlightened you somewhat.

x

That's exactly what I have been asking.