Why is blackmail illegal? If the thing I’m threatening is something that I have the right to do, that’s not coercion, that’s just presenting a choice. Why should my rights to present choices be infringed on when your decisions stop being easy? Are there just too many stupid people? Too many stupid people that want government to be their daddy and mommy?
Same reason it's legal to own a gun, but not to hold someone at gunpoint and 'just present a choice' to obey or not.
False equivalence. Pointing a gun at someone is coercion.
Isn't threatening someone with your words also coercion?
Not if those words don’t involve threat of unjustified force.
>source: i made it up
>the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.
Sounds like blackmail is no difference than treating someone with a gun. Since you are treating them with your words.
One is you threatening something you do have the right to do. The other is you threatening something you do not have the right to do. That’s the difference between coercion and presenting a choice. How about you quit trying to play word games by conflating words that have vague definitions on some dictionary sites?
You don't have the right to blackmail people.
I do have the right if the thing I’m threatening is something I have the right to do. Rights don’t come from government.
Who says you have the right to blackmail if not the government?
Reason does. These are my natural born rights. The slaves had rights, the israelites in Nazi Germany had rights, the people living in North Korea right now have rights. All just as much as I do. Rights don’t come from government.
>These are my natural born rights.
>natural born rights
Only if you can back up those rights with power or force. Which you can't.
No, might don’t make right.
>the thing I’m threatening is something I have the right to do
Give an example.
I can tell your wife you were cheating on her. That is not against the law. I can also not tell her, you can also pay me money. All three of those instances seperate from anything else are legal.
>All three of those instances seperate from anything else are legal.
So? Drinking by itself is legal, and driving by itself is legal, yet drinking and driving in combination is rightfully illegal.
You asked for an example of something I have the right to do. Telling your wife you are screwing other men.
Telling someone something embarrassing about you.
go ask a lawyer if you should do it before you do it to see if it's alright.
because you can't live without a society. everybody has secrets that society would be appalled to know about, even if they are vindicated ones. so you're basically telling somebody "I'm going to ruin your life, maybe get you killed, unless you do what I want." it's a form of slavery.
hey OP I got a few of your secrets you don't want anybody to know about, so if you want to keep them a secret then you have to work and my poop factory for the rest of your life, be there by 6 am
The state wants to ensure the decisions of public officials are motivated by the public interest and not fear of a secret getting out. Also, the criminal justice system doesn't want to be used as a tool for extortion or the pursuit of private vendettas, and wants to encourage reporting and not holding back information for personal benefit.
So it's illegal. States have interests too and those effect laws.
>that’s just presenting a choice.
You have the freedom to the publish the damning information, or at least usually you do.
But the law draws the line at effectively imposing a ransom for withholding the information.
It is an interesting legal question, however. I think it just comes down to a public policy question -- i.e., it comes down to being a behavior that elected legislators decide they don't want to permit this particular behavior to take place. The rational basis here is likely wanting to avoid the kind of behavior (invasions of privacy and the like) that would be encouraged in society if blackmail were *not* illegal.
From a theoretical standpoint, blackmail might be interestingly compared to nondisclosure agreements, which usually involve the payment of money for another person's silence. Is there a rational basis for why such agreements are legal and blackmail is not?
It's not coercion to promise you that if I ever sit on the jury for the trial of a man who killed his blackmailer, I will vote to acquit. It's something I have a right to do.
The word you gorilla brained naggers are looking for is extortion.
t. 3rd year crim law