On June 5th, the Yahoo News website published an article, "Boys with 'Warrior Gene' More Likely to Join Gangs", written by the anonymous "Live Science Staff". The article tries selling the absurd notion that there is a 'warrior gene' (i.e. a "specific MAOA gene, known as a 'low activity 3-repeat allele' ") that makes teenagers join gangs and do violence.
If that were true, then even adults who were teen criminals will be spurred by their genes to necessarily continue their criminal life. Beyond that, the article quotes a Professor Beaver of Florida State University saying that gang-related violence involving weapons is "hereditary." Yet the warrior gene research is false since genes do not cause criminal behavior.
That is because people have free-will to decide whether to avoid or commit crimes. The existence of teens/adults who avoid serious crimes disproves the gene research's implication that all MAOA-possessing people are necessarily heinous thugs.
Further, introspection reveals that we do have this free-will to choose if we will be criminals or conscientious citizens. Our free-will is most immediately accessible to our self-awareness. Free-will is, therefore, an absolute fact of our existence. The “genes causes crime” research contradicts this fact of volition. Therefore, we can safely and correctly dismiss the research as wrong.
Though science, when done properly, can illuminate facts about inanimate phenomena, it can err when scientists try explaining human conduct. The researchers quoted imply, and at one point explicitly state, a causal relationship between genes and violent conduct. This is where they go wrong.
The Live Science Staff's "discovery" that criminals commit crimes because of their genes has devastating consequences for individual liberty in America.
America's Constitution is based on the Enlightenment view that Man has volition and Reason. Because of this, he is perfectible and can determine how to live his own life. He therefore has no need of a government's telling him what to do. Because we choose our own actions, we are responsible for them. In being responsible for them, we necessarily become deserving of rewards or punishments according to whether our actions victimize others.
Because Man does not need a government’s guidance due to his volitional reasoning capacity, the only purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights from others. America's Founding Fathers also set up "checks and balances"--including the citizen's right to reform/influence his own government--to prevent government from violating citizens' rights. These views presuppose the volitional use of Reason, which sets us free from our genetic inheritance.
However, the "genes causes crime" idea views teens and adults as being forced by their genes to take criminal actions against others. That means that people have no free-will and are not responsible for their actions. This, in turn, requires that the government coerce people into behaving "appropriately" (as through genetic engineering or drugs). Hence, an American's liberty is violated and his government becomes dictatorial. The research on "warrior" genes will give political leftists opportunity to propose such behavioral coercion schemes.
In fact, leftists have done this before. In 1999, USA Today reported a proposal for the government to use DNA evidence to predict future criminal behavior in civilians and then prevent the crime.
Furthermore, what would have begun as a "witch hunt" for changing potential "criminals" can easily degenerate further into modifying citizens' speech for offending certain political groups. (If genes can cause actions, genes can also cause "disruptive" speech). Though the proposal was not successful, it was made. It can be repeated with the current research on the "warrior gene".
Despite failure of the 1999 proposal, leftists are presently controlling boy's natural male behavior in schools. Leftists are using drugs to do this. The leftist feminists hate specifically male behavior in boys (physical energy, healthy aggression, etc). These leftists accuse a boy of “hyperactivity”, while school doctors irresponsibly proscribe Ritalin to drug the kid.
The "genes causes crime" myth can take this behavioral control to the next level: reaching greater numbers of people to either "prevent" them from becoming criminals or supposedly change an alleged “criminal” (either way it's unethical since the individual wont be punished for his actions but brainwashed or coerced).
Furthermore, the “genes causes crime” opinion gives leftists further opportunity to use our government to violate our second amendment activities and free-speech. Leftists have already done this with their frivolous lawsuits against gun manufacturers and against controversial figures like Michael Savage and Don Imus (one for Savage's criticizing radical Islamic terrorists and the other for Imus's insulting the Rutgers female basketball team). Interestingly enough, the Nazis were leftwing socialists and violated people’s first and second amendment rights, too.
By implying that man has no free-will and is not responsible for his actions, the "genes causes crime" myth will also destroy the administration of justice in the courts. If courts adopt the "genes cause crime" belief, then they will increasingly ignore the concept of individual responsibility. This will lead to judging defendants according to their genes, not their actions. Consequently, an innocent person will be falsely prosecuted for a crime due to having MAOA genes. Conversely, a guilty thug will be judged according to his genes not his actions. If a criminal is judged by his genes, his punishment (or the severity thereof) will be preempted.
That, too, is already being done with the excuses of mental illness or of insanity that dishonest defense lawyers use to clear their, actually-guilty, defendants. Of course, those lawyers conveniently overlook that there are many mentally ill people who do not commit crimes.
If the courts accept the “genes causes crime” research, then instances in which criminals escape responsibility for their actions will increase in number. That is because there would then be an additional excuse—a “warrior gene”—to add to the “mental illness” excuses. Any criminal could say “he couldn’t help it” and any medical testimony will support the lie. Jurors, with a criterion of “responsibility,” will be overridden.
If the reader is ever accepted for jury duty, do not believe doctors’ “genetic” or “mental illness” excuses. Those are designed to make you disregard the defendant's responsibleness. Those charlatans will hide behind the prestige of science. Human conduct is not their legitimate field, for that is the field of volition, Reason and ethics. We must put the scientists back in their place. Further, “we the people” must tell our representatives to oppose the incorporation of this “warrior gene” research into our legal system.
