&gt; Last experiment. Same as above, but you take your foot off the break and drive home without incident, observing traffic signs and not harming anyone or their property. Is that a crime, or a pre-crime?<p>Its a crime, generally, as soon as you are driving <i>on a public road</i> at above the legal limit.<p>(And, incidentally, its &quot;brake&quot;. &quot;Break&quot; is a word, but not the word you are looking for.)<p>&gt; If you answered &quot;it&#x27;s all crimes because you can&#x27;t drive drunk because there&#x27;s laws&quot; then you&#x27;ve accepted prosecuting made-up pre-crimes.<p>All crimes are &quot;made-up&quot;, but its not a pre-crime (which is a prediction of a future violation of a criminal law), but an actual defined prohibited <i>act</i>.<p>&gt; In my opinion, you have to actually do some damage to be a criminal.<p>You are entitled to your opinion of what should and should not be a crime, but it probably doesn&#x27;t help discussing those to redefine the word &quot;crime&quot; to mean &quot;thing that EdSharkey thinks should be a crime&quot; and &quot;pre-crime&quot; to mean &quot;actual violation of criminal law that EdSharkey doesn&#x27;t think should be a crime&quot;.