If someone had a drug that was seeping into the groundwater that would cause madness, would it be a gross violation of his rights to insist upon coming onto his property and removing the hazard?
No, it would be perfectly justifiable. However, behavior
such as writing a novel that is only read by consenting
adults is an absolute right, in my opinion, no matter what
harm it causes to those readers. This has nothing to do
with any sacredness of free artistic expression -- or even
the first amendment -- to me. The difference is choice,
the absence of force.
I believe no adult or group of adults has any right to
limit the choices of any other adults to engage in any
consensual behavior. The examples you used: drugs
seeping into other people's property, people creating
disturbances on other people's property (i.e. shouting
"fire" in a private theater), and fraudulent commercial
speech are all acts of either force or fraud just as
were your previous examples of child pornography and
snuff films. Nobody, in my opinion, has a right to
initiate force or commit fraud.
If your examples are representative of what you mean
by limits to rights, then we have no argument. I am not
advocating a position that says people are free to do
whatever they want to whomever they want, whether it's
on their own property or anywhere else. Nor is that
the libertarian view as I understand it.
However, I think that you probably have other types of
harm in mind when you talk about limits to rights. Can
you identify cases where you would limit rights in the
absence of any act of force or fraud?
Dave |
