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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (4120)	1/23/2003 6:51:12 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

You still didn't give a justification for it. Just your views of what constitutes autonomy. But I want to know what the moral or ethical justification is for a government to come in by threat or actual use of physical force and detain somebody against their will when they represent no danger to anybody else. If someone is going to hurt other people, society has the right to stop them and prevent the harm. But if they are only dangers to themselves, I don't know where government gets that right. A "might makes right" believer would say they can, therefore they may. But I don't think either of us believes that philosophy. IMO, governments exist to control interactions between people, not to control individual behavior that does not directly, actually or with reasonable potentiality, affect other people. Governments are a compact among people to control their behaviors that interfere with each other's rights. But not, IMO, to control individuals living their lives they way they want to live them and not presenting any danger to anybody else just because we don't think their life choices are rational by our standards. To me, that is not a legitimate function of government, and that's my principle for saying so. What is your principle for saying otherwise? As an aside, what is a right mind? Are all of us really crazy except for those in the mental institutions? I don't believe so. But I admit the possibility.