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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (76926)	10/8/2003 11:15:20 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

As a matter of law yes. We agree, then. I don't think there is any right as a function of natural law. Were we sitting down for an evening over cups of good Oolong or Keemun tea, I would enjoy discussing that with you. But I have way too much work to do today. The question (or, more correctly, one of the key questions) is whether natural law extends to the good of communities, and if so what that means. When communities were small and isolated, natural law favored the inclusion of the famiiar and the exclusion and ostricization of the unfamiliar. When the very survival of the community was precarious and depended on the contributions of each member, it was not only reasonable but necessary to draw clear "we" and "they" boundaries. But as societies evolved and became more diverse, the natural law dynamics of community changed. Today, the health of the community is most strengthened when every person feels included, feels a part of the community. Take a town in the middle of Kansas. Two thousand years ago, that community, faced with a problem individual, could just declare them outcast and there were plenty of places for them to go. Maybe to die outside the community's protection, but that's the price they paid. Exclusion was a community survival mechanism. Today, that community has nowhere to send the person. If they are not accepted and incorporated into the community at least to some degree, they become an irritant, a grain of sand in the wheels of the community. So today, it is an aspect of the natural law health of the community to promote inclusion, not to create a popluation like the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Chechynans, etc., who feel excluded and disenfranchised. I have just spewed this out off the top of my head without careful thought, and on reflection I may -- almost certainly will -- modify my thinking. But it forms a basis for arguing that in the modern world, the laws requiring inclusion and outlawing structural discrimination are very much in line with the basic concepts of natural law, which are centered on survival.