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

To: Neocon who wrote (77162)	10/10/2003 11:15:10 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

The whole point has to do with getting a better sense of when it is legitimate for the state to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the individual. That is certainly a point. It is not the whole point. It may have been your whole point, but it was not my whole point. I am always interested in and attuned to when the state can and should appropriately substitute its judgment for that of the individual. As you know, I prefer a light hand by the government. I am also interested in other questions raised by the hypothetical. One of my favorite hobby horses is an important part of this, the thread about majorities, minorities, and individuals and how much it is nice, reasonable, fair, etc. for each to bend to the others in various circumstances. I am also interested in tolerance--in whether we condemn, tolerate, accept, or admire this or that. I am also at my soul a systems person, so I am always interested in if and how various notions can be made to work, their scope, requirements, implications, design features, implementation issues, etc. And the virtue of constructiveness is a personal favorite of mine, so an assessment of what is the responsible and reasonable and smart and even noble to do in various circumstances is of interest to me. I recognize how this discussion came about but it never occurred to me that there was some sort of fence around the discussion. Even had there been clear constraints specified up front, these discussions tend to find a path of their own despite efforts to limit the scope. If the originators of the topic want to limit their participation in the discussion to the intended scope, that's fine with me. I made my determination on that a couple of thousand posts ago on the state intervention business and I haven't since heard any new ideas on it so I guess there's not much more for me to say.