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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (28153)	2/6/2004 2:41:47 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793846

The government exists to protect the rights of its citizens, not to enforce social convention or impose your particular concept of duty. You are postulating a "Government" that nobody has ever lived under, Steven. Ours is a "Gun run" system. Behind every law there's a gun. If you don't think so, get a speeding ticket and push it. A Policeman will show up at your door. And pull out his gun if you refuse to obey him. The "Rights of Man" was an 18th Century Philosophical error. Where do we get these "rights?" From some Bearded Old Jew up in a Mystical heaven? Nobody really has any "rights." You have you, and the Universe. And what you can make of it.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (28153)	2/6/2004 2:44:50 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793846

There is a right to pursue happiness, if you beleve in the Declaration of Independence. The State's right to interfere in agreements between individuals is limited. If the contract in question does not infringe on anyone's rights, the government has no business interfering. There is a right to pursue happiness stated in the Declaration, which is not a blank check on hedonism. It is the declaration that every person is entitled to decide what is in their own best interest. It is not the declaration that every man is entitled to do as he pleases. I consider myself a libertarian, and even I wouldn't venture to seriously say "If the contract in question does not infringe on anyone's rights, the government has no business interfering." There are so many instances of law that you would cry about that it isn't really worth going into. Of course the State has an obligation to regulate contracts beyond mere consent. The government exists to protect the rights of its citizens, not to enforce social convention or impose your particular concept of duty. Implicit in the concept of rights, and civil society, is the concept of duties. Believing that society is all about preserving your rights, without concomitant duties is simplistic. Divorcing the State from the individuals that comprise it, and its citizens, and the social conventions shared by those individuals, is more than simplistic. The State is not some abstraction seperate from us. Derek