Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: skinowski who wrote (282685)	12/2/2008 5:36:39 PM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793900

Fair enough point Snowy, but a line was drawn long ago involving common law, hanging, fraud. < Reductio ad absurdum may not be the most elegant way of proving a point, but my point is quite simple - If sooner or later we'll have to draw a line anyway, perhaps we should simply leave it - more or less - where it is right now. > So, for example, if a person sells something harmful to children by lying to them "Mummy says it's okay", then that person becomes an involuntary organ donor and their body parts are sold to the highest bidder and the blood money paid to the victim and their family of that crime. Similarly, in contract law among adults, the parties must be mentally capable of entering into a fair and reasonable contract with informed consent. The underlying fault in the current system is protecting people against themselves. Adults are capable of making their own decisions [unless they are wards of the state because they aren't]. If they choose to go mountain climbing on K2, or kayaking across the Atlantic, or wrestling tigers [naked], or injecting heroin into their brains, then that's a risk and challenge for them to analyze, not me. The line is being drawn too suffocatingly close with the underlying principle that regular citizen serfs do not need brains and if they have them are NOT permitted to use them. Government agents will make all decisions for them and tell them what they must do and must not. Bossy people are like that. They needed to be better socialized when they were young. By the time they are up to controlling governments and armies, they are big trouble. Strangely, most people vote for nation-wide versions of Stockholm Syndrome, like turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. Individualism, capitalism, private enterprise, self-determination, freedom, liberty, private property are NOT what most people want. They mostly want to boss other people around and take their money. So, elections being what they are, we tend to get more and more and more of it. Sometimes it goes into reverse, such as when Maggie Thatcher was in charge of the UK. Zimbabwe will go into reverse but is still heading down. When it's empty of humanity, then it can start improving again. Things are never so bad that they can't get worse until everyone is dead. Mqurice