Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbtopaz-1.8; site ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!pesnta!greipa!decwrl!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!mwm From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Democratic decisions in everyone's interest Message-ID: <991@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Thu, 11-Jul-85 01:00:39 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.991 Posted: Thu Jul 11 01:00:39 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 05:36:50 EDT References: <234@umcp-cs.UUCP> <28200016@inmet.UUCP> <669@whuxl.UUCP> Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 42 In article <669@whuxl.UUCP> orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) writes: >Again, I should like to point out that I don't think government has any >business intruding in my private decisions which affect primarily only >*my* self-interest such as the decision to smoke or not to smoke tobacco, >the decision to smoke or not to smoke marijuana, the decision to engage >in whatever sexual activity I may prefer (so long as it involves no >physical harm to another) Uh, Tim, I have bad news. Many conservatives (seem to be darn few of them here; must be to busy running the country to argue about how it should be run :-) feel that "wanton sex" and drug abuse do harm society, so the government has a legitimate say in those activities. >Libertarians have talked a lot about "straw-men" - I think it is a blatant >strawman to insist that democratic socialists on this net support the >suppression of individual liberties which involve solely the individual. Tim, if you were a libertarian, it would be the socialists who talked a lot about straw men. And this claim is another of your straw men. I (and I suspect most other libertarians) don't think you want to suppress individial liberties. However, democratic socialism, like national socialism before it, will lead to the curtailment of liberties. See Hayek's oft-recommended "The Road to Serfdom" for details. >On the other hand I also think I have the right as the citizen of a >democracy to join with other citizens to enact laws which benefit all of us. You mean laws like those governing drug abuse and wanton sex? Of course, nobody could think that the government interfering with my selling my time to someone else could benefit society, so such laws won't be passed. As should be obvious, different people have different ideas about what will benefit or harm all of us. This is the brush that tars statist of all stripes. They know what's best for people, and are going to pass laws (or regulations, or royal pronouncements, or whatever) to see that those things are done or not done. We have another word to describe that kind of society; we call it a dictatorship.