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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Forcing people to watch political debates
Message-ID: <1619@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Jul-85 13:04:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1619
Posted: Sat Jul  6 13:04:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jul-85 14:13:22 EDT
References: <8472@ucbvax.ARPA> 
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 34
Summary: 


>Did it ever occur to you that the reasons the broadcasting of such debates
>doesn't yield as great a profit as other programming is because the
>public prefers watching other things?  Should we force them to watch
>these debates because you and others deem them important.  Could such
>actions be defended in the name of "freedom of speech?"  Hardly.  They
>could in fact be attacked on the grounds that they violate this freedom.
>(Note that I haven't said anything about how boring political debates
>are. :-)
>                                                Mike Sykora

Sykora raises a most interesting point.  A society is most vulnerable
when its members lack interest in its continuation.  Demagogues can
best control masses of people who have not considered the issues on
which they rely.  Perhaps an autocratic society should prohibit any
political debate, to ensure its own stability, but it may be that a
peculiar form of coercion might assist the prolongation of freedom
in a democratic (or libertarian) society.  Perhaps people SHOULD be
forced to listen to opposing points of view on public issues, whether
the debates are boring or not. (Note that I am not agreeing with
this proposition, but think it worth analyzing in debate).

The base question: Is overall freedom enhanced by the curtailment of
some freedoms.  All sides in the libertarian-socialist debate have
agreed to a "Yes" on this one.  The question then becomes segmented
into a series of minor questions about which freedoms could or should
be curtailed in order to maximize the overall freedom of individuals
to have and to make choices.  In my view, one freedom that should be
curtailed is the freedom to be uninformed (or uneducated, perhaps).
-- 

Martin Taylor
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