From: Jim choate <ravage@bga.com>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 06:37:07 PDT
To: blancw@microsoft.com (Blanc Weber)
Subject: Re: Crime and punishment in cyberspace - 3 of 3
In-Reply-To: <9406091638.AA24624@netmail2.microsoft.com>
Message-ID: <199406101336.IAA17729@zoom.bga.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


> 
> "Rights are the items of a citizens characteristic which are outside
> the ability of that government to control within its charter. Rights
> come before a government forms. If they didn't then you would not be
> able to give it a charter."
> 
> 	This is true in the sense that one has the right to exist and to 
> function and in general to be oneself independent of artificial 
> government  operations.
> 
> In Nature, you have a "right" to anything you like, but there may be no 
> one besides yourself there to appreciate that fact and to deliver it.  
> When a group of individuals associate and create agreements/charters, 
> the delineation of rights serves to protect their separateness -  their 
> property,   their privacy, their character - against encroachments from 
> the group, by defining consciously where the boundary lines are to be 
> drawn  -   what the individual can expect to keep, in exception to what 
> everyone expects to share.
>
Would you pray tell why these are not 'rights' under that government and
why they are not as 'natural' as any other right?

> Once a group considers itself an official "society" of like-minded 
> individuals, they often begin to demand "rights" which do not naturally 
> belong to them or their society - or which they have not explicity 
> agreed to share:
> 
> .  the right to have what others have created/produced
> (like a service which nature does not automatically arrange for 
> delivery  -  ex:  optical cables & the internet at 3200 bps)
> 
> .  the right to access what is not their own
> (outside of what nature has naturally endowed them with  -   ex: computers)
> 
 Seems to me these are all results of recognizing that property is a possesion
since even optical cables and such are property, either intellectual or 
otherwise. If a government, when formed, is given a charter which limits
the ability of others to access these possessions then I hold their is an
implied 'natural' right.
> not a society."
> 
> 	A society of like-minded individuals can also be a threat to the 
> safety of non-conformists, depending on how the group decides to 
> respond to those who are not exactly like the others.
>     
Only if the charter allows it. I refer you to Santyana.

> Blanc
> 
>