From: blancw@pylon.com
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 94 23:50:29 PDT
To: karn@qualcomm.com
Subject: Re: FCC Regulation (Challenging Majority Whim)
Message-ID: <199408280645.XAA22595@deepthought.pylon.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


[more excruciatingly enlightening grandiloquence]
Responding to msg by Phil Karn:

. . . .  how can one create a government  that rises above the 
petty illiberalism of the people it governs to protect the 
rights of the individual?
 ...................................................

It appears that being given a position in charge of upholding 
abstract ideals makes some people forget whose interest or 
which ideal it is that they are supporting, and they take too 
seriously the opportunity to lord over others.  When someone 
has been given responsibility over others, they seem to 
suddenly lose their perspective and propose all sorts of things 
contrary to what they claimed to think prior to assuming that 
office.

I think there will come a time when business enterprises will 
completely replace 'government' functions.  Most people see 
both society and political systems as means to practical ends.  
These two organizations have pragmatic functions which 
individuals see as advantageous to their own comfort and 
advancement.  When neither of these deliver on the promise of 
the desired benefits, all of those who were depending upon them 
complain that their expectations were betrayed.  It remains to 
'overthrow' these organizations or raise hell at least, but 
still conditions remain largely unsatisfactory.

A business enterprise is more precisely a tool for the 
realization of the kind of benefits which people are looking 
for from each other.  It also has the advantage of flexibility 
-  it can be modified to suit or disbanded altogether without 
affecting uninvolved parties in the same way as must happen 
when attempting to "improve" a society or a government.

A company does not recognize an individual in the same way that 
a society or a government does in terms of a comprehensive 
ideal, but it can better provide the means to achieve personal 
goals & ambitions, and I think is thus better suited as a tool 
for providing (read 'creating') what individuals could want 
from the world while living in co-existence with strangers.

Blanc