From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:55:15 -0800 (PST)
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>
Subject: Re: Market Failures, Monocultures, and Dead Kids (Oh My!)
In-Reply-To: <9HHR4D12w165w@bwalk.dm.com>
Message-ID: <v03007800af5488ef3094@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:54 AM -0500 3/18/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>*sigh* I'm responding to Vulis...
>
>The short answer, perhaps, is that government should as a general rule
>adopt those policies that allow the greatest freedom over the long term.
>Private social pressure from families and communities may then develop
>into a more powerful force.
>

Precisely.

One of the ways I look at this (it's a big topic, so there are lots of ways
of looking at it) is that when Big Brother or Big Mommy makes decisions for
people, they tend to lose their ability or desire to make moral choices for
themselves and their families.

As a sort of "Neo-Calvinist" (if you haven't seen my spiel on this, sorry
but I don't have time now...try the archives), I think it profoundly
immoral to take away the choices of others. If one's neighbor is not
allowed to kill himself with drugs and alcohol, he is denied the  ability
to make a choice.

(The issue of alcholics or drug users killing _others_ is of course a
different, and separable, issue. I have nothing against drunk driving laws,
for example.)


--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."