poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (09/14/84)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Fri 14 Sep 84 Volume 4 Number 87
"The only existing things are atoms and empty space;
all else is mere opinion." -- Democritus
Contents: Free Market Environmentalism
Liberty and related concepts
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Date: Tue 11 Sep 84 12:23:17-PDT
From: mark thompson <THOMPSON@USC-ECLC.ARPA>
Subject: Free enterprize meets Environmentalism
I am seeking any information or comments about an organization called:
The Nature Conservancy
1800 N. Kent St
Arlington, VA 22209
From reading their annual report, and various other literature, it
sounds like an admirable group. Their goal is to preserve a representative
assortment of natural habitats by, get this, BUYING them. Right. No
protest marches, no appeals to congress.
They also seem to be sincere about preserving things. They own most
of one of the little islands off of the California coast. The island
is being picked clean by a bunch of sheep that dont really belong there.
So, they have been shooting them --- which has gotten them into trouble
with the more common type of environmental group, which cannot abide
the loss of a bunch of cute wooly little animals, even if those animals
are destroying the alleged natural habitat.
Anyway, comments about this, well, unusual, approach to conservation,
or specific notes about this group, pro or con, are solicited.
-mark
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Date: Thursday, 6 September 1984 11:13:31 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa
Subject: Re: insanity
Anyone who has not had a close relative or friend with a mental illness does
not know what they're talking about when it comes to treating insanity. The
Libertarian position on insanity is completely bogus. I guarantee that if
you live with someone with a mental illness, your views will change
instantaneously.
[I don't think there is really a rigidly defined position. Libertarian
"dogma" should be mostly about cases where you are dealing with someone
who can be considered responsible. Other cases--insanity, children,
etc--are really orthogonal to the thrust of the philosophy. The only
real connection would be where conventional society would consider
someone insane even though they could take care of themselves and
pose no threat to others. --JoSH]
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Date: Thu 6 Sep 84 20:27:22-EDT
From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA
Subject: Pornography - Right to Filth
A recent exchange about the need to limit freedoms, lest someone's
freedom encroach upon others', mentioned "Violent Pornography".
If this means mutilating people with razor-sharp video discs, stoning
them with hardbound copies of "Lewd Tales", or some such, then I agree.
But if, as I suspect, it merely means publishing material lacking in
taste, then please let me disagree. I claim a "Right to Filth", which
is not totally distinct from the right expressed by the First Amendment.
If, instead of reading uplifting poli-sci posts, I choose to retire to
the privacy of my library, close the doors, send the children to bed,
and read "I was a lobotomized nurse mutilator", or watch "Invasion of
the Two-Headed Nympho Chainsaw Gang from Krypton", whose freedom am I
infringing? And if some swinish capitalists voluntarily produce this
degenerate rubbish, so as to get me to spend money buying it, whose
freedom have they abridged?
Well, some people claim that a regular diet of this stuff will turn ME
into a lobotomized nurse mutilator. I happen not to think that likely;
moreover, the alleged cause is very remote from the effect. After all,
every chainsaw maniac must have acquired a chainsaw, and it seems very
farfetched to ban her reading material but not her chainsaw.
Yes, I am for pornography. I shall defend filth today, because if I
don't, then literature will be under attack tomorrow, and history the
day after that.
Robert Firth
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Date: Thu 6 Sep 84 17:06:16-PDT
From: Terry C. Savage <TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: freedom
One of the reasons that discussions about freedom tend to produce
apparent contradictions is that the concept itself is so fuzzy. Look
at the individual's situation on a very basic level: the world
presents the individual with a set of conditions; the individual is,
invariably, "free" to respond to these conditions as the individual
sees fit.
This does not address the issue of the *desirability* of the
conditions presented to the individual, which is a seperate
question entirely. People are *always* free, but may prefer to have a
different choice set presented to them. If the issues is discussed in
terms of "These are the conditions I want to see around me..." rather
than "I want to be free...", the disucssion will make a lot more
sense!
TCS
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Date: 13 Sep 84 22:12:46 EDT
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: liberalism
From: LUBAR%hp-labs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Subject: re: liberalism
... I believe that any system which tries to promote
"freedom of choice" runs its head smack into a basic problem: giving
any individual complete freedom of choice impinges on other
individuals' freedom of choice.
This isn't so much a basic problem as a basic principle. Most of libertarian
theory is an attempt to implement "the principle of greatest liberty"
which says that each person's should have the greatest liberty that is
compatible with everyone else's right to exactly the same thing. If
political science were a more rigorous subject, you could plug that
into a big equation and solve it to find just what freedoms we should
have. In the absence of this, there are some guidelines, about which
more later.
It's the fuzzier area of my choice to have certain conventions and
agreements so that my life can be relatively stable, and so I don't
have to redecide every minute about everything that affects me.
This seems to be a clear violation of the principle of greatest liberty.
It is surely your right to seek out stability, to associate only with
unchanging individuals, to make what agreements you can. However,
to enforce your idea of stability on everyone in the society by coercive
means is clearly incompatible with their right to make the same decision
for you (eg, to force you to change). Thus, NEITHER you nor they
can properly have that "right" under the principle.
[comments on zoning laws, insanity, public nuisance, land use,
pornography]
A common guideline in applying the principle of greatest liberty is
that prior restraint is usually a violation of it. Most so-called
"liberal" laws are flagrant examples of this. The zoning ordinance
in my township is explicitly a planning instrument: I can't build
more than X square feet per acre because "this part of town should
look rural". They have abandoned even the pretense that I would
be impinging on anyone's rights by (say) adding a greenhouse.
I'm not trying to make a case for or against any of these laws, but
merely to point out that they ARE conflicts between individuals
wanting to "maximize freedom of choice".
Wrong, as I've shown. Maximizing freedom is not the same thing as being
able to boss everyone else in the world around. In fact, it is very
close to being unable to boss anyone else around.
These cases seem to be related to public goods; one individual wants
the good in one state and another wants it in another state.
There is a connection. It turns out that freedom is maximized by
minimizing public goods.
Freedom seems to be a scarce good; everyone can't have as much as they
want without taking some away from someone else.
Again you confuse freedom with political power. Freedom is not attained
by making everyone a slave of everyone else. The ability to coerce
someone is not freedom for you, it is slavery for him. If he can coerce
you as well, you are both slaves. Freedom lies in the absence of coercion.
--JoSH
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End of POLI-SCI Digest
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