larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/08/83)
I think my previous message requires some clarification (as well as
proofreading).
Implicit in my comments was the idea that certain beliefs people have
are ingrained in them due to non-rational reasons, and that they will
not change. I feel that things such as emotional makeup, backround,
and standard of living play a large part in shaping people's most basic
beliefs. Thus, all the arguing in the world is not going to change
anyone's mind on certain issues. Does this mean that there can be no
consensus on what kind of laws a given person supports. I think not.
What is needed is a ideology-neutral self-consistent rule which people
of different beliefs can follow, and one in which people can agree that
other who disagree with them are still following the system. The
modified golden rule provides one.
--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-aimmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (08/09/83)
Liberty as a basis for law is fine as far as it goes, but survival comes before it, and personal well-being after it, according to the American Declaration of Independence. (If I have the right document -- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness). If a society can ensure the physical survival of most of its citizens to a reasonable age, it can then and only then afford to offer everyone freedom of choice as a democracy. If they aren't going to live, they aren't going to care much about freedom. Once they have a basic freedom to choose courses of action for themselves and for their society, they can worry about where their freedoms impinge on each other. At this point they can worry about "the pursuit of happiness". We seem to be moving from the third stage back to the second, and some people seem to want to go back to the first -- which may eventually be necessary. As the world's resources diminish, it will be harder for many parts of the world to justify democracy, even if they are in those favoured regions not subject to the dictates of a superpower. The survival of the state (or governing group) provides a whole mess of other problems to worry about. Martin Taylor
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (08/10/83)
A reply to Martin Taylor: I don't partition freedom off into 3 packages. Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness are all aspects of Freedom. If a "Liberty based" society is ever realised, i expect it will have a substantially different constitution than either the American Declaration of Independence or our own Canadian horror. I have a worse problem with your statement though. You seem to believe that governments first must be some sort of totalitarian monster in order to let their society survive. In any case, you think that considerations of survival have some natural presidence over other considerations of freedom. Why? When I was in Honduras, 5 years ago, relations were very bad with San Salvador. San Salvadorians were going to isolated villages and practicing guerrilla tactics by slaughtering all the villagers. Or trying to. Some survivors made it to the hospital for the poor where I was translating for a group of North American doctors who were providing free medical care to children with cleft palates and other physical disorders that could be corrected with minimal plastic surgery. The refugees from the villages had definitely suffered machine gun wounds. Some of them were less than 5 years old. They claimed that San Salvadorians with Cuban assistance had done this to their villages. I was told that this was not rare. The San Salvadorians justified their actions by saying that they were killing 'enemy spies' who fled to Honduras. Since some of these villages had been in the same location for more than 40 years, this seemed false. The local explanation was that it was part of guerrilla training. At the same time, a large number of people were starving to death. the wards were full of people suffering from malnutrition. Disease was common, since drugs were not free (nor readily available) and the water supply was used for washing and drinking and waste disposal indescriminantly. I would gather that this society would fit your description of one where a totalitarian government was necessary to maintain survival, and one where little consideration could be paid to 'Pursuit of Happiness'. This did not seem to be the case. People were still struggling to be happy, and although Communism was the most commonly believed solution to the problem (at least in San Pedro Sula) there were many other solutions proposed -- which is why for at least 10 years the average span of government was less than 3 months. Most political coups were bloodless. A new group would receive sufficient support to try their idea of the 'ideal government'. It would appear that the Hondurans (?) (I only know the Spanish word) see Freedom not as a partitionable collection of Rights, but as an ideal. That their attempts at furthering freedom do not lead to Democracy is irrelevant. Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura ps. "communist" is a magic word in Honduras. It means everything from Marxism to Stalinism, to the social policies of some (most?) Democrats. The only consistent platform in all 'communist' parties is the eventual nationalisation of the foreign controlled and owned companies in Honduras. It is wrong to use the Russian model to describe Communism when you are dealing with Honduras. the word has the same sort of watered down meaning that 'liberal' or 'moderate' has in North American politics.
larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/10/83)
From Laura Creighton:
If a "Liberty based"
society is ever realised, i expect it will have a substantially
different constitution than either the American Declaration of
Independence or our own Canadian horror.
~~~~~~~~~~
Are you really "horrified" by your canadian constitution?
Really. It always amazes me how people like yourself, who are living
in one of the freeest(sp?) and most prosperous societies in the world
and who has just about anything most people could ever ask for in terms
of liberty and freedomcan use such words as 'horror' to describe
something like the Canadian constitution. Does it really hurt that bad?
--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ailaura@utcsstat.UUCP (08/11/83)
We got a new Constitution last summer. It was, in my opinion, much worse than the BNA act (our old Constitution). Read it some day. Of course, I am horrified because I have a rather strong view on Native Rights, which were *lessened* (And we did not think that that was possible) under the new Constitution. Canada is not very free if you are an "Amerind". laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura