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From: preece@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Missing Handgun - (nf)
Message-ID: <2994@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 23:12:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.2994
Posted: Mon Sep 26 23:12:38 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Sep-83 09:06:22 EDT
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#R:ccieng5:-14700:uicsl:4300077:000:1647
uicsl!preece    Sep 26 12:41:00 1983

	Unfortunately, laws do hurt people. They make people dependant upon
	laws.  And sometimes the laws are not dependable. They also present
	the illusion that "everything is safe".  But people still get raped
	and murdered.  Even in Toronto.

	laura creighton
	utzoo!utcsstat!laura
----------
I'm worried. The last few things I've seen from laura have a distinctly
depressed tone to them. I hope her spirited support of individual rights
isn't slipping into a pessimistic feeling of helplessness in the face of
the world as it is.

I'm curious, though, what she would suggest as a postive alternative to
the dependence on law. People do get raped and murdered, even in Urbana,
but I still think the law makes us safer than we would be in its absence.
The law also protects are freedoms from those who would take them away.
I worry that a system without law would be ruled by forces more
conservative than either laura or I. If you have a community
responsibility strong enough to prevent takeover by individual strongmen
(strongpersons?), what prevents that community from squashing anything
not to its liking? I like knowing that the law protects my right to be
different and that most of the rights I consider most important are
directly protected (I'd like a little more help from the Supreme Court
than is likely from the present group, but maybe we can do a little better
in our next election, before any more retirements; I wish a couple of
the good guys had retired during Carter's term).

How would you structure society to allow you to protect your own
rights if we stopped depending on the law?

scott preece
pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece