Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utcsstat.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Life in America
Message-ID: <1262@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Oct-83 00:17:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1262
Posted: Wed Oct 12 00:17:12 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Oct-83 09:42:10 EDT
References: <273@uofm-cv.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 52

Jan D. Wolter writes:

    Of course, in a sense it is true.  If you believe in imposing your
    beliefs on other people (and don't we all) then somebody's right to
    express their beliefs are going to have to be suppressed.

I got news for you -- There are an awful lot of people who do not
believe in imposing their beliefs on other people. Given that most of
them have historically drawn away from society and joined Monastic
orders is no reason to deny their existance. I find the thought of
IMPOSING my beliefs on others repugnant in the extreme. I do not think
that this is the same thing as welcoming them in their attempts to
impose their beliefs upon me, however.

I am hardly alone -- when is the last time you were accosted by an
Orthodox Jew who tried to impose his religious beliefs upon you? Or a
Buddhist? or any number of faiths I could mention whose NAMES you are
unlikely to have heard of unless you take an interest in other
religions? Seems like "imposing your belief on others" is not a
universal Truth shared by all...

Something tells me, though, from the rest of your article, that what
you call 'supress someone's right to express their belief' and what I
do are rather different things. I probably do not object to what you
are talking about, but I do object to your terminology.

What I think that you mean is that certain actions are bound to be
prohibited by society. i would agree -- murder and rape, which spring
to mind, are fine examples of actions which should be prohibited under
any sort of legal code.

However, "murdering someone" really does not sound like "allowing
someone to express his belief that someone should be dead". it sounds
like "suppressing someone's belief that he should be alive".

You do not get a lot of violence out of letting people have their own
beliefs, unless they happen to have the belief that their belief is THE
TRUTH, and thus in some way they have the right (usually the Divine
Right) to force you to correspond to it. However, i find it impractical
to define 'belief' in such a way that it allows you to enforce it on
other people. Once you get into the business of forcing other people
you have got out of the category of 'belief' even 'expressed belief'
and have got into something very different.

I think that this difference should be maintained through all further
discussion. Otherwise it is too easy to condone the action of someone
who "is only expressing his belief ...". Unfortunately this sort of
reasoning has been used to allow atrocities in the past, and is likely
to be used so again in the future.

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura