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From: jim@ism780b.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: whither...  libertarianism & tec - (nf)
Message-ID: <3@ism780b.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Jul-84 18:43:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780b.3
Posted: Fri Jul 13 18:43:41 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jul-84 02:23:11 EDT
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#R:pyuxn:-82800:ism780b:27500008:000:1814
ism780b!jim    Jul 12 11:50:00 1984

> I am willing to take full responsibility for my life and my actions.
> Therefore, I do not want a government taking that responsibility for me
> and telling me what is good for me and what is bad for me.  I do NOT
> have the right to abuse any other person.  I DO have a moral obligation
> to the others that live in this world with me.

You and other libertarians say "we are responsible; we don't need you to
govern us".  The question is, even if everyone who says that is telling
the truth (which I don't believe for a minute), how do we separate you
from all other folk who are not responsible and do not feel a moral
obligation toward others?  It is very self-centered and immature to see
these laws as personal interferences with your freedom.  The laws are
intended to keep people from doing harm.  If *everyone* were responsible
then there would be no need for laws.  The fact that there are *some*
who are responsible is self-evident (except to survival-of-the-fittest
cynics, of whom there are plenty among Libertarians) but irrelevant,
and it is really silly for Libertarians to continually mention it as if
it meant something.  "Why pass that law?  I obeyed it voluntarily just
last week."

> The people you were describing as Libertarians sound much more like
> adolescents.  A government based on individual responsibility is of neccessity
> anti-adolescent mentality.

A *society* based on individual responsibility is mature (some of my best
friends are adolescents); a *government* that presumes all individuals are
responsible best serves those who are not.  It would be more honest to take
your philosophy of personal responsibility out of politics and into the
classroom and the churches.  I too yearn for a society where laws are not
*needed*.

-- Jim Balter, INTERACTIVE Systems (ima!jim)