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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: freedom and taxes: Reply to  Barry
Message-ID: <560@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Feb-85 16:16:39 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.560
Posted: Fri Feb  1 16:16:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 14:05:02 EST
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> > and have a natural right to.  Far from being a restriction of freedom, 
> > buying bread is an affirmation of it.
>  
> Once again, I will point out that this is *only* true *if* I have some 
> property to exchange.  *If* I have some property *then* I am free to
> exchange it.

Everyone has *some* property:  their labor.  Most of us exchange our  
labor or the products of our labor for symbols called 'dollars' which we
then exchange for the labor or the products of the labor of others.  

>   Once again we can point out the restrictions on
> freedom implied by private property in the most extreme case: i.e. where
> one person or group owns all property or all means of production at least.

    How can this happen?  When you say 'property', do you mean just land or
do you mean the much more common type of property (and much more valuable)
products of the labor of individuals or groups of individuals?  I'll assume
that you mean the second kind, since the amount of land a person needs to
own can typically be purchased for a few months of their labor.  So how
does one person (or group) get to own all property or all means of production?
Sure, it would be a bad situation, but it's obviously a meta-stable situation,
so how do you suppose it could happen IN A FREE MARKET?

> happiness, or your precious and so-sacred right to property.  (notice
> the latter was *never* mentioned in the Declaration of Independence??)

    Notice that the country's going to hell in a handbasket?

> > (By the way, I won't trade my TV for the grocery store's bread, but I
> > would trade it for the contents of the cash register at the end of the
> > day.  Am I diminishing their freedom by excluding them from my TV 
> > unless they empty their cash register?) 
>                         MY REPLY: YES
> tim  sevener   whuxl!orb

     Sevener's notion of 'freedom' seems to be rather different from common
usage.  With his definition, it seems as though nobody is free unless nobody
has anything.  Or unless everybody has everything.  And then if you produce
something, they're not free any more until you give whatever you produced to
everybody.  Is a person free if they cannot keep the product of their labor,
but must give it to the community?  According to sevener, they are diminishing
everyone's freedom until they give away the products of their labor.
    As a favor, would everyone use the word 'S-freedom' when they are talking
about the concept which Sevener means by 'freedom' in order to avoid confusing
those of us who like the traditional meaning of the word?
-- 
Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j
     "And I don't want to die.  
      I'd rather ride on my motorcy-
                           cle."         Arlo Guthrie