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From: melissa@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.legal
Subject: Re: freedoms and laws
Message-ID: <8608011755.AA08602@HECTOR>
Date: Fri, 1-Aug-86 16:30:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: HECTOR.8608011755.AA08602
Posted: Fri Aug  1 16:30:39 1986
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              >       My  view of  the main  problem  is that  people
              >    wrote the law as a way to control other people.  I
              >    don't want to be controlled.

                 It is precisely because people  don't want to be control-
              led that we must have laws.  
              
                 Our freedom is intimately tied  to the conduct of others.
              If I, not wishing to be controlled, choose to shoot you dead
              for sport,   then I have acted  as freely as I  can imagine.
              But what has happened to your freedom?   Absolute freedom is
              a concept of  little value in structuring  the relationships
              among people.   The law is the best approach to limiting ab-
              solute freedom only  to the extent that  the greatest number
              of people may enjoy the highest degree of freedom possible.

Classic misconception here. There are two kinds of rights. There are
negative rights, called liberties, and positive rights, sometimes called
entitlements. John Gilmore (the >) is referring to negative rights.
Dave Massey (indented) is referring to positive rights. Many of us believe
that there is no such thing as positive rights, and that the sole
purpose of government is to protect negative rights. My reason for
believing this is that a right is something that everyone should be able
to have. Everyone can have and exercise negative rights all at the same
time without conflict (by definition of "negative right"). Positive
rights necessarily involve violating someone else's positive right. The
conflict tends to be resolved in a utilitarian way (person X NEEDS the
money/food/whatever more than person Y).

In determining what the highest degree of freedom is, you have to
agree first on what actions constitute freedom. In fact, "freedom" is
such an misused word, I suggest you avoid it entirely, and stick to
discussing liberties and entitlements.

Melissa Silvestre (melissa@athena.mit.edu)