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From: colonel%buffalo.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA ("Col. G. L. Sicherman")
Newsgroups: mod.legal
Subject: Re: freedoms and laws
Message-ID: <8608041647.aa08472@SEM.BRL.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 4-Aug-86 14:47:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: SEM.8608041647.aa08472
Posted: Mon Aug  4 14:47:43 1986
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References: <8608011755.AA08602@HECTOR>
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In article <8608011755.AA08602@HECTOR>, melissa@ATHENA.MIT.EDU.UUCP writes:
>          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?  ... 
> 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.
>          Everyone can have and exercise negative rights all at the same
> time without conflict (by definition of "negative right").

The trouble with these absolute definitions is that no right is absolutely
negative.  Most legislative debates are about whether an activity hurts
enough people to be worth regulating; i.e., how "positive" the activity
is.  For example, the right of a factory owner to pour smoke into the air
was once regarded as a liberty, but is now regarded as an entitlement or
a privilege, because the right to breathe clean air has come to be regarded
as a "liberty" in your sense--though some people would call it an entitlement.

The right to foul the air is a "negative" right, if the only criterion is that
everybody can exercise it at the same time.  But it's not the sort of right
that I want to see protected!