Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!topaz!ll-xn!cit-vax!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!MC.LCS.MIT.EDU!kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: ["Keith F. Lynch" : Communities] Message-ID: <12228528360.51.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Tue, 5-Aug-86 23:12:31 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12228528360.51.MCGREW Posted: Tue Aug 5 23:12:31 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Aug-86 02:56:46 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 47 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu --------------- Return-Path: <@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 00:29:19 EDT From: "Keith F. Lynch" Subject: Communities To: tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU From: Tim Shimeall An involuntary community is one in which the alternative to participation is the loss of highly valued personal attributes, such as life, personal liberty (lost through imprisonment), etc. Such communities exist. ... Yes. The Mafia is one. Nobody gets out alive. The question is not whether such involuntary organizations exist. They do. The question is whether they should exist. My objection was to the use of the word 'community' when 'government' was meant. The word 'community' is so overused, and used in so many different meanings, that I prefer to not to use the word. And I object when others use the term without defining it. Involuntary communities exist because it is deemed desirable to absolutely forbid certain types of behavior. Here is the problem. A non-member of an organization is exempt from organization rules. But you are assuming that all rules are organization rules. This is not true. Robbery, rape, and murder, for instance, are objectionable not because there happen to be rules against them, but because they are simply wrong. They are wrong in that they violate individual's fundamental liberties, not in that they violate an organizational rule. This reasoning is understandable given the enormous number of superfluous state, federal, and local laws that we have. Most of laws encode no great moral truth, but are completely arbitrary. They change from place to place and from time to time for no obvious reason. These laws serve only to reduce respect for the law. The Nuremberg trials are a good example. Many Nazis were given severe sentences for actions that were not actually against the law when and where they were performed. The Nuremberg judges correctly asserted that these actions (mass murder, torture, etc) were objectively wrong, and no law or lack of a law can ever make them ok. ...Keith -------