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From: tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: Personal liberty
Message-ID: <12226108750.23.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sun, 27-Jul-86 17:41:13 EDT
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Posted: Sun Jul 27 17:41:13 1986
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To: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Personal liberty
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 86 11:35:12 -0800
From: Tim Shimeall <tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU>

>From: Keith F. Lynch
>3) The libertarian solution: People can do what they want, so long as
>   they do not infringe another person's rights.  But they must take
>   responsibility for the consequences of their actions.  If someone
>   fails to use a seatbelt, and gets badly injured, taxpayer money
>   will not be used for medical treatment.  Problems: None.

Pardon me, but I see a couple of problems with this approach:
  a) How do you discern behavior that infringes with another person's
     rights?  In our society, there are a lot of seemingly personal
     and private functions which may strongly interfere with other
     people.  One example:
       Sex between unmarried teen-agers: many girls are choosing to
       keep their babies, but cannot support them (no job skills, no
       income...).  If society ("the taxpayers") refuse to support
       them, numerous large problems result (health hazards, for one).
       If society agrees to support them, then a large amount of money
       (read, "ever-increasing taxes") is needed to provide this
       support.  At present, I'm not aware of any good solution to 
       this problem, except prevention (LOTS of education, plus LOTS
       of available contraception), which needs taxpayer support.
       (And who decides what the education is to include?  Which/who's
       morality is to be taught?)
  b) How do you provide prior restraint to control infringing
     behavior,  in cases where enforcement is impossible, or where
     the participants in this behavior CANNOT bear the consequences
     of their actions?
                                        Tim
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