At 04:36 AM 9/25/00 -0400, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:
>
>So how do you feel, for instance, about bullying in the form of cooperative
>isolation of someone by his/her peers? Certainly everybody has the /right/
>not to speak to someone...
Freedom of association includes freedom not to associate.
>Only that sort of thing harms people more than an occasional, physical
>punch, something which few liberty-advocating people would say is tolerable.
Exclusion harms you only if it bugs you ---you have to want to be a
homosexual atheist boyscout for their exclusion to matter. Non-consensual
violence always harms.
>
>I think liberty should carry a pricetag of tolerance.
>
No, liberty is absolute, and probably not being exercised if *someone*
isn't offended. Your suggestion to "play nice" is quaint but irrelevent
when talking about sovereign adults.
Tolerance means tolerating intolerant groups. The latter-day euros (germans
and french esp.) don't get it. When you burn nazi literature you have become
them.