All,
What a fascinating discussion, and a perfect, if ironic, example
of why the question being debated has been resolved (in favour of one
list) in practise.
For the record, I agree with Dan (which happens less often than I
routinely think it should given I own most of his books, but I
digress). One feature of the discussion that has fascinated me most
(and should have led me to put [OT] in the Subject, but again, I
digress, and, at any rate, this subject line is by definition OT) is
the confusion between freedoms and rights. We (well most of us,
anyway, given our current countries of residence) are *free* to think
and espouse any damn thing we want, but in none of these countries do
we have a *right* to do so. The distinction is this: rights entail
commitments and obligations on the state and the citizens of that
state to *ensure* those rights. So, a state (and its citizens) are
obligated by law to ensure your rights to, for example, privacy,
property, personhood, and so on. Freedoms are different. You are
free to exercise these ``free'' acts, but the state (and its
citizens) are not obligated in any way to ensure that you can do so.
They cannot, as a rule, actively prevent such action, but, again, are
not required, either, to facilitate them. Free speech is one such
freedom. Free thought is another. You are free to think any damn
fool thing you can mentally entertain, but there is no incumbent
obligation on the state, the citizens of that state, the internet,
and the citizens of the internet, or, the point and most important
for current purposes, use-revolution@lists.runrev.com to provide a
vehicle for you to express those thoughts. It (and we) may tolerate
them, even ``respect'' them (I use scare quotes because I really
don't know what respecting a thought or belief actually means), but
we do not have to provide an avenue for them: We are, of course,
free to do so, but we are under no obligation to do so.
Now, back to our usual philosophical wrangling, bantering, and code
solving...
On 13-Dec-05, at 6:38 PM, Dan Shafer wrote:
Fair enough, Mark. Where should they be, then?
On 12/11/05, Mark Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
These discussions are quite interesting, but IMHO this is not the
place for them, since they do interfere with the actual utility of
the list.
--
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html>
-Dr. John R. Vokey
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