A Usenet persona calling itself frtzw906 wrote:

Scott Weiser wrote:
A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:


Scott:
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I don¹t recall either, but that's an easy one: Yes, but with some
reservations...


Good to see you coming over to the bright side GRIN

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I'll bet we could explore plenty of issues in the realm of social
libertarianism and find common ground... waddya think? Do you fancy
yourself a social libertarian?


Not really. I do admire some libertarian principles, but not all, or even
most of them. They unfortunately mix in some really stupid ideas with some
very good ones. Libertarian dogma has one prime failu it presumes the
universal existence of something that is in fact pretty rare in human
behavior: altruism.

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I lean to libertarian views when it comes to "victimless crimes".

You need to be very careful in determining whether a crime is truly
"victimless" however. What may seem at first blush to be harmless is very
often quite harmful when looked at in broad context and intimate detail.

I find
that, as a society, we cause ourselves all sorts of headaches by trying
to impose "moral" values on everyone. Values that intrude into the
bedroom. Values that presume to know what people ought to (or not)
ingest. etc

Well, there are reasons for those imposed morals that have usually evolved
as a result of generations of ills and evils caused by libertine conduct and
a lack of moral training. Law is intimately connected to morality and has
always been. It's unavoidable that morality will be legislated, and it's
perfectly ethical for a society to do so in most cases.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser