From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 05:33:37 MDT
From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> Yet on the whole, there are just a huge number of things (in America
> at least) that one was free to do 150 years ago that cannot be done
> today, things that the government really has no business regulating.
Hmmmmm ... let's get some perspective here. You claim there was a HUGE
number of things one was free to do 150 years ago (albeit on the whole)
compared to now? You say that in spite of the fact that more than half of
the population (women, poor men, slaves) could not take up many professions
available to them now (e.g., medicine), and that more than half of the adult
population (women, slaves) could not even vote?
But, of course, maybe you meant: people were freer to be as illiterate as
they pleased (and in the case of slaves, illiteracy was legally
"encouraged"), businesses were freer to hire slaves (for free) and small
children (for a pittance) to work inhumanely long hours, people were freer
to lynch without impunity, packers were freer to sell you tainted meat
products, people could more easily abuse other people in general, and their
children in particular ... (and these examples are just for starters).
Olga
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