From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 18:47:45 MDT
Olga writes
> 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?
Why didn't you quote the part of that same email where I said
>> You've named this "the decline of freedom". I agree, mostly. Yes,
>> depending where you lived 150 years ago, one might not have as much
>> freedom as one might think (especially if black, say). The local
>> mayor or sheriff by be more inclined and more able to take matters
>> into his own hands.
Why didn't you? Because I qualified it by "mostly"? Because you
want this to get as polarized as possible?
> 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).
Unlike mine, I see that all your examples have the same slant. Show me
some evidence that you are sincerely interested in discussing the ways
that we have become less free and the ways that we have become more
free, and I'd be happy to continue this.
Do you sometimes just use this list as an emotional outlet, and vent?
Is this what some people mean by "having an agenda"? (I couldn't say,
because I'm not sure what they mean, but maybe it's this.)
Lee
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