From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Aug 06 2002 - 11:44:07 MDT
--- Samantha Atkins <samantha@objectent.com> wrote:
> Kenneth Hurst wrote:
>
> > It seems to me that both sides of this argument
> have their points, but
> > neither is entirely correct. Freedoms (personal,
> economical, etc.) haven't
> > all gone up or all gone down. We seem to have made
> a trade-off. We can't
> > choose what to put in our bodies
> (drugs--prescription or prohibited) but
> > aren't subject to being slaves.
>
>
> If you really want to know the answer then look at
> the number
> and kinds of laws on the books and the restrictions
> on and
> practices of the judiciary. That will tell the tale
> of the
> corruption of an real notion of inalienable rights,
> equality
> under the law and so on. Trading anecdotes does
> nothing.
> Pointing out groups that were not included in
> freedom and equal
> rights at particular times does not say whether
> the concept of
> what freedom and equal rights are and why and how to
> defend them
> was *less* then than now. Before we distinquished a
> lot of
> excluded special cases, yes. But the concept of
> what a
> citizen's rights are was richer and the notions of
> the proper
> roles and powers for government were much more
> restrictive.
If Samantha is talking about the 19th century, I
entirely agree with her (shock waves resound across
the list...). Where once 1/10th of the population was
enslaved 100% of the time to other citizens, today we
have 100% of the population enslaved an average of 20%
of the time to the federal government via the income
tax system. Thus it can be shown that the gross amount
of freedom has decreased by over 50%, the only
positive change being that we are all far more equally
unfree, and furthermore, the federal government has
monopolized the slavery market.
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