From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Date: Thu Feb 06 1997 - 14:14:17 MST
> > J. de Lyser is a social democrat along with more than 99% of the
> > rest of the population of Europe.
>
> That we are, if you compare to american politics. But is it really so bad
> to have social consience built into the society?
> MAX M Rasmussen
Yes, it is. "Social Conscience" assigns rights to an entity called
"society" which deserves no rights, and takes them away from enities
that do deserve them: individuals. At the same time, it destroys
individual responsiblity.
An eight-year-old can understand the difference between a set and its
members; you cannot perform operations on one that you can on the other.
A set of people is not a person. A person has will, and can act for
his own benefit. When you create "society", and assign it rights, you
have given rights to an entity with no means or will to exercise them,
and no way to benefit from them. Therefore, it must take from certain
individuals and give to others, and cannot be held accountable for
either. Even its laudable goals such as helping the unfortunate wind
up in the hands of faceless bureacracies blindly following rules, taking
by force and doling out by formula. Compassion at gunpoint is not
human compassion.
"Social Conscience" is an evil, not because its goals are evil, but
because it does not--it cannot possibly--achieve those goals as well
as individual rights and responsibility can.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:44:08 MST