From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Sat Jun 26 1999 - 12:42:32 MDT
Cynthia wrote:
>
> > So here's the conundrum:
> > should a subset of your population be free to the extent that they are
> > allowed to oppress and enslave another subset?
>
> Who put the North in charge of telling the South what it is ALLOWED to do?
While any population of individuals whose society is based upon
voluntary association should be allowed to do as it pleases within that
society, societies which are not based on such a premise should be
opposed on an active basis by societies that are based on that premise.
While no society is based on what I would call an optimum of Unlimited
Individual Freedom, there is a spectrum of societies which are more free
and societies which are less free. It is a matter of simple objective
morality that more free societies should be active in trying to not only
make their own societies more free, but to help members of less free
societies who are not less free on a voluntary basis to escape or change
their situation.
That history has shown that technology is the best means by which
individuals can increase their individual freedom. This is an extropian
principle.
As for the north telling the south what to do, that is not what started
the civil war. Lincoln was against allowing slavery in the new western
territories and states, even though such policies were properly decided,
according to the Constitution (via the tenth amendment) by these new
states themselves. It was much like the abortion issue is today. Its an
issue that must be decided by individual states until such time that a
Constitutional Amendment is passed that decides it on a national basis.
Lincoln had little political desire to interfere with the continuance of
slavery in the South until the war had already started, and it was a
matter of good military tactics to inspire a slave revolt. There were a
few states that still permitted slavery but who had remained with the
Union, such that they still had a few slaves after the Emancipation
Proclamation (although many slaveowners in these Northern states
manumitted their slaves as a matter of patriotism). It was not until the
14th Amendment was passed that the remaining northern slaves were free.
>
> > I don't think so, but
> > it's a hard question, and it comes up all the time.
>
> The decision to resort to violence should always be a 'hard question'.
No, I don't think so. So long as there are opressed individuals, there
will be circumstances where use of violence is the correct and immediate
choice that an individual must make to preserve their freedoms or their
lives. Refusing to make such a choice merely results in the further
opression of that individual, or their deaths. Granted such
circumstances are more rare the more free a society is, although less
free societies can repress the frequency of such circumstances until
they blow up into widescale violence and revolution or war, thus
creating the illusion of 'peace', while the overall long term level of
violence is actually greater than a more free society (which is why the
more free but supposedly 'violent' US society actually has less violence
over the long term than other similarly developed but less free
societies like Europe).
Anyone who feels that this discussion is skirting off into the banned
G** issues is welcome to take the conversation over to the
exi-freedom@egroups.com list. Is the moratorium over yet?
Mike Lorrey
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