>From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune@mars.superlink.net>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: <extropians@extropy.com>
>Subject: Re: Transhuman fascists?
>Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 07:06:43 -0800
>
>On Tuesday, March 28, 2000 11:27 PM Zero Powers zero_powers@hotmail.com
>wrote:
> > The courts have recognized (created) a right of privacy, but it is not
>an
> > absolute right. It can be abridged to further a "compelling" state
> > interest.
>
>But the laws have always diluted freedom. In fact, is there any right
>which
>the courts have consistently upheld when there has been an argument about a
>"compelling" state of societal interest?
Laws have not "always diluted freedom." The US Constitution and the Bill of
Rights are laws and they legislated unprecedented limitations upon the
ability of the government to abridge the rights of the people. Also one
person's "freedom" is often another person's oppression. Before the Voting
Rights Act, the states were "free" to preclude blacks from voting. The VRA
diluted this "freedom." But did its overall effect enhance or inhibit
freedom?
It's true that no one has any *absolute* rights. But such a society could
never work (at least not if it was populated by humans). If you had an
absolute right to liberty, you could never be imprisoned no matter what
heinous crime you committed. So you would be "free" to rape, pillage and
murder all you wanted and the state would not be free to seek redress.
Would that enhance or inhibit liberty?
-Zero
"I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
--Thomas Jefferson
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