Privacy Rights
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KillerMuffin
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TJ paraphrased Locke when he wrote "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" as mankind's basic rights.
I think that privacy is intrinsic to liberty. How can you enjoy liberty, or even a vague sense of freedom, if your privacy is continually taken from you? If you know that your phones are tapped, you'll never feel free to say what you want on them. If you know someone is spying on you in your house, you'll never feel free to completely relax in your own home. If you know that carnivore is reading your email, then you'll censor yourself. The more and more the government or other people intrude into your privacy the less and less liberty you'll feel outside of your own self.
You can take the stars of stage and screen for a good whatfor. They have no privacy and no freedom in public because people think that they can intrude on them for autographs, to say hi, or to harangue them about whatever. They tabloids make tons of money printing up their worst dirt so if they wanted to be completely human everyone is going to know about it. Matthew Perry has a vicodan addiction. Millions of people are chemically addicted to something in this country, but they have the privacy to do it and Perry doesn't.
If there is to be liberty, then people must feel the freedom to do what they want without fear of censure. Things they do in private must remain in private or they are in danger of being censured. Now some things are illegal and privacy protects that, but a lot of things aren't.
It's not written into the Bill of Rights, but we have written it into the Declaration of Independence.
I think that privacy is intrinsic to liberty. How can you enjoy liberty, or even a vague sense of freedom, if your privacy is continually taken from you? If you know that your phones are tapped, you'll never feel free to say what you want on them. If you know someone is spying on you in your house, you'll never feel free to completely relax in your own home. If you know that carnivore is reading your email, then you'll censor yourself. The more and more the government or other people intrude into your privacy the less and less liberty you'll feel outside of your own self.
You can take the stars of stage and screen for a good whatfor. They have no privacy and no freedom in public because people think that they can intrude on them for autographs, to say hi, or to harangue them about whatever. They tabloids make tons of money printing up their worst dirt so if they wanted to be completely human everyone is going to know about it. Matthew Perry has a vicodan addiction. Millions of people are chemically addicted to something in this country, but they have the privacy to do it and Perry doesn't.
If there is to be liberty, then people must feel the freedom to do what they want without fear of censure. Things they do in private must remain in private or they are in danger of being censured. Now some things are illegal and privacy protects that, but a lot of things aren't.
It's not written into the Bill of Rights, but we have written it into the Declaration of Independence.
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Dillinger
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On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823)
The concept of privacy and the constitution and how its interpreted has led to quite a lot of hypocricy.
For example, you say that "Supreme Court decisions since the 70s, and some before, have relied on the right to privacy in determining their decisions." Yet in at least one area our privacy rights, if we indeed have them, are constantly invaded. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that allows for the government to imprison people for using certain substances under the pretence that it is to save them from harming themselves. In the early part of the last century the government still understood this. That is why they had to actually add amendments onto the constitution to initiate and repeal alcohol prohibition.
(BTW - Many historians speculate that marijuana prohibition began because hemp products were seen as competitive to Du Pont financially, or because it was an easy way to scapegoat Mexican immigrants.)
More people are currently in American prisons than ever before in U.S. history, and more than half of the prisoners are there for non-violent drug offences, yet illegal drugs are more available than ever before. We could say their privacy was invaded when being apprehended for these "crimes." Marijuana and other drug offences more often then not carry higher sentences than do murder and rape.
I use this as an example of how privacy rights are interpreted to support whatever political agenda one has. Arbitrarily applied.
"... freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, ..."
- John Locke, Second Treatise, Ch. 4, 21.
"A liberty to follow my own will in all things..." - not subject to the will of another man.
Invasion of one's privacy is I believe subjecting one to the will of another person, is it not?
Locke isn't the constitution but damned if the founders didn't have his principles in mind.
"The right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people."
- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. U.S. (1928).
An example of privacy rulings prior to the 70's...
Often the issues of privacy and property are hard to separate. In fact, over the past few decades there has been an erosion of such rights and an increase in seizure and forfeiture of property without any conviction of crime. An increase of intrusion into private spaces. If the constitution gives us a right to property how do you separate that from being part of a right to privacy? If my property is my own and not subject to the abuses of others, then are not such abuses in effect a violation of my privacy?
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? (Who is to guard the guardians themselves?) - Juvenal, Satires, - 120 CE.
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), letter to Judge William Johnson, (from Monticello, June 12, 1823)
The concept of privacy and the constitution and how its interpreted has led to quite a lot of hypocricy.
For example, you say that "Supreme Court decisions since the 70s, and some before, have relied on the right to privacy in determining their decisions." Yet in at least one area our privacy rights, if we indeed have them, are constantly invaded. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that allows for the government to imprison people for using certain substances under the pretence that it is to save them from harming themselves. In the early part of the last century the government still understood this. That is why they had to actually add amendments onto the constitution to initiate and repeal alcohol prohibition.
(BTW - Many historians speculate that marijuana prohibition began because hemp products were seen as competitive to Du Pont financially, or because it was an easy way to scapegoat Mexican immigrants.)
More people are currently in American prisons than ever before in U.S. history, and more than half of the prisoners are there for non-violent drug offences, yet illegal drugs are more available than ever before. We could say their privacy was invaded when being apprehended for these "crimes." Marijuana and other drug offences more often then not carry higher sentences than do murder and rape.
I use this as an example of how privacy rights are interpreted to support whatever political agenda one has. Arbitrarily applied.
"... freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, ..."
- John Locke, Second Treatise, Ch. 4, 21.
"A liberty to follow my own will in all things..." - not subject to the will of another man.
Invasion of one's privacy is I believe subjecting one to the will of another person, is it not?
Locke isn't the constitution but damned if the founders didn't have his principles in mind.
"The right to be left alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people."
- Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. U.S. (1928).
An example of privacy rulings prior to the 70's...
Often the issues of privacy and property are hard to separate. In fact, over the past few decades there has been an erosion of such rights and an increase in seizure and forfeiture of property without any conviction of crime. An increase of intrusion into private spaces. If the constitution gives us a right to property how do you separate that from being part of a right to privacy? If my property is my own and not subject to the abuses of others, then are not such abuses in effect a violation of my privacy?
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? (Who is to guard the guardians themselves?) - Juvenal, Satires, - 120 CE.
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Fly_On_Wall
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lavender said:
My opinion is the way the world is today.... Privecy does not exist.
If I want to know somthing about you... fuck there are many ways I can find it out...
with the right amount of digging, your information is scattered all over the place. and not because you put it there... no cause the government needs all your info so other places can get that info just as easily as typeing a number into a computer....
fuck I went to a store I had never been to before. they asked for my phone number I gave it to them..... and they knew 'everything' aboutt me, and the strange part is. the phone is in my mom's name. so how did they get my name?
Privecy does not exist.
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All our privacy is gone again, at least if Deborah thinks you are a troll.
KillerMuffin
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No, you don't have a constitutional right to shoot anyone. You're Canadian.
erosman
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purely my first thoughts
There is always a design, however camouflaged, in the natural world. I keep my thoughts tucked privately away in my mind and it's memory. You cannot see them unless I choose to reveal them. Is it an unalienable right? or, Is it an alien design? I retreat to my haven of privacy whenever I feel the need. Can you steal my right to think what I will? Only the Jedi have that power over the weak-minded.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness flourish in my intangible thoughts. The most dangerous censor is the death of thought.
There is always a design, however camouflaged, in the natural world. I keep my thoughts tucked privately away in my mind and it's memory. You cannot see them unless I choose to reveal them. Is it an unalienable right? or, Is it an alien design? I retreat to my haven of privacy whenever I feel the need. Can you steal my right to think what I will? Only the Jedi have that power over the weak-minded.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness flourish in my intangible thoughts. The most dangerous censor is the death of thought.
KillerMuffin
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Second amendment doesn't give anyone the right to shoot anyone else. Just the right to have a gun.
However, if keep and bear arms means I get to shoot people without regard, then could someone lend me an uzi?
However, if keep and bear arms means I get to shoot people without regard, then could someone lend me an uzi?
Oliver Clozoff
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Dillinger, you do some fancy rhetorical footwork to try to tie drug use to privacy rights, presumably towards an unstated argument for the decriminalization of drugs, but while a drug may be used privately, the consequences of their use are all too often public. When our right to privacy directly conflicts with our responsibility to respect the rights of others, one of the two has has to give way and I'd argue that in this case it ought to be our individual freedom.
Correct, but there are provisions that allow the government to sanction activities that affect others. John Stuart Mill expressed this idea with this simple analogy: "Your right to swing your arm ends abruptly at my nose". (paraphrase).
Of course it is, but I don't think anyone, especially John Locke believed in "liberty to follow my own will in all things". I'm sure this quote is taken out of context, because it's clearly inconsistent with Locke's idea of the social contract, which he believed binds each of us to respect the fundamental liberties of others. (After all, what good is a "right" if others aren't bound to respect it? The conception of all rights implies the responsibility to respect others' rights.)
The public health harms of drug use are clearly evident.
This list doesn't even address the problems of crime due to drug use. In light of this, doesn't the government, as the legal respresentative of the taxpayers, have the authority to take steps to limit the availability of the substances responsible for such a huge public health problem? They've certainly had similar authority in numerous other cases. Seat-belt and air-bag laws aren't considered to be intrusions on personal liberties because they address a specific public health threat (automobile accidents) by mandating devices that save lives, prevent and reduce injury, and ultimately lower the healthcare costs that we're all eventually responsible for.
Some argue that prohibiting drug use punishes responsible users for the harms caused by a minority. I'm sure it does. Just as most people who drive too fast or drive without seatbelts don't get into terrible accidents, many drug users are able to use without adversely affecting others. Nevertheless, every drug user need not cause harm to others in order to justify a general prohibition. As drug use generally is associated with significant public harm, and we can't accurately predict who will and who won't be able to use drugs responsibly (just as we can't tell who will be able to speed or eschew seat belts responsibly), we're justified in a general drug prohibition.
If I had to summarize my problem with libertarian political philosophy in general it's that it vastly underestimates the effect of individual behaviors on others, but that's an argument for another post. (also, I don't have time to read a response from UncleBill.
)
Although one doesn't need to invoke paternalistic ideas of "saving the drug user from himself" in order to justify drug prohibitions, perhaps we ought to. Brain science is showing us more and more that the decision to use drugs is strongly influenced by changes to the brain's anatomy and chemistry, which are themselves products of the drugs themselves. In short, drugs create a physiologic desire for more druges within the brain. As such, how can it be said that a decision to use is a free decision?
This is the point that libertarians often miss while discussing the question of being "free to use drugs". Neuroscience shows that drugs hijack the brain's motivational systems and rob the individual of freedom. After your brain is changed, one can only resist the drug with greatest of effort (and drug treatment statistics show most addicts relapse multiple times). To submit others to such a fate isn't what I consider respecting their freedom.
To give people unrestricted access to substances that could make them forsake everything but the drug seems to me to be an act of enslavement, not liberation. A lab animal will self-administer cocaine, forsaking food, sex, and warmth, even enduring painful electric shock until it dies from cardiac arrythmias. Likewise, people destroy their lives with drugs. Last week, I watched a respected 59 year-old mechanical and civil engineer die a terrifying death of repeated vomiting blood from esophageal varices caused by the rock-hard cirrhotic liver of a lifelong alcoholic.
With the image of that desperate man begging for us to save his life, I ask you these questions: Was his decision to continue drinking despite repeated warnings that he was destroying his health a free one? And even if it was a free decision, is it one that we as a society are bound to honor?
I think not. Even aside from all the public health harms I mentioned above, I think we do our fellow human beings a disservice by allowing them access to chemicals that subvert their natural motivations with destructive ones.
However, I agree with you that criminalization of drug use as it exists now isn't the correct way to prohibit use. In fact, I strongly suspect free access to mind-altering substances would make the drug epidemic worse instead of better. Human brains weren't evolved to deal with these kinds of incredibly addictive substances and I think it's time we started to regard them as the dangers they really are. We're fragile creatures and most of our freedoms are already largely fictions. We need to give up the fiction of "freely-chosen drug use".
Correct, but there are provisions that allow the government to sanction activities that affect others. John Stuart Mill expressed this idea with this simple analogy: "Your right to swing your arm ends abruptly at my nose". (paraphrase).
Of course it is, but I don't think anyone, especially John Locke believed in "liberty to follow my own will in all things". I'm sure this quote is taken out of context, because it's clearly inconsistent with Locke's idea of the social contract, which he believed binds each of us to respect the fundamental liberties of others. (After all, what good is a "right" if others aren't bound to respect it? The conception of all rights implies the responsibility to respect others' rights.)
The public health harms of drug use are clearly evident.
- Sixteen percent of Americans are or will be at sometime in their lives be addicted to drugs.
- Four of ten American families are directly affected by addiction.
- Illegal drug use (excluding alcohol) costs us $110 billion annually ($400 per man, woman, and child).
- Non-medical drugs (including tobacco) are involved in 25% of deaths in America.
- The World Health Organization considers addiction to be the #1 cause of preventable death worldwide.
This list doesn't even address the problems of crime due to drug use. In light of this, doesn't the government, as the legal respresentative of the taxpayers, have the authority to take steps to limit the availability of the substances responsible for such a huge public health problem? They've certainly had similar authority in numerous other cases. Seat-belt and air-bag laws aren't considered to be intrusions on personal liberties because they address a specific public health threat (automobile accidents) by mandating devices that save lives, prevent and reduce injury, and ultimately lower the healthcare costs that we're all eventually responsible for.
Some argue that prohibiting drug use punishes responsible users for the harms caused by a minority. I'm sure it does. Just as most people who drive too fast or drive without seatbelts don't get into terrible accidents, many drug users are able to use without adversely affecting others. Nevertheless, every drug user need not cause harm to others in order to justify a general prohibition. As drug use generally is associated with significant public harm, and we can't accurately predict who will and who won't be able to use drugs responsibly (just as we can't tell who will be able to speed or eschew seat belts responsibly), we're justified in a general drug prohibition.
If I had to summarize my problem with libertarian political philosophy in general it's that it vastly underestimates the effect of individual behaviors on others, but that's an argument for another post. (also, I don't have time to read a response from UncleBill.
)Although one doesn't need to invoke paternalistic ideas of "saving the drug user from himself" in order to justify drug prohibitions, perhaps we ought to. Brain science is showing us more and more that the decision to use drugs is strongly influenced by changes to the brain's anatomy and chemistry, which are themselves products of the drugs themselves. In short, drugs create a physiologic desire for more druges within the brain. As such, how can it be said that a decision to use is a free decision?
This is the point that libertarians often miss while discussing the question of being "free to use drugs". Neuroscience shows that drugs hijack the brain's motivational systems and rob the individual of freedom. After your brain is changed, one can only resist the drug with greatest of effort (and drug treatment statistics show most addicts relapse multiple times). To submit others to such a fate isn't what I consider respecting their freedom.
To give people unrestricted access to substances that could make them forsake everything but the drug seems to me to be an act of enslavement, not liberation. A lab animal will self-administer cocaine, forsaking food, sex, and warmth, even enduring painful electric shock until it dies from cardiac arrythmias. Likewise, people destroy their lives with drugs. Last week, I watched a respected 59 year-old mechanical and civil engineer die a terrifying death of repeated vomiting blood from esophageal varices caused by the rock-hard cirrhotic liver of a lifelong alcoholic.
With the image of that desperate man begging for us to save his life, I ask you these questions: Was his decision to continue drinking despite repeated warnings that he was destroying his health a free one? And even if it was a free decision, is it one that we as a society are bound to honor?
I think not. Even aside from all the public health harms I mentioned above, I think we do our fellow human beings a disservice by allowing them access to chemicals that subvert their natural motivations with destructive ones.
However, I agree with you that criminalization of drug use as it exists now isn't the correct way to prohibit use. In fact, I strongly suspect free access to mind-altering substances would make the drug epidemic worse instead of better. Human brains weren't evolved to deal with these kinds of incredibly addictive substances and I think it's time we started to regard them as the dangers they really are. We're fragile creatures and most of our freedoms are already largely fictions. We need to give up the fiction of "freely-chosen drug use".
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Dillinger
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Oliver - my post wasn't intended to start a discussion of drugs: good or bad, right or wrong - health, danger, etc... etc.... I used an example of the current drug policies/laws to highlight the erosion of privacy . Perhaps another thread would be the place to discuss such drug related issues. I'm more curious at the moment as to how you might respond to Lavy's original question.
SINthysist
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Lavy
You push the idea of Central Government. Does centralized government believe in privacy?
I still believe that we are a country of rugged individualists. As such, when we speak of Freedom of speech, Right to bear arms, Right to be secure in your home, Right to due process, are these not explicit definitions of privacy?
I, as a citizen and a follower of the constitution, reserve the right to speak, even act against my government and I reserve the right to exclude my thoughts, person, and lifestyle from the government's perview.
You push the idea of Central Government. Does centralized government believe in privacy?
I still believe that we are a country of rugged individualists. As such, when we speak of Freedom of speech, Right to bear arms, Right to be secure in your home, Right to due process, are these not explicit definitions of privacy?
I, as a citizen and a follower of the constitution, reserve the right to speak, even act against my government and I reserve the right to exclude my thoughts, person, and lifestyle from the government's perview.
patient1
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lavender said:
I believe that a right of privacy goes without saying, and that the founders thought the same thing.
U.S. Constitution
Amendmant III :No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner prescribed by law
Amendmant IV The right of the people to become secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches & seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath of affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I think that body searches & drug testing can be done by warrant or consent only, judging by this. It's about non-consensual government intrusion, not compensation. These are privacy safeguards written by people who treasured it as a right or a component of Liberty, if not both.
Oliver Clozoff
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Dillinger said:
I honestly don't nearly enough about legal privacy issues, but I do know that the Supreme Court has often invoked a Constitutional protection of privacy despite the fact that privacy is never explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the Constitution. The way the SC has managed to consider laws unconstitutional for violating a right to privacy is by positing the right as a "penumbra" or shadow cast by the other Constitutional rights.
The lawyers and legal afficianados of the board should correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the idea of privacy as a penumbral rights is first based on the idea that the Bill of Rights is not an exhaustive enumeration of the rights that we Americans are entitled to, but that the rights that are enumerated gesture at other more fundamental rights that aren't explicitly mentioned. In the case of privacy, the argument goes that Constitution's protections of property, life, due process, and all the rest spring from a common central idea that there is a more fundamental "right to be left alone" by government that's common to all these rights.
As a sort of progenitor of all the enumerated rights, then, "the right to privacy" can be invoked to banish all sorts of laws and regulations. The notions of the right to refuse medical care and the right to abortion are just a couple of the currently recognized rights that we have based on the idea of a right to privacy.
I don't know nearly enough to make an informed decision, but as an American who's grown up believing the Constitution was a fairly comprehensive document, all this talk of "penumbras" and "implied rights" seems to be just a bunch of fancy legal sleight of hand allowing judges to act as legislators. Still, I have to admit a "right to privacy" has given individuals legal protections that I intuitively think that they ought to have that simply couldn't be Constitutionally justified any other way.
In short, I'm not sure where I fall on the strict-constructionist/judicial-activist axis.
I'm still very plastic on this issue.
Weird Harold
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Re: Re: Privacy Rights
What better definition of privacy do you need than "The right of the people to become secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, ..."?
The word privacy might not be in the constitution, but the concept most certainly is.
patient1 said:
What better definition of privacy do you need than "The right of the people to become secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, ..."?
The word privacy might not be in the constitution, but the concept most certainly is.
One of the things addressed by the Founders in the Federalist Papers was regarding their decision to exclude income tax as a source of Federal revenue. This was because of the potential threat to and abuse of the citizens' right to privacy. They realized the potential for government abuse when the types of records necessary for taxing income were required and became open to government officials.
And Oliver, I think you missed the whole of the Locke quote. It addresses the idea essentially libertarian in that his liberty is follow his will in all things . . . where that rule [law] prescribes not . . ., i. e., in the matter of all things NOT criminal. This necessarily implies respecting the equal rights of his fellow man.
As to determining who can and cannot use a substance responsibly, the libertarian position is that it is the province of the individual to make the choice. It is not a legitimate concern of government how you as the individual live your life until and unless you become a criminal.
And their first decision to use that substance is a free one is it not? Even if subsequently they do alter biochemistry to make their addiction stronger, the first decision is freely made as is any choice to continue such use. When I say it is a free choice, I am saying it is a choice free of coercion, i. e., no one is forcing them to choose against their will. For example, if I seize a person and confine him and during the confinement inject him with heroine bringing on an addiction, that is not a free choice. Likewise, if I tell him to become addicted or I will harm him or someone dear to him, that is not a free choice; it is coerced. This is the distinction between a free choice and a non-free choice. That one becomes chemically dependent on a substance does not negate their free choice. What it does is alter their value system so they make a bad choice which may be self-destructive but it is still a free choice as opposed to a coercive one.
Respecting one's right to make a choice does not imply that the choice must be respected; only the freedom to make it. I do not respect people who choose to destroy their lives be it with alcohol, tobacco or other drugs.
And I can understand how it would bother someone to watch this man die as he chose to. But in my view, he's a hypocrite for asking you (or any physician) to save him when he has chosen to be his own instrument of destruction.
And Oliver, I think you missed the whole of the Locke quote. It addresses the idea essentially libertarian in that his liberty is follow his will in all things . . . where that rule [law] prescribes not . . ., i. e., in the matter of all things NOT criminal. This necessarily implies respecting the equal rights of his fellow man.
While these statistics may well be factual, for items 3 & 4, they are the result of illegitimate government implementations of collectivized health care systems which are not permitted under the Constitution; a government induced problem caused by legislators who do not respect the limits placed on their power by the Constitution.
But the two instances you cite to justify the drug legislation are also intrusion where government has no legitimate domain. By not wearing a seat belt or using an airbag, it is my life I put at risk, not the life of another. Driving under the influence of a mind altering substance, e. g., alcohol, does put the lives of others in danger because it hampers my capacity to properly control the vehicle I operate whereas not wearing a seat belt does not.
As to determining who can and cannot use a substance responsibly, the libertarian position is that it is the province of the individual to make the choice. It is not a legitimate concern of government how you as the individual live your life until and unless you become a criminal.
The libertarian does not dismiss this idea nor, I think, do they mitigate or underestimate it. The position is merely that it is NOT a legitimate province of government to dictate the free choice of individual citizens.Originally posted by Oliver Clozoff
If I had to summarize my problem with libertarian political philosophy in general it's that it vastly underestimates the effect of individual behaviors on others, but that's an argument for another post. (also, I don't have time to read a response from UncleBill.
To say the drug robs one of their freedom implies the altruistic obligation to make life decisions for others. That is illegitimate for the Objectivist or libertarian. While I will offer to dissuade someone I value from using drugs, I cannot prevent it other than by convincing them. To initiate the use of force to stop them violates their rights and makes me the criminal. I am bound to respect their right to make a stupid choice despite the probability that I know they are harming themselves.
And their first decision to use that substance is a free one is it not? Even if subsequently they do alter biochemistry to make their addiction stronger, the first decision is freely made as is any choice to continue such use. When I say it is a free choice, I am saying it is a choice free of coercion, i. e., no one is forcing them to choose against their will. For example, if I seize a person and confine him and during the confinement inject him with heroine bringing on an addiction, that is not a free choice. Likewise, if I tell him to become addicted or I will harm him or someone dear to him, that is not a free choice; it is coerced. This is the distinction between a free choice and a non-free choice. That one becomes chemically dependent on a substance does not negate their free choice. What it does is alter their value system so they make a bad choice which may be self-destructive but it is still a free choice as opposed to a coercive one.
Once you usurp the individual's right to make his own choices, where is the dividing line where it is not legitimate? Can you then conscript people into religion because to not do so dooms their soul? And then one must decide the correct religion, mustn't one? And what other aspects of freedom must then be usurped in the name of protecting people from themselves? Choosing their diets? Dictating their portion size at meals? Their menu choices? My point being either you respect another's freedom to choose or you don't. And once you don't then whose choices are to prevail? Who is(are) the superior one(s) to make the decisions for those lesser of us?
Respecting one's right to make a choice does not imply that the choice must be respected; only the freedom to make it. I do not respect people who choose to destroy their lives be it with alcohol, tobacco or other drugs.
And I can understand how it would bother someone to watch this man die as he chose to. But in my view, he's a hypocrite for asking you (or any physician) to save him when he has chosen to be his own instrument of destruction.
And I think it's condescending to presume the superiority to force one's choices and decisions on another.
Oliver Clozoff
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I don't have the time or the energy to rebut you, Bill (and from what I've read from you, I seriously doubt you'd budge an inch if even if I did - your arguments for libertarianism take on an evangelical fervor), so I'll just say that I profoundly disagree with you on a number of points (and how you seem to arrive at them) and leave it at that.
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