Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: The need for the 2nd amendment
Author: Nick Sweeney Posted: 5/7/1999; 11:20:25 AM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 5/4/99 Msg #: 5798 (In response to 5789) Prev/Next: 5797 / 5799
Pure democracy is an unstable and dangerous form of government, with a horrifying moral assumption at its center--a majority is always right. The United States, like most free countries, is a constitutional republic with elected representatives and a carefully-designed balance of power.We're trying to preserve those "unalienable rights". Certain government actions are wrong, even if a majority votes for them.
Modern political society, at least since the 1700s, has been contractual: there's a trade-off between the rights that you imbue to the state, and those you retain as an individual. My personal view is that I'm happy to make that trade-off for those things at which the state has proved a successful magistrate and arbiter, such as the National Health Service in Britain. I'm not prepared to make that trade-off in terms of freedom of communication, even if there's no constitutional right to that freedom in the UK. My trust extends so far, but no further.
Dave got clued on Wednesday. It's about encryption. That's why a group of my friends set up http://www.stand.org.uk at the start of the year, and lobbied for the ridiculous proposals for e-commerce to be scrapped. They're probably going to win the argument.
This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:49:53 PM.
© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.