As previously noted, we've drifted off charter, so I will answer in private mail. .pm hallam@w3.org writes:
Perry writes,
I am a funny sort of person. I don't believe that governments should be able to do anything that individuals cannot. If it is bad for me to steal, it is also bad for a government official to steal. If it is bad for me to listen in on my neighbor's phone calls, it is bad for the government, too.
This statement commits the logical falacy of type incompatibility. Sets of objects are not the same as objects. Organisations of people have different characteristics to people. To accord the same rights to idividuals is to igno re the different chaqracteristics of the organisation over the group. In most ca ses we would ascribe fewer individual liberties to groups than to individuals. Th e individual may have freedom of speech but the government official does not. I t is generally undesirable for military personel to enter into party politics, thus it is generally undesirable for such people to take part in party politi cal broadcasts.
On the other hand there are casses in which we would wish to give the governm ent more power than the individual. We give the government the right to raise taxation for example.
Thus Perry is not only a funny sort of person, he is also entirely negating t he argument that Mill puts forward in "on Liberty", namely that the interests of
the government and people are not as opposed as might appear, that it is possible to divide liberties into those which the state must excercise in ord er to protect the liberty of the population in general and those which the individual needs to protect themselves from government and other interference