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 ignore the different chaqracteristics of the organisation over the group. In most cases we would ascribe fewer individual liberties to groups than to individuals. The individual may have freedom of speech but the government official does not. It is generally undesirable for military personel to enter into party politics, thus it is generally undesirable for such people to take part in party political broadcasts. On the other hand there are casses in which we would wish to give the government 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 the 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 order to protect the liberty of the population in general and those which the individual needs to protect themselves from government and other interference. If we take Perry's argument seriously we effectively deny the legitimacy of any government. This is not good for Perry's argument for it is clearly legitamate to read the mail of a party which is illegitamte [an evil oppressor of the people, restraint on the exploitation of ecconomic power, restraint on free capitalism, tool of the borgeoise classes, people of all lands untie! you have nothing to lose but your chains...] Phill