On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, James A.. Donald wrote:
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On Tue, 26 Sep 2000, Tim May wrote:
Lynching is an act of physical aggression, not at all the same thing
as choosing not to trade with someone, not to invite him into one's home, not to interact with him.
At 06:32 AM 9/27/2000 -0400, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:
In my mind, that is a rather fine line.
You have difficulty telling the difference between being cold to someone and hitting over the head with a baseball bat?
Do they allow you metal knives and forks in the institution where you reside, or are you only allowed plastic spoons?
If they permitted you anything not made of soft rubber, you would soon figure out the difference.
Touche! Very good. Its amazing. Sampo seems like a normal, well spoken person. Hypothetical situation, Sampo. Guy likes a girl. Wants to have sex with her. She doesn't like him and does not want to associate with him because he's a boor, unintelligent, ugly whatever. She shuns him (as does every other woman in the village). Guy is unhappy. Doesn't like being shunned. Maybe he has strange notions of male-female relations. Judge Sampo comes in and orders forced sex with any woman the guy chooses because, after all, he deserves to be loved and being shunned is just like being hit over the head with a ball-peen hammer. Forced relations are fine with Judge Sampo, unfortunately everyone else views it as rape and kicks the Judge and the bad guy out of town (normally they would have executed him, but they abhor violence ;-) Freedom of association obviously implies the freedom to choose with whom you associate as does the freedom of speech imply choosing the words you speak. You cannot delegate to the state the power to force someone to associate with someone else because you never had the right to begin with. If you do get the state to do it for you, it will be enforced with guns, theft and prison terms. You find that less abhorrent than people not associating with people you think they should be associating with? Time to get back to modus ponens and tollens for you, Sampo. (Or like one of my philosophy teachers once said, "Send him back to his parents. I can do nothing with him.") jim -- Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural