At 07:20 PM 9/27/00 -0500, Jim Choate wrote:

There is a deeper point that needs to be made you're glossing right over.

It has to do with that term 'free' or 'freedom' you keep throwing around. Your application does not do justice to the meaning of the term.

The reality is that 'freedom' means (even in crypto-anarchy circles) the right (note that word Timmy) to engage in whatever behaviour one chooses so long as it is consensual and doesn't abridge anothers right to expression.

Trying to 'shun' somebody for their non-invasive behaviour (e.g. two dykes kissing in a ball park) is the peak of anti-freedom. If a person really respects freedom it is more than 'freedom for me but not for thee'.

Jim, you've always come out strongly in favor of regulating businesses that do things in ways you don't like, and using government to do it rather than market forces. That's 'freedom for me but not for thee', whether the behavior in question is kissing people or selling them stuff. The basic choices you have for regulating people's behavior in society are talking to them, not talking to them, or beating them up. In most "civilized" societies, beating people up is frowned on except when the government does it, and governments provide lots of mechanisms for chicken out before they have to resort to violence (doing what the business regulators tell you to do, or paying the fine, or going to jail peacefully instead of shooting your way out, but all of these are things you do because the government will otherwise shoot you, and periodically they hold a Waco to remind you that they will.) In a more civilized society, whether it's an anarchy or just a society where people ignore the police whenever possible, that leaves you with ignoring people who do things you dislike, or refusing to do business with them, or organizing boycotts, or picketing or other forms of expressing your dislike for how a person runs his business activities or non-business activities.

The kissing of the girls was nobodies business, in or out of the park in a FREE society.

I think most of us agree that the ballpark acted like major-league assholes, but that's a separate discussion. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639