There have been some statements here that "Tim is interfering in the choices of others." In particular, Perry has been saying I am a hypocrite, that I wish to interfere with the choices of others, and so and so forth. Let's make something clear: -- I have no "contract" to supply drugs to anyone, nor does the friend I have been discussing, who makes a choice _not_ to dose the friends of his son who are in his house. -- This "contractarian" analysis should be important to any libertarian or believer in civil rights. -- If someone makes a contract, formal or informal (with some caveats), to supply a dose of drugs, alcohol, whatever, at some specified time, then this is fine. But if no contract exists, not supplying the drugs is not interference in choice. (Is, for a example, a Mormon interfering in the rights of a friend by refusing to supply a drink to a visiting friend? Am I interfering in the choice of others by refusing to allow cigarette smoking in my home? Examples like this are easy to find.) -- If someone claims there is an _implied_ contract in this case, this falls apart after the first "refusal" to supply the dose. That is, Vickie, the mother, is well aware that my friend is returning the Ritalins to her unused, in the kid's backpack. That she continues to send the kid over, absent the drug dose she would have preferred her son to be given, means she has effectively made a choice that maybe the Ritalin dose is not so important after all (or at least that my friend is able to "control" and "handle" the kid without the drug...maybe this is giving her some second thoughts about dosing the kid into compliance even on the weekends?). [A cynic might suggest she is letting the alleged violations of her son's rights "pile up" so she can bring a lawsuit and get some of his money! :-}] So, I reject the straw man arguments that I am interfering with the "rights" of others. My house, my rules. My friend's house, his rules. And one of his rules is that he refuses to become a pill dispenser for mind-altering drugs. Vickie can accept these rules, or not. Her choice. (And part of this, as perhaps I did not make clear enough, is that he doesn't like the idea of his _own_ son seeing his Dad dispensing mind-control drugs to make a kid more compliant and passive. He is obviously well within his rights to refuse to be a drug supplier. His house, his rules. Would this apply if the visiting kid needed an injection of insulin? Maybe, maybe not. It would depend. Speaking for myself, I would refuse to supply injections of insulin to a child--I'd tell the mother or father to not expect me to administer medical treatments beyond simple things like aspirins or band-aids on cuts and scrapes. My house, my rules.) It's always useful in discussing "rights," as Perry is doing, in terms of contracts and agreements. To paraphrase Lysander Spooner, I can't find my name or the name of my friend on any contract about supplying drugs to visiting children. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."