At 02:27 PM 7/25/96 -0400, hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote:

The moral point is not that there is risk of being caught, it is that society has made laws and unless there are exceptional circumstances it is a duty to obey those laws.

I haven't seen society making laws recently; I've seen societies tolerating governments and governments making laws, generally to benefit one special interest or another, and I include bureaucratic growth and self-preservation as special interests. I don't see how duty attaches to any of that. Duty attaches to keeping committments you've made to other people and living up to your moral values, and in spite of government telling me I've got a duty to it, I don't. Meanwhile, society is a bunch of individuals and the interactions they have with each other. If you want society to work well, there are lots of things you can and should do to help - but duties are to individuals. Letting other people live their lives in peace may count as a duty - and if it does, then governments have the duty not to make laws unless there are exceptional circumstances. The facts that people can lose money gambling or get stoned by taking drugs or make money by helping other people do these things are certainly not exceptional...

I don't argue against breaking laws which are immoral, indeed I am still refusing to pay a Poll tax bill from the UK despite the fact that the amount outstanding is inconsequential.

Why? Aside from the fact that Maggie and the Parliament were quite obnoxious in enacting and implementing it, what's wrong? If you're think that some people's Fair Share of the cost of supporting society is higher than others', and object because this tax treats everyone equally, the Politically Correct way to protest it would seem to be to pay _more_ tax because you're a well-paid technical person, not to pay _less_ tax because factory workers can't afford to pay as much as you....

You sound like an 18th century fop challenging someone to a duel. Hey, an armed society is a polite society, and since you're being rude calling him a fop, he obviously ought to blow you away :-) (Just because I believe in the right to own weapons doesn't mean I have to _like_ the things or the arguments gun nuts make .....)

Would you believe that Continental is so lame that they do not offer either the Sci-Fi channel nor the comedy channel in the home town of MIT and Harvard? If I had realised that NBC Olympic coverage would be as bad as it is I might have got a satelite dish to pick up the feed from Astra.

But Phil - Cable TV Regulation is the Law! It's the government helping protect you from dig-eat-dog competition! It's your _duty_ to watch government-enforced-monopoly TV and _like_ it! # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # Dispel Authority!