This is why a free society is evil.

[Bill Stewart]

At 06:13 PM 12/15/00 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>
>On Fri, 15 Dec 2000, Tim May wrote:
>
>> -- If an employee doesn't like the calendar that another employee has 
>> on his desk, she can talk to others in the company. Maybe they'll 
>> have it removed. But she CANNOT use the courts to intervene in a 
>> matter of how the company's owners deal with their property.
>
>Her civil liberties aren't the employers property. Further, the PRIVILIGE
>of running a business does not have greater importance than freedom of
>speech and such.
>
>Simply having a desire to run a company does not justify using other
>people as property nor dictating behaviours that don't DIRECTLY effect the
>process of making profit. Democratic theory demands that unless the
>calendar can be demonstrably infringing a civil liberty it shouldn't be an
>issue. Freedom until you infringe anothers.

Tim said that in a free society she wouldn't be able to sue.
Jim said that Tim is entirely wrong, that in a free society
she wouldn't be able to sue.   It's true that they give different
reasons, but I can't see that there's a fundamental conflict here.

Also, Jim says that "Democratic theory demands that..."
Theories don't demand things, people do, but most people who
like democracy demand that whatever the majority wants, it gets.
(And some say, it ought to get it good and hard.)

Some theories about democracy say that this will always be good,
because most people are mostly good; some say that this will be
inherently right because it's what Da People want; some say that
it may not be all that good but you can do a lot worse with most
of the available alternatives, and that if you don't settle for that
the worse alternatives will take over.


Tim, on the other hand, believes that in a free society
that if you want to run a business you can (or at least you can try).
Jim repeatedly asserts that running a business is a privilege
that somebody, I guess Da Majority, graciously grants you,
and can take away if they want, and that it's somehow not 
part of freedom.
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart at pobox.com
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