CDR: Why Free Speech Matters

[Bill Stewart]

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 at pobox.com
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