On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:00:47 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Travis Pahl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in small part: > > >Incrementanlism is okay when you are incrementally going towards your > >goal. Allowing police officers to be armed [off duty] while [other] > citizens still are > >not is not a step in the right direction. > > Why is it not? Before the step, X people are allowed to carry guns. After > the step, X + N people are allowed to carry guns, where N > 0. How is that > not a step in the right direction?
Okay, how about instead of police officers we said, only asians could use guns. Would that be an improvement? N > 0 afterall! No. And at least that would be better than police officers. At least as a group asians are not in a position of power that is likely to be abused. > > I useful exercise is to > >replace the 2nd amendment with the 1st. If there were restrcition on > >what you could publish would a good step be allowing certain approved > >government officials to publish whatever they want? > > Yes, of course. What would the benefit be of not allowing, say, a letter > carrier to have a Web log? You're saying it's better that NOBODY be > allowed to do something than that SOMEBODY be allowed to do it? I am only suggesting equal protection under the law. I think there was an amendment created about that. Is it that crazy to not want government to be granted certain rights while they are denied to private citizens? > Travis reminds me of the supposed libertarians who are against allowing > gov't to operate gambling (such as lotteries) in states where otherwise > nobody would be allowed to operate those forms of gambling. They seem to > think it's better that people who want to gamble have no legal opportunity > to do so than that they have one legal way to do so. The trouble is, > they're focusing on (see the subject line) size of gov't rather than amount > of freedom. Government protected monopolies have proven to be bad for freedom. Travis _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
