From: "D. Glenn Arthur Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I *think* I'm still with you, since I said that such intangibles as the arist's happiness or the audience's happiness counted as "benefits" justifying expense.
I assume you're talking about the "artist's happiness" as justifying the artist's expense to himself, and the audience's happiness as justifying the each's own expense. I can't abide by rap "music" and speak evil of it on occasion, but then who am I to restrict what someone else may enjoy? It's not my job to either justify or oppose anyone else's expense.
Okay, so you're a libertarian. I'm almost-but-not-quite a libertarian. We're going to agree in several places and come close to agreement in many more. I wish I could be a libertarian, as an absolutist libertarian stance -- even the Libertarian party platform -- is so _logically_clean_, so mathematically pure, so fundamentally simple. Alas, I don't see the world as being quite that convenient. I see it as needing a bit of tinkering here and there.
No, I'm not a libertarian. Those folks are too isolationist for me. Further, sometimes I don't think they understand that some (a few) of the apparent restrictions we place on ourselves actually increase our freedom! Others extend the liberty and freedom of our progeny. Anything we consider to restrict liberty should be dealt with a soberly and carefully. Liberty is too precious a thing to be addressed using slogans and glib remarks. History is a harsh schoolmaster teaching that once a liberty is gone, it is almost never reacquired save eventually through revolution or political collapse.
Regards, Bob...
