> At 10:34 AM 5 April 2002 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >Even picking battles with big business can be problematical. When the US > >'freedom' concept gets to implementation, 'freedom' and regulation are > >portrayed as opposites. > > That could be because they ARE opposites.
They are linguistically opposed terms but philosophically they are not usually considered as such. In any society of more than one person, we sometimes obtain the freedom of personA by regulating the activity of personB. The word 'freedom' itself is rather too abstract to be anything other than a rallying call because it means whatever the speaker and listener choose it to mean. The interesting debates are usually about 'my freedom to do x' or 'my freedom from having y done to me'. People will often claim that particular regulations provide them with freedom to do something. If freedom really was the opposite of regulation, then we would gain maximum freedom by abolishing all laws and releasing all detained people. -- Terry Simpson Human Factors Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.connected-systems.com Phone: +44 7850 511794
