From: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: interesting [and scary] blurb...
Date: 26 Dec 1992 02:46:45 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Reply-To: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, jkreznar@ininx.UUCP (John E. Kreznar) says:

>In article <1haqgpINNggm@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray) writes:
>
>> I'm sure this gives the holders of these donor cards a nice warm feeling, but
>> think of the actual consequences.  Do you actually hurt the people you want to
>> hurt...i.e. the legislators who passed the law you object to?  No.  You hurt
>> some individual, whom you will never know, who will die because your organs
>> were unavailable, since you got killed in a biking accident in a state with
>> laws that offend your ethical sensibilities.  Doesn't make sense to me.
>
>One does not hurt another by simply refusing to help the other.  One
>_does_ hurt another by acting to interfere with the other's freedom,
>as when one advocates a helmet statute.
>
>To hurt means to cause pain.  Advocacy can be causative.  Forbearance
>cannot.
>
I'm afraid that this is a bit of a sophistry.  It is true taken broadly...
for example, you may refuse to sign a donor card, and you have not done anything
wrong or harmful.  But in this instance, it is quite evident that the action
of witholding permission for organ donation in some states is being done to
put pressure on those states to change their laws...i.e., the person taking
the action intends his action to cause harm, and he expects it to cause
harm.  It seems to me that this is a petty, childish response, and it *does*
hurt someone...but the person it hurts may or may not be a resident of the
state where the donor died, he or she may or may not have supported the 
helmet law, he or she may or may not even be old enough to vote.  Since it
federal law protects the identity of both donor and recipient, you will
never know.

foCus on the legislator draws attention away from the true villains
>here.  The legislator would be impotent if it weren't for the legions
>of statists who empower him at the polls.
>
To the contrary--the legislator is the proper focus of your attention.  He
is the one who voted for this law, and he is the one you can lobby to change
his vote.  You also need to conduct a public education campaign to persuade
his constituents that it is the Right Thing to Do.  The legislator is the
key, however.  If, instead, you persist with steps like the one described,
you will be perceived as attempting to blackmail the various state gov'ts,
and I believe the most likely outcome will be that the state gov'ts (or the
feds, if necessary) will legislate these conditional donor cards out of
existence...if they in fact have any legal force under current law, which is
dubious at best.

> |  Voting in government elections, or petitioning government, or willfully  |
> |  accepting government ``benefits'' when it's feasibly avoidable (thereby  |
> |  generating demand for taxation), accelerate the supplanting of personal  |
> |  choice by collective dictate,  making these most serious crimes against  |
> |  humanity.  ---John E. Kreznar, jkreznar@ininx.com, uunet!ininx!jkreznar  |
>-- 
>        Relations among people to be by mutual consent, or not at all.
>         ---John E. Kreznar, jkreznar@ininx.com, uunet!ininx!jkreznar
>

-- 
******************************************************************************
The opinions expressed by the author are insightful, intelligent and very
carefully thought out.  It is therefore unlikely that they are shared by the
University of Iowa or Case Western Reserve University.
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.guns