From: marvin@skinner.dsg.ti.com (Marvin Heffler)
Subject: Re: HR 4983
Reply-To: marvin@skinner.dsg.ti.com (Marvin Heffler)
Organization: Texas Instruments, Austin, TX
Distribution: tx
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 14:31:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.164926.19419@tamsun.tamu.edu>,
dlb5404@tamsun.tamu.edu (Daryl Biberdorf) writes:
|>In article <1992Aug14.142626.2321@novell.com> bboerner@novell.com
(Brendan B. Boerner) writes:
|>>OK, I assume that this perversion is the "right to privacy" which
|>>pro-lifers find so odious.  I finally had to jump in and ask ya'll
|>>- do you really want to live in a country where you DON'T have a right
|>>to privacy?  
|>
|>The right to privacy to do *what*? 

The right to do whatever the hell people want to do without harming someone
else. The right to read whatever people want to read. The right to write 
whatever people want to write. The right to have sexual relations with
whoever people want, regardless of sexual orientation. The right to listen
to whatever kind of music people want to listen to. It other words, it is
none of the government's business what people do behind closed doors.

|>This is what's so odious about
|>Griswold v. Connecticut; it doesn't say exactly WHAT types of privacy
|>are protected.  To paraphrase Robert Bork (_The_Tempting_of_America_ --
|>an excellent work), men beat their wives and children in PRIVATE, people
|>murder people in PRIVATE, people conspire in PRIVATE.
|>

Men make love to their wives in PRIVATE. Parents read to their children in
PRIVATE. Friends care for sick and dying AIDS patients in PRIVATE. The
American Revolution was planned in PRIVATE.

|>>Does this bother you?  Do you find privacy a desirable thing to
|>>have?  If so, how do you maintain it from someone who wants to
|>>breach it?
|>
|>I find privacy a fairly desirable thing to have FOR SOME THINGS.
|>See above for a partial list of exceptions.
|>

The problem with putting restrictions on what is allowed in private is
that individual liberties start to erode. It is the same as the argument
against restrictions on free speech. First you start limiting hateful speech,
which may not be all that bad. However, once this is accepted it does not
take much for this to streth to a prohibition of unpopular speech. In a
democracy, the ability to speak against the government is a fundamental right.
It is also a fundamental right that people should be free to do as they wish
in private, as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. Just
look at the circumstances of the American Revolution and you can tell how
important privacy and free speech are.

|>Daryl
|>-- 
|>Daryl Biberdorf  N5GJM    dlb5404@rigel.tamu.edu  or  dlb5404@tamsun.tamu.edu
|>        "You're not messy.  You're organizationally impaired."
|>                _Real_Life_Adventures_, July 3, 1992 
                        

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Marvin Heffler               Texas Instruments - Information Technology Group
(512) 250-6829               12501 Research Blvd. MS 2078   Austin, TX  78759
                             Internet: marvin@skinner.dsg.ti.com
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