From: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: uk.misc
Subject: Liberties (was Re: Transport subsidies - Was: Car Parking)
Date: 16 Dec 92 12:34:33 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <29333@castle.ed.ac.uk>, fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes) writes:

[I've snipped some of the rather paranoid stuff about encroachments of liberty]

> I'd just ask that you start caring about people's rights and freedoms,
> whether they're poor or rich, because once those freedoms have gone, they
> can lose a lot more than health care entitlement. People can, and do
> lose their lives. 
> 
Look. None of us want people to lose their rights and freedoms. Indeed many of
us urgently want this country to be much freer and have more regard for basic
rights. But no-one (I think) apart from you believes that National Health Care
is the first step along the road to a police state. One of the basic human
rights is a right to good health. We in Britain have had a world-class model
of a national health service, free at point of delivery to all. It has worked
extremely well, until the last few years when it has been seriously undermined
in the name of incresing choice and freedom: your favourite principles. In this
case many of us believe, with a good deal of justification, that the best way
to ensure that the right to good health is upheld is for the government to
ensure it. Many of us also believe that the best way to ensure that some of the
rights and freedoms we don't have, but ought to have, like right of free
assembly, right to strike, freedom of speech, right to knowledge about the
workings of government, are given us is to enshrine them in law. That is, the
best way to ensure that we are free is to force people by law to give us those
freedoms. That was the principle behind the US constitution, after all, and for
its many faults the US is in general a free country.
  
> Do you really believe there is something so important that people should
> be compelled to subscribe to even if they disagree? 
Yes. A national health service for one. A national education system for
another. A decent public transport system for a third.

> Think of what you
> regard as the worst government on the Earth. Would you be willing to
> give them the same powers over you and your family? Would you still do
> it if They could choose which principles were that important enough to
> override individual freedom?

We are not talking about the worst government on earth. There are governments
and governments. THe UK government is comparatively free and reasonable.
Because parliament, which appoints the government, is democratically elected
and accountable, and has a majority of honest members who are interested
genuinely in the welfare of their constituents we are comparatively safe from
the excesses of a Pol Pot or a Stalin.

> You don't trust people. You might have a point. 
> 
> I don't trust government. The 20th century makes it damn obvious that I
> have a point.
> 
No. It makes it obvious that you are paranoid and deluding yourself. In Britain
we have never had an entirely despotic government. In the USA there has never
been an entirely despotic government. The only despotic governments in Western
Europe were unsuccesful and did not last long: they were quickly replaced by
democracies which have more than made up for their predecessors' mistakes. Even
the longest-lasting despotic government, in the USSR, has now fallen and could
be very quickly replaced by fair effective government if the US were not so
hung up on the free market.

> "Those who would trade their liberty for security, deserve neither." 

And those who see reductions of liberty in social security are deluding
themselves.
-- 

Stephen Wilcox             |   For Sale: Posts in British Government. Suit
wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk    |   outgoing American. Highest bids accepted.
Newsgroups: uk.misc