From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Political Parties in the U.S. (was Re: Is this a socialist
Date: 31 Aug 92 18:44:06 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

MEDELMA@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Michael Edelman) writes:
>gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>>                     ...   _Liberal_ has always meant several
>>different things.  Modern liberalism was constructed to
>>manage several problems which the bourgeoisie or managing
>>class thought had to be solved or at least mitigated to
>>preserve the capitalist system and their position in it. ...

>Talk about the absence of historical perspective! "Liberal" originally
>referred to the phlisophy of Locke et al, and had to do with the rights
>of the individual as opposed to those of the state.

I assume you mean the rights of the ordinary person as opposed to
those of the Church or the Crown, if we're talking about Locke
(these aren't really the same as the state, in the sense we mean
today); but never mind.

>Now, property rights were, and are, considered to be primary in this
>philosophy, uninformed speculation to the contrary. You can't have a
>right to privacy without having private property.

This is just silly.  Whenever I go into a bathroom, in Western
society, I have a right to privacy for a limited amount of time.
But it is not true that the bathroom is my private property, unless
you are willing to accept transfers of ownership that occur very
frequently, depending on who is where.  You might as well say
that if I loan my toothbrush to someone, they *own* it for the
duration of their use; or I own the space I take up in the metro
going to work.

>Similarly the right of free press, in the words of A.J. Leibling, "belongs
>to those who own one". Socialists have a hard time with this one. How
>can you justify a free press when the state owns the press? How can the
>state justify devoting resources to something like an opposition press that
>threatens the stability of the state?

Well, since it has happened (the BBC has broadcast programs that
were critical of various government policies), and the populace
has applauded (so politicians couldn't object very hard), where's
the problem?  The state is not monolithic, and it's over-simplistic
to treat it as such.  [I note parenthetically that just because
the state pays someone a salary doesn't mean that the state owns
that person; so why should the state paying for equipment mean
that the state owns that equipment?]

>Freedom of religion- can you have a
>free expression of religion when the state owns your meeting rooms, pays
>your pastor and controls the press that prints your doctrines and books of
>worship?  And so forth.

If the state does not and has no mechanism for exercising direct
control over a religion, even when it pays for the people and
materials involved in its practice, then its level of ownership
depends on the extent to which indirect control can be avoided.
This can most easily be done by having a vigilant populace.
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 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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  Still shone the candlelight on the empty screen, after the power went.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc