From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 01:01:26 GMT

In article <cFf=sS_@engin.umich.edu> marky@engin.umich.edu (Mark Anthony Young) writes:
>golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>>You offer no explicit means of checks and balances so
>>dissidents have a mechanism to appeal government edicts.
>>
>Individuals always have recourse to lawlessness.  If the gov't offends
>them mightily, they can start killing people in the gov't.  Of course
>a better system would build in explicit means of checks and balances
>so that citizens would not have to resort to violence.
>

Building in an explicit means of checks and balances for dissidents
is the beginning or foundation of the notion of individual rights
from a pragmatic point-of-view.

>All I am saying is that the particular form of those checks and
>balances may differ from society to society, and that that is OK.  It
>does not mean that all but one of those societies is wrong.  You and
>Charles are arguing for a much narrower band of variation.
>

The acceptance of the necessity of a process, any process, of checks
and balances, is the beginning of the acceptance of a notion of
individual rights.

The recognition of individual rights in its most crucial form is
the recognition of the legitimacy of political dissent in a society...
through a legitimate process that does not require civil disobedience
or illegality on the part of the dissident.

It is good to see that you see the need for checks and balances for
political dissent...the necessity of individual rights.

>>>No need to invent spurious rights.
>>
>>I would argue that the notion of individual rights is an extremely
>>utile, since it is the basis for a mechanism of checks and balances
>>on the government.
>>
>I agree.  But I recognize that there may be other ways to achieve those
>balances, and so requiring a government to use _that_ basis in order
>to be legitimate is a spurious restriction, IMHO.
>

Either a society allows the free expression of political dissent, the
most important individual right (in my opinion), or it doesn't...the
measure of acceptance of the freedom to express political dissent is
ultimately the most crucial measure of the acceptance of individual
rights in that society, no matter what language you want to use
to describe it.

>>If you won't even concede or agree that mistreatment of dissidents
>>is not particularly a good or healthy basis for a sustainable 
>>society and government, what exactly is your position on, say for
>>example, genocide...the ultimate mistreatment of dissidents?
>>
>*Sigh*  I guess I should just go back to watching debates.  I'm
>clearly inadequate to the task of explaining even the simplest
>notions, as this massive misreading of my statements shows.
>

You initially argued that there was no need for individual rights,
that the state can do pretty much whatever it wells pleases, but 
earlier in this post you seem to accept the position that it is of
course better for a society to build in a system of checks and
balances for the expression of dissent...the acceptance or recogition
that checks and balances are necessary to protect dissidents is
at least the beginning of the acceptance of the notion that 
individual rights exist, and that states cannot do as they please
and that mistreatment of dissidents is a very bad thing in a society,
and the worst possible mistreatment of dissidents is genocide.

The state is not entitled to doe whatever it well pleases.

Gerald
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