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To: Aquinasfan
what about laws regarding murder? Adultery? Theft? Zoning? Embezzling? Pornography? Public health? Should the gov't take a hands-off policy regarding these things?

Murder, adultery, theft, and embezzling violate the rights of others; drug use and pornography do not, and so are not the legitimate concern of government. (Zoning and public health laws are gray areas in that they can protect individual rights but those powers can also be abused.)

94 posted on 05/06/2005 6:25:00 AM PDT by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Know your rights
Murder, adultery, theft, and embezzling violate the rights of others; drug use and pornography do not,

The State is obligated to promote the common good, which includes the defense of individual rights. If the State is obligated to defend individual rights, rights must necessarily and logically come from a higher authority than the State. Not only that, but rights advocates claim that rights are true regardless of time or place; they are eternal. Eternal rights can only come from an eternal source: God.

Therefore, no one enjoys a God-given right to do evil (since God is goodness itself), whether or not another party agrees to it, i.e., drug use, prostitution and pornography.

(BTW, there is no such thing as a private vice)

Whether particular vices should be criminalized and/or punished is a different matter, and it's a decision which should be ordered toward the common good.

95 posted on 05/06/2005 7:33:17 AM PDT by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Know your rights; Aquinasfan

...What K.y.r. said.


96 posted on 05/06/2005 7:37:35 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog (This horse has been milked to death.)
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