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To: HumanaeVitae
Not familiar with The Watchmen. :) Back to the topic at hand, I am of the opinion that some rights are inalienable, particularly the right to life, and cannot be abdicated or abrogated. This is not to say that a man does not have the right to lay down his life for another, or does not have the right to serve another man faithfully. What I am saying is that there are a few rights that you may not give away, and the right to life is one of them. No one being of sound mind would voluntarily be raised for slaughter, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy not withstanding. So your hypothetical and thoroughly absurd restaurant example is not a lawful thing, in my opinon.

I am opposed to blood sports that are to the death, but in principle am not opposed to boxing as a sport, or other sports that are dangerous and potentially deadly. I am not as opposed to cock or dog fights, because chickens and dogs mere are animals not men. But we are not talking about animals, we are speaking of people. People who willingly engate in riskly behavior may be seeking thrills, but people who seek death are not well in the head. Slavery has been abolished at great cost, and I do not believe that it should be made lawful even at the agreement of the parties involved. Again, someone who gives his free will away in perpituity is not well in the head. This is not to say that I am against maids and the like, or even that I am against indentured servitude. Were it not for indentured servitude I would not be alive here today, because my ancestors came across the atlantic as indentured servants. The crucial difference between indentured servitude and slavery is that there can be no fulfillment of slavery. Working off one's passage to the new world was not slavery.

A man may not give these few gifts away, and I believe that we the people through the government have a certian interest that others do not give themselves away as slaves or cattle. However, that still great concern of government to prevent these things has no bearing whatsoever on the love life of my wife and I in the privacy of our own homes. We have the right to be secure in our places and persons.

367 posted on 03/19/2003 12:37:02 PM PST by Liberal Classic (Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est.)
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To: Liberal Classic
I'm going to reply to others on this thread, but right now I'm going to watch the war coverage.
452 posted on 03/20/2003 7:48:39 AM PST by HumanaeVitae
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