Posted on 01/20/2002 2:12:45 PM PST by annalex
A guess which you confirmed was right in post #24.
I don't see why this is upsetting you so much. I'm not claiming clairvoyance here, I'm just pointing out that I thought your rhetoric had the feel of someone who came into libertarianism from the left -- and thus you may be disinclined to view the advances of the cultural left as a power grab.
I know, I got that part. I'm just arguing that it is inaccurate to say that having a location be open to the public does not grant the public rights to that location. Ownership is retained by the owner no matter how many people are allowed to enter the property.
Furthermore, I'm arguing that a government owned property will be poorly managed because the owner has no incentive to preserve the resource -- why be too concerned with the state of a property you are eventually going to turn over to your political opponents? The only exception to this rule would be if the government owner was a hereditary monarch -- in which case his behavior would be much like that of a private landowner.
"Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787)
I'm just arguing that it is inaccurate to say that having a location be open to the public grants the public rights to that location.
The best point is that "democracies . . . have ever been found incompatible with . . . the rights of property"
Never allow others to vote on the extent of your rights.
This one line of yours struck me as sort of defining our constitutional issue here:
"Essentially, those who consider the rights of the minority paramount will have victories until they have purged the culture of any real substance."
I have seen no such decadence, no 'purging of substance' taking place, yet the majority is very busy 'restoring order', and on the road to dictatorship, imo.
Our republic is set up, supposedly, to defend everyones rights against all tyranny, -- even a so-called benign tyranny of the majority. This constitutional principle is being ignored. - 12 posted by tpaine
There are two kinds of libertarians: liberals who rejected socialism and conservatives who rejected Republicans. I'm guessing you're of the former variety.
-- Hmmmm. Should I be flattered that you want to type me? -- Why? - Your 'guess' is not only wrong, but snide in itself. Do you fancy yourself a superior being?
There is an alarming amount of homogeneity in American culture today. Regional differences are minor. America is tied together by the common blanket of faux rights given to us by the EPA, the ADA, etc. People think they share a common culture because they both watched Law and Order the previous night. You may, however, be correct that the restoration of "order" is now in its beginning stages.
Well thats a relief, -- that you think I may be right about something.
Tell me, why did you bother to reply? -- Essentially, you made no response to my points. -- Just 'entelechy' posturings. -- It is now obvious, you really do have a swelled head.
Care to address my more substanitve points: i.e. that common property leads inevitably to a violation of the rights of the users -- either the excluded minority (see also: Jim Crow), or the disregarded majority (see also: multiculturalism). The only solution to the tragedy of the commons is to define an owner.
However, I agree with your basic conclusion and am interesting in seeing how you would extend this to the public arena which is politics.
It is naive to think that common law implies a complete absence of state authorities. The fact that customary laws are not made by legislatures does not mean that there are not judges or magistrates or constables acting on governmental authority to execute those traditional laws.
By what right would you deprive someone of their liberty? You may say this is justified if one violates the rights of another, but on what authority are you acting? If someone refuses to accept the principles of your society, what authority do you have over them?
The question of the double burden: in a society with out public legal institutions, if I am completely plundered of all my possessions, I would not be able to get justice unless I can pay for it. That is quite an imposition.
It looks like having public entities to administer justice is not too high price to pay -- a form of insurance -- to avoid that double burden. Does the state -- and thus the taxpayer -- then bear the burden? Yes, but if the system works it will be cheaper in the end than relying on private enforcement.
Do I conflate the various senses of the word "public"? I don't think so, but as gated communities become more common it's easy to imagine some of these senses being conflated. While there are distinctions to be drawn, it is possible that some senses of the "public" sphere may be lost if the state were ever to disappear.
Not at all, in fact I specifically mention that "it would apply to network television or advertising and not only to cultural expressions tied to a physical street or square."
More over, unlike the libertarian conventional wisdom, I do not see an important distinction in whether those messages originate on private property; the only importand distinction that I see is that they are unsolicited.
extend this to the public arena which is politics
No difference either. In fact, I don't see much justification in the traditional in American jurisprudence distinction between political speech, commercial speech and artistic expression. They are all just messages, covered by the same rules of offensiveness. For example, I do think that some pro-life posters cross the line on these grounds, although I am sympathetic to their message.
People don't have a right not to be offended. Aside from threats of violence or violence (a KKK cross is an expression of violence and not a religious expression, for example) the other points you raise regarding rights don't involve force. Most libertarian or left-leaning mayors go through tremendous contortions trying to separate the religious from the cultural on the basis of the establishment clause. What is left is essentially a banning of cultural expression.
Cultural expression is appropriately regulated according to community standard. The action is a right to free expression, its inhibition is determined by the sensibilities, not the rights, of the community.
If I receive an unsolicited message that reasonably offends me, then my individual rights are being violated. Community standard is a integral outcome of the cultural interactions between individual members in the community; while it is a factor in determining violations of individual rights, it is not a community right, because no collective right can possibly be.
What rights? And in what way are they violated?
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