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Question 16

How would you draw the line between the rights of an individual vs. society's right to make restrictive laws?

• I think that the good of the many comes before the good of the few, or the one. However, this is not an absolute concept since I can think of situations in which the good of the one outweighs the wishes of the many. But I think it's up to us all to come up with our own philosophy of life. (Blackguard #869)

• I beleive that it is in each person's best interest to do what is best for humanity. IOW, genetic survival is what we are all after, but believe that the best way to accomplish that is to be unwavering in your bettering of the lives of others. I guess that's a combination of both. The one thing people have trouble understanding about me is that I see no difference in doing what's best for humanity and doing what is best for the self. (Van Isaac Anderson #716)

• The way I see it, I am part of a society. I live, work, and play in this society. I have two unwritten obligations in this society. First, I need to be productive. If, in this society, everyone lived as auto mechanics, life would be bad. No one would teach our kids, no one would build our houses, no one would entertain us, and so on. As the first "rule" of society, everyone agrees to do something productive. So only a few fix cars. Others sell them. Sill others are teachers, football players, cooks, scientists, and so on.

  However, if in this society, I constantly had to worry about my house being robbed, and my wife being beaten and so on, I'd never go to work, and in general, life would be "nasty bruttish, and short". So we have another "rule". Everyone's heard it: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Thus, I have agreed not to steal, lie, cheat, kill, or abuse anyone else. After all, I don't want this happening to me! And I don't do it because I'm afrad of hell, or because I don't want to go to jail, I just do it because I want to be a part of society (I like it better than living as a survivalist in west Texas eating cactus and bathing once a week in a forest stream).

  The only problem is, some people try to beat the system. I don't know why--maybe they haven't figured out the rules of society--but to stop those rulebreakers, we need to make the "rules" official. We need police oficers and auditing companies and so on to enforce the rules.

  So what I'm trying to say is, in a perfect world that understood the rules of society, we'd need no rules, and individual human rights would reign. But because we don't, there have to be restrictive laws. To stop the freeloaders and the rulebreakers from ruining my society. Maybe one of those militias in Montana isn't so bad... (Lance #935)

• Enlightened self interest. That is to say, do what's best for humanity, because it's the best for you in the long run. (Jeff Mehaffey #614)

• I think society should never limit the rights of the individual except where one individual would hurt the life or liberty of another. (Kaotic Poet #967)

• Only make laws that prevent victims. (Stix #12)