[ale] OT: The Amazing WEB

[Joseph A Knapka]

Dow Hurst wrote:
> 
> The internet is for passing information primarily and if you don't know
> anything, you can't pass any info worth listening to.  Also, the "greed
> motive" applied in the sense of true American capitalism is simply
> betterment of resources and lifestyle and is not really greed in an evil
> sense of stealing or hurting others.  So Micro"evil"Soft examples don't
> apply to normal American capitalism.  Unregulated capitalism is actually
> regulated by the morals of each person involved.  A democratic and free
> society can't function without each individual having internal rules of
> law and order guiding them in choices.  Without that you have to enforce
> laws since people choose not to enforce them upon themselves and we know
> where that path leads...
> 
> Anarchy!

That is an interesting opinion. 

It seems to me that a democratic and free society can't function
without the rule of law, as opposed to the rule of each
individual's conscience. In the case of a truly free society,
individual conscience is simply an unknown - it depends on
the person's upbringing, religious beliefs, and so forth -
and if people are to be free to believe as they choose,
some agreed-upon objective standards of behavior are also
necessary in order to avoid, as you say, anarchy. We could
have a nice flamefest about the particular system of laws
that are currently in place, but I don't think that would
have much bearing on the principle that a free and democratic
society cannot be built upon the vagaries of individual
morals and ethics. I'd rather the government enforce external
laws than have it try to impose some uniform internal sense
of right and wrong.

Cheers,
-- Joe
"I should like to close this book by sticking out any part of my neck
 which is not yet exposed, and making a few predictions about how the
 problem of quantum gravity will in the end be solved."
 --- Physicist Lee Smolin, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity"

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