From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Sun Feb 09 2003 - 10:36:58 MST
> (Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com>):
>
> Then there is the argument I made that was not addressed,
> but which was referred to by Ron. Namely the sincere
> question,
>
> How can we believe that nine men and women sitting
> in Washington can pass laws and rules that apply
> equally well to a small tightly-knit Hasidic community
> on Long Island, to the entire Appalachian South, or to
> communities in southern California?
>
> (And how can it be maintained that *they* should be
> trusted to make this kind of decision, but the
> communities and states at lower levels cannot be
> so trusted?)
>
> To be concrete, suppose that a small Mormon community in
> Idaho collectively finds abortion incredibly repulsive and
> abominable. What is so heinous about them passing local
> laws that do not permit doctors to set up business performing
> abortions? It seems to me to be none of our affair anyway.
The argument was addressed repeatedly--you just don't agree
with it. The court doesn't "pass laws", it strikes them down.
The answer to your example is equally simple: that Mormon
community /has no rights/, because groups of people don't
have any rights. Only individual human beings have rights,
and when groups try to usurp those rights by passing laws,
even if they're supported by overwhelming majorities, they
deserve to be slapped by a court and reminded that the only
"sovereignty" that matters is individual sovereignty.
In my less radical moments, I am perhaps willing to concede
that it makes sense for a larger community to do things like
set standards of commerce, or regulate behavior /among/ its
citizens. But those powers which it makes sense for people
to delegate to their community (and remember, if governments
have any power at all it's only because individuals, the source
of all political power, have delgated it to them) are a very
limited set, and cannot possibly include personal intimate
behaviors that are private and individual by their very
nature. It makes sense, for example, for a community to have
laws against assaulting others, driving unsafely on public
roads, and so on. It makes no sense at all, and is an affront
to the ideals of freedom, to have laws against consensual
private behavior that only affect the participants. Our
Supreme Court has been, if anything, far too lax in /not/
striking down repugnant laws against prostitution, gambling,
private drug use, and other things that /no/ legislature at
/any/ level has a right to regulate.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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