Re: "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail"

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>]

As previously noted, we've drifted off charter, so I will answer in
private mail.

.pm

hallam@w3.org writes:
> Perry writes,
> 
> >I am a funny sort of person. I don't believe that governments should
> >be able to do anything that individuals cannot. If it is bad for me to
> >steal, it is also bad for a government official to steal. If it is bad
> >for me to listen in on my neighbor's phone calls, it is bad for the
> >government, too.
> 
> This statement commits the logical falacy of type incompatibility. Sets of 
> objects are not the same as objects. Organisations of people have different 
> characteristics to people. To accord the same rights to idividuals is to igno
re 
> the different chaqracteristics of the organisation over the group. In most ca
ses 
> we would ascribe fewer individual liberties to groups than to individuals. Th
e 
> individual may have freedom of speech but the government official does not. I
t 
> is generally undesirable for military personel to enter into party politics, 
> thus it is generally undesirable for such people to take part in party politi
cal 
> broadcasts.
> 
> On the other hand there are casses in which we would wish to give the governm
ent 
> more power than the individual. We give the government the right to raise 
> taxation for example.
> 
> Thus Perry is not only a funny sort of person, he is also entirely negating t
he 
> argument that Mill puts forward in "on Liberty", namely that the interests of
 
> the government and people are not as opposed as might appear, that it is 
> possible to divide liberties into those which the state must excercise in ord
er 
> to protect the liberty of the population in general and those which the 
> individual needs to protect themselves from government and other interference