reply to post by rickymouse
This.
You're absolutely right.
It only takes a couple people to affect the freedoms of everybody else.
You said that some people cannot discriminate between fiction and reality effectively. The same thing could be said for someone driving on a busy
interstate who's daydreaming and not focusing on the road and causes an accident. Or somebody who's consumed too much alcohol and doesn't realize how
much it'll impair their driving. If you hand the car keys to your 8 year old, something similar happens. These people aren't failing to discriminate
fiction from reality in the same way as an insane person, but your point still stands: somebody doesn't use the freedom responsibly and others get
hurt.
Basically, on a subjective level, when the society determines that a particular freedom is too costly or risky, it pulls back on it. It's figuring out
how all that happens that's tricky. Not every country is the same. There're different cultures. No society is RIGHT when it makes a subjective
judgment. Even systems of law in modern societies will likely be deemed as despicable and unrighteous perhaps only a few centuries from now when the
world is even more locked into a state of precision. And then there's authoritarianism. Look at Germany when it pulled back on freedoms for jews and
enslaved them. Look at dictators in various countries that will enforce stringent laws to maintain power.
We in this "free country" - the US of A - are not immune to these pressures. We can just as well as others make our own subjective societal judgments
and submit our will to authority.
edit on 18-12-2012 by jonnywhite because: (no reason given)