Anonymous writes:
>Declan:
> >You have no "right" to use another person's personal property -- their
> >server -- as you see fit. If that mail server only approves messages
> >with CP: in the Subject: line, or only with From: lines from
> >left-handed lesbian Botswanans, that is the owner's choice. It
> >certainly isn't censorship: If you don't like it, start your own list.
>
>Some US subjects seem to have mental block when it comes to so-called
>"property" and "rights".
>
>If I and few tens of my gunmen create a law (with all the paperwork :-)
>that makes the air my property, would you be so kind to suffocate ?
This is why the American colonies' Declaration of Independence talks about
"unalienable" rights. You can't take away those rights merely by claiming
divine right and filling out the paperwork (which is to say you cannot take
away one's legitimate claim to those rights). Obviously, those rights *can*
be denied by men with guns, as you point out. However, in that case, one is
fully justified in killing those men at the earliest opportunity.
>Or do you think that such "property" would be any less legitimate than
>what you "own" today ? We could provide a swift assurance.
Obviously in any reasonable view, such "property" would have no legitimacy
whatsoever.
>Claiming that thought control exercized by individuals and corps is
>not censorship because they are "private" is like saying that whatever holy
>man does must be clean. It is a semantic trap. Or, better, the religion.
Clearly, Declan's view (apart from the quibble over the definition of the
word "censorship") is that only when a *government* (defined as men with
guns) denies the right to write/speak/publish/etc is it Evil. If I, as a
private property owner merely prevent you from using my property to publish,
that is very different (i.e. it is NOT Evil). By not allowing you to use my
property for your publishing, I am not exercising "mind control", merely
requiring you to pay your own publishing costs.
- GH
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