personal freedom or public safety?
Discussion post for the poll over on vikki.
Okay, I know what you're thinking: these two things aren't mutually exclusive. I believe you're wrong. Mostly. (slave_to_anime points out that public safety specifically isn't always mutually exclusive to freedom.)
Complete freedom is anarchy. Our personal freedoms are not unlimited. I've heard it said that 'your right to rage stops at the other guy's nose', which sounds very sensible - after all, we have laws against assault and many other manners of expressing ourselves that are harmful to others. But take, for instance, religious symbols: do you have a right to never see a religious symbol that violates your sensibilities? Or to go back to the health/safety issue, smoking: do you have the right to never walk into a restaurant to a wall of smoke? A more difficult question: should the government be in charge of making sure the foods you eat are healthy? The hot button issue: should you have to walk around with your ID all the time so that illegal immigrants can be caught without papers?
If you said 'yes' to the above, then you probably believe the government should be responsible for public safety and less worried by preserving personal freedoms.
If you disagree, convince me. And if you picked 'public safety' as the government's primary concern, tell me why.
Okay, I know what you're thinking: these two things aren't mutually exclusive. I believe you're wrong. Mostly. (slave_to_anime points out that public safety specifically isn't always mutually exclusive to freedom.)
Complete freedom is anarchy. Our personal freedoms are not unlimited. I've heard it said that 'your right to rage stops at the other guy's nose', which sounds very sensible - after all, we have laws against assault and many other manners of expressing ourselves that are harmful to others. But take, for instance, religious symbols: do you have a right to never see a religious symbol that violates your sensibilities? Or to go back to the health/safety issue, smoking: do you have the right to never walk into a restaurant to a wall of smoke? A more difficult question: should the government be in charge of making sure the foods you eat are healthy? The hot button issue: should you have to walk around with your ID all the time so that illegal immigrants can be caught without papers?
If you said 'yes' to the above, then you probably believe the government should be responsible for public safety and less worried by preserving personal freedoms.
If you disagree, convince me. And if you picked 'public safety' as the government's primary concern, tell me why.