(urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again)

[Daniel D Jones]

On Tuesday 19 May 2009 21:27:30 Adam Thornton wrote:
> On May 19, 2009, at 8:12 PM, brunians at brunians.org wrote:
> > Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, according to one famous
> > document. The first draft said 'life, liberty and property', and
> > property
> > is also very important. Some people think it might have been better to
> > leave it as it was. This is not necessarily an exclusive list.
>
> However, in order to determine what the legitimate function of
> government, as defined as "to protect the rights of the individual,"
> is, surely we need an exhaustive list, don't we?
>
> Otherwise, who is to say that I am wrong if I declare that it is my
> right to take Alyson Hannigan and Summer Glau as my concubines?  I
> suspect strongly that no one else on the list would agree with such an
> assertion that this was a legitimate right of mine as an individual,
> and I suspect even *more* strongly that the women in question would
> disagree vehemently.

No, we don't need an exhaustive list.  We need simple principles to define the 
terms.  In short, you're free to do anything you like so long as you do no 
harm to me and mine.  ("You," "me" and "mine" being generic terms, of course, 
and not necessarily referring to any specific individual.)  If Alyson and 
Summer want to be your concubines, wonderful.  If they decline, then 
attempting to force them clearly violates the above principle.