RTMark admin on 15 Aug 2000 02:52:33 -0000


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Re: <nettime> Re: AW: AW: Urgent inquiry for Paper bags!


Citizens do certainly have a responsibility for their welfare. That's the
idea behind democratic government: it means people can decide--ONCE--what
is correct (e.g. bananas from Africa, not from Chiquita; gas taxes high; 
etc.) and then live according to the rules they have made, via their
elected leaders. That's the theory, anyhow. 

Here's Will Durant writing in 1927, when liberal (in the old sense) 
arguments for the elimination of the state were already about 140 years
old: 

"... There are defects in this philosophy of freedom. For first, it
underestimates the violence of the strong: the same ruthless domination
that makes the state would rule with more visible and direct force, and
with more suffering and chaos, if there were no state at all." 

I'm sure you're not arguing for the elimination fo the state, but I think
it's important to remember what the state is, or can be, for. 

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