tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post113596689378874299..comments2024-03-06T03:15:58.539-05:00Comments on <b>THE NEW REFORM CLUB</b>: Rights of Individuals Versus Rights of CommunitiesHunter Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14961831404331998743noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1136230071833085442006-01-02T14:27:00.000-05:002006-01-02T14:27:00.000-05:00Connie, I believe the question is not how much the...Connie, I believe the question is not how much the individual must accomodate the community's need for stability, but how much a society itself is required to change to accomodate the individual's desires.<BR/><BR/>If "tolerance" becomes the foundational value of a society, and gains legal force, I do not expect any lines to survive very long. <BR/><BR/>Nor the society...Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1136076891377956522005-12-31T19:54:00.000-05:002005-12-31T19:54:00.000-05:00First of al let me say hello. I happened to random...First of al let me say hello. I happened to randomly find this post,but now i whould vey much like to stirr up the discussion with a radical aproach. Please forgive me if its not the costume here in the club.<BR/><BR/>I believe the rights of individuals to be the most important form of liberty. This may seem a "a La Palisse" truth but nowadays many a democrat forgets that democracy is based in the citizens, not the state. Idealistic I be? Well...<BR/><BR/>Let me take an example ant try to extrapolate, When the court emprisions a murderer the court is negating the liberty that that citizen is entitled to (an individual right) so that he can't deprive other citizens of their right to be alive, the state just acts as a provider of liberty in this case. Note that i left the word "community" out.<BR/><BR/>"Community" is a flag that normaly is owned/waved by those who know "what is right": the religiousleaders, the academic experts, the military saviours, the polithicaly enlightened etc. etc. I risk to say that the normal individuals never thinks seriously about comunity in his life.<BR/><BR/>I totaly agree with S.T.K.,how could i not?, but i have this to say: For whoom is the south african government legislating? Is it passing legislation to serve the zulu/shosa populations? If it is, why is that legislation so european? I totaly agree with the humanist views of the parliament, but then again I am an european whose ancesters stoped tribal life in the II century. I am not a zulu guy that now can't look for a busty young virgin, nor am I a maiden that is now told that her virginity can't be certified. But I digress.<BR/>What i wanted to say is that a citizen's right to see the laws of his community as close as possible to his own views, even if against human rights. Remember that the death penalty is apawlingly against the rights of the human person, yet countries like France or U.S. use it. <BR/><BR/>I look forward to read other points of view.JGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02187986641720480174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1136023879698431432005-12-31T05:11:00.000-05:002005-12-31T05:11:00.000-05:00Thanks for opening this, STK, although there's lit...Thanks for opening this, STK, although there's little about it that isn't painful.<BR/><BR/>We have on one hand the liberation of the individual, which might be called libertine, that results in its worst in AIDS.<BR/><BR/>Then we have the restrictions on sexual urge and conduct by society, which easily can be called repression if not oppression, that takes form in its worst as female genital mutilation.<BR/><BR/>And then there are the children.<BR/><BR/>I scarcely know where to start. What I can say with reasonable confidence is that if there were no such thing as children, for whose personal futures we are consummately concerned, and if the issue of children were not connected to sex (I have it on reliable scientific authority that it is), there would be very little controversy when it comes to where people get their orgasms.<BR/><BR/>There are those of us who think there is a natural law that informs and dictates the disposition of such things, but it seems to slip through the cracks between reason and desire, which we are told are sublimely human.<BR/><BR/>By the arts, for one, eh? ;-)Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com