Reply #83: fascinating [View All]

[iverglas]

The justfications in the bill are that is barbaric and unnecessary, I was asking the question to find out if that was the case or not.

Still the wrong question, isn't it though?

How's about if the legislature decides that duck hunting is barbaric and unnecessary? The rkba-head gang gonna roll over and die? (rkba = "right to keep and bear arms", code for many things, for those who don't know)

Is a legislature's opinion (which is all that is) that something is barbaric and unnecessary an adequate justification for violating someone's rights?

Not where I come from.

Now, the fact that capital punishment is barbaric and unnecessary, that's certainly good grounds for a legislature deciding not to use it. But that's a duck of a different feather. Legislatures that do that are not telling someone else what s/he may or may not do, on pain of punishment.

There really have been gallons of judicial ink used to establish what is, and what is not, justification for violating someone's rights. Whether something is "necessary" only comes into it when the legislature has already justified prohibiting it.

And no one's opinion that someone else's acts are "barbaric" overrides his/her right to do them.

"Liberal democracy" escapes me.

Hey, you said it. Not too in tune with it at all, are you?