I also fully agree with your point that "that it's much easier to fight for the "good life" if you have the legal right to organize, assemble, and to freely communicate than if these avenues are closed to you and you are forced underground."
I just happen to believe that the guarantee of these rights lies with the state rather than private parties limiting the state power. Check out Holmes and Sunstein on that:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/holmes-rights.html
- they make a good albeit somewhat legalistic argument along these lines.
Wojtek
On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 9:43 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>wrote:
> Wojtek writes:
>
>>
>> Otoh, if you do not care that much about material benefits and prefer
>> instead intangible one, such as "freedom" or the right to sleep under the
>> bridge (was it Churchill who equated democracy with that right?) - then
>> of
>> course the state will always be represented by a policeman who by
>> definition
>> denies you that that right or that "fredom" (whatever that is.)
>>
>> But then, our discussion is like one between a priest (you) and a sibarite
>> (me) who does not give a flying fuck about immaterial rewards in the
>> afterlife and kindred nonsense, and who prefers good life - meaning good
>> food, safe shelter, friendly people around, absence of pain and physical
>> comfort here and now to all abstractions that the human mind can possibly
>> create.
>>
> ==================================
> Ha! I've never being called a priest before! Trust me, Woj: I'm a
> thoroughgoing materialist like yourself who doesn't have any illusions
> about
> democracy or the afterlife, but simply believe - as have all previous
> generations of democrats and socialists - that it's much easier to fight
> for
> the "good life" if you have the legal right to organize, assemble, and to
> freely communicate than if these avenues are closed to you and you are
> forced underground. Even the "conspiratorial" Bolsheviks, who equally had
> no
> illusions about "bourgeois democracy", struggled mightily for the rights
> which it conferred in order to come up from underground to fight openly
> for their program.
>
> I won't repeat myself again. If you don't understand my POV on the subject
> by this time, I'm certain others do and so I'll leave the last word to you.
>
>
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