Mike and I had an interesting exchange of ideas in his blog a few weeks back.
I had not considered the personal aspects of some specific wording. He made his point. I accept it. We will never completely agree, but that's not necessary.
What the exchange pointed out to me, though, is a philosophical ideal which I have -- and it's related to whether things should be made illegal.
You see, I firmly believe that Right and Wrong exist. However, I do not believe that most of us, or society in general, has a good grasp on Wrong. It therefore bothers me when a subset of the population decides that it knows Wrong well enough to make a particular thing illegal.
Now, "illegal" might get you a fine, or thrown in jail, or worse. Or (and this is where we get back to the discussion) it might be that "illegal" gets defined as "unconstitutional" or "impinging on the rights of another."
I accept that many behaviors are ill-mannered or rude. Some are just plain Wrong. Heck, there are some which are unconscionable. But I have real trouble when society decides to make those behaviors "illegal" or "unconstitutional."
The difficult point for me is that people who absolutely agree with me on some Wrong, will entirely disagree with me on another.
If I say something, and in so doing I offend someone, I can certainly be criticized and/or corrected. But charged? Sued? If you're going to do that, I had better have been given clear guidelines, and the speech had better be pretty harmful.
The same sort of thing goes for my actions. I think society has gone too far in deciding certain actions are Wrong. While many (or even most) people might think some activity is Wrong, making it "Illegal" should only be done when there is a clear reason for it.
I've talked about it before -- and I know that it's not feasible -- but sometimes I wish we could have all laws "expire" every generation or so. Then people would be forced to reconsider their positions about illegality.
Well, this has been a rambling post. But perhaps my thoughts are clearer now.