[Discuss] Govt Source Code Policy

[richard.pieri at gmail.com (Rich Pieri)]

On 4/6/2016 8:54 AM, IngeGNUe wrote:
> Legal is not moral is not legal BUT, rules exist for a reason and it is
> good to enforce rules. It would be chaos if no one enforced rules!

I don't disagree per se. Laws are necessary for a reasonably ordered
society to function.

What I disagree with is the enforcement by law of one person's idea of
morality over another's. To wit: the Volstead Act. The Volstead Act is
not about good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. It is about one group of
people claiming higher morals in order to exert control over the
activities of the entire country.

Greg is doing the same thing. He is using his claim to higher morals in
order to justify exerting control over those he deems to be less ethical
than himself. I'm certain he means well but that just makes it all the
more oppressive. As C.S. Lewis put it:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated;
but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end
for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be
more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell
of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be
"cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard
as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the
age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants,
imbeciles, and domestic animals.

-- 
Rich P.