Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

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"Giving up liberty.." No. Liberty doesn't mean anyone has the right to harm other people. We should be encouraging more liberty, not less. We are not and should not ever be the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks said the exact same things you are saying -- almost exactly. And no, it won't be different this time. Man is man.

Suffering additional government bureaucracy? No way. It's interesting because I would bet you're opposed to government surveillance yet you are unopposed to increasing the power and thus the tyrannical potential of government. Those things are one in the same.

In a freshman dorm room late at night, we've all had the discussion that communism would be good if it were implemented correctly. However most of us grew up. We realize that human nature will never change no matter how many rainbows we wish upon. Every single time some perfect society attempt has been made, it turned into millions of dead people. Increasing the power of government is to increase the potential for tyranny.

Utopia doesn't exist and it will never exist.

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The freedoms that you are asking for necessarily involve the coercion of other people in order to ensure them.

That's suspect to me.

There is a middle ground between Joseph Stalin killing millions in Siberia, and dying homeless on the street in San Francisco because you can't afford your HIV medication.

And it looks like Canada, Switzerland, or The Netherlands. Utopias? Hardly. And that's not the point ("Utopia" is a black-and-white concept. The world is gray). The point is incremental improvements forward, sometimes 2 steps forward and 1 back (e.g. turns out legalizing prostitution doesn't automatically eliminate human trafficking. But it doesn't mean the idea is bad, just that it's not enough on it's own.)

You are correct, I am against warrantless government surveillance. But again, middle ground. Why can I not be against blanket all-encompassing communication surveillance with no oversight, but for regulation that protects my drinking water from factories dumping untreated waste? Or are you trying to tell me that it's both or neither? Because if so, I do not want to live in your Randian Utopia.

Reminds me of a conversation I had as a teenager visiting Michigan while I was growing up in France. A friend asked: "What's France like? Don't you guys have less freedom?"

This was in the post-Iraq War context when Freedom fries became a thing. Still, I was baffled. And wondering why I wasn't allowed to buy a beer...

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