silly question about republican "platform"

[elwoodblues]

In your first post you made it sound like you were arguing that individuals had the same prohibitions on restricting liberty as the government. That is simply untrue and the WSJ example demonstrates that. Private schools can do a lot of restricting liberty that public can't without having any requirements that they provide due process of law.

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But you cannot deny that we extend the government's responsibility to those of non-citizens as well. I have a friend who lives in the States but he's still a Canadian citizen. I cannot kill him and expect the U.S. gov't to do absolutely nothing about it. So non-citizens enjoy just as many rights as citizens.

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No sh*t, but that wasn't what I was referring to. The original poster noted the responsibility of government to protect its citizens. I was merely pointing out that it is beyond obvious that fetuses aren't citizens.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
In your first post you made it sound like you were arguing that individuals had the same prohibitions on restricting liberty as the government. That is simply untrue and the WSJ example demonstrates that. Private schools can do a lot of restricting liberty that public can't without having any requirements that they provide due process of law.

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No. I find the WSJ example unsatisfactory in proving that individuals can restrict the liberties of other individuals. They can only do so (in that context) within the their own paper. They can't stop their writers from writing for other newspapers. They can refuse the privilage of using their newspaper, but they can't restrict someone's right to speak. The private school example is the same thing. The private school cannot restrict the rights of people who decide to leave or don't attend, obviously. Again, it is a privilage to go to a private school. Because it is a privilage, the provider of that privilage has the right to extend or not extend that privilage to whomever they choose.

We're getting off topic here however. Suffice to say, private individuals cannot deprive other individuals of their lives without some due process (such as self-defense), just as the gov't cannot deprive individuals of their lives without due process (trial).