Information, Law, and Personal Responsibility

[Belisarius]

Many laws in every nation on Earth are aimed specifically at protecting people from making decisions that may harm them. The reason they were written was because people in power thought that people didn't have the information necessary to make a correct decision. Depending on your personal political outlook, you might be outraged or satisfied, and probably both, with many of these laws, but few people take into account that this principle of neccessary information preforms such suposedly vital tasks as defining adulthood and outlawing drugs.(Cut Short Will continue)

[themindsi]

do continue!

[dream-scape]

ok, alright... good, start?

[Belisarius]

I'm sorry I haven't completed this yet. Basically what I was going to say is that laws stopping people from making decisions because they supposedly aren't well informed enough to make them are ridiculous, as noone has or can have perfect information to make any decision, and many decisions are made without much information at all that are perfectly legal. Many times these laws prevent even people who do have sufficient information from making decisions for themselves. Finally, it is impossible for government officials, themselves subject to these laws, to claim that they have the information to make the decision for their subjects. Personal Responsibility can't be shirked simply because people aren't informed about their decisions.