Comments on: No liberty is violated by Highland’s Sunday closures

By: Liberty

Liberty — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:25:00 +0000

You’re right. We should not place any restrictions on people’s use of property, especially just because of religious beliefs. Hope you don’t mind if I open a brothel next door to your house.

By: Mike Trapp

Mike Trapp — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 03:41:00 +0000

Socialism as I recently read in Paul Skousen’s “Naked Socialist” book, is defined as using force to achieve social ends. Sunday closure laws are that: socialist in nature. You can’t tell me that laws such as these are not geared towards giving the collective power over individual activities for social ends, not pragmatic ends. If your philosophy of government is to rein in the power of the tyrannical collective from intruding on the individual’s freedom to choose, you will see at once the necessity of permitting the individual business owner the right to operate on Sunday. Such social ends should be achieved by persuasion, not by the power of force. Remember what happens when we attempt to force the issue? What is free agency good for, if not the right to choose wrong? I personally think it is wrong to disrespect the Sabbath. But I also think it is wrong to compel a man against his will to close up his business on Sunday, if that is his choice for his own private property.

By: Pam Whitmore

Pam Whitmore — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:56:00 +0000

Thanks for all the comments. For more on this topic, see today’s post by William C. Duncan on Sutherland Daily at http://www.sutherlandinstitute.org/news_old/2012/11/05/freedom-to-close-businesses-on-sunday-is-worth-preserving/

By: Liberty Violated: Highland's Illegitimate Business Closure | Libertas Institute | Advancing the cause of liberty in Utah

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:16:59 +0000

[...] week, the Sutherland Institute published an article with the title No liberty is violated by Highland’s Sunday closures. In that article, Sutherland president Paul Mero argues just that—that no liberty is violated by [...]

By: Christoph

Christoph — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:10:00 +0000

You’re a libertarian? You don’t sound like it at all. I guess you must be a Libertarian but not a libertarian. What has happened in Highland isn’t at all in keeping with libertarian principles.
Just a note, Rothbard was an anarchist, not a libertarian, and modern libertarian thought predates Rothbard. You should probably study liberty further.

By: David Edward Garber

David Edward Garber — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 17:27:00 +0000

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may 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.” — C. S. Lewis

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:53:00 +0000

Obviously, you’re not a “staunch” libertarian, if you believe that a community can force others to use their personal property in specific ways. A “community” can only impose such standards IF the owner(s) of the properties involved all support it. Take a mall for instance. A business or individual owns the property and building, and then leases out spaces on the property for businesses to take residence in. The owner of that property can impose restrictions such as hours of operation because he OWNS THE PROPERTY. If those businesses don’t like it, they will just have to deal with it or move their business off of the property of the owner.

A community, on the other hand, is totally different. In the case of Highland, for example, these businesses completely own the property they reside on. The community they find themselves in does not OWN THE LAND of the community. Therefore, the community CANNOT dictate what businesses or individuals do on land that is the strict property of those businesses or individuals.

Please try to be more logical when thinking “logically”

By: Brock

Brock — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Uh bro, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Everything you just mentioned are examples of forcing people to do one thing or another. It is forcing businesses to close when they have EVERY RIGHT to have THEIR OWN PROPERTY open whenever they want to. Similarly, forcing businesses to close and open by certain hours is also forcing the owners of property to do things with their property they do not want to do. IT IS THEIR PROPERTY. You have no right to force upon others how they can and cannot use their own property.

By: Isaac

Isaac — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Highland
isn’t going far enough with this. If businesses should be closed on
Sundays, then obviously everyone should be at church. The city needs to
collect church attendance and fine those who aren’t present. But what
about before and after church? What are appropriate Sabbath activities?
This age old debate can be solved with one small piece of legislation.
For instance, television may be viewed on Sunday, but only “uplifting”
programs, such as are found on BYUTV. Football games are forbidden, of
course, and those who are caught watching will be fined. The city must
obviously monitor television viewing to enforce this protection of
liberty and community values. All residents must record everything they
say on Sundays so that the city can determine whether or not their
conversations are Sunday appropriate. If a person doesn’t like it, well
they can just live somewhere else, probably among the heathens and
apostates. And do I even need to go into details about the Sunday dress
code?

By: Rod_Mann

Rod_Mann — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 01:52:00 +0000

Well said Shane!