Tom Dalton :: Doer of Good

From an article about cellphone jamming:

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”

The problem with this analysis of rights is that it omits the necessary complement of responsibility. Both rights are equally valid -- the talker and the one who wishes for quiet. (The jammer doesn't actually have the right to jam, but let's assume he's not really jamming, and just wishing he could enjoy a quieter subway ride home from Foggy Bottom.)

Every exercise of a right should include a careful examination of associated responsibility. Might you upset someone nearby if you engage in a long phone call? The government cannot mandate this, but for society to work, you need to consider it.

That's what I say. And if I felt like typing more, I'd write up a fringe-case analysis of the situation. Maybe later.

I don't understand why we regulate methods instead of ends. Why is it wrong if someone commits murder with a baseball bat, and worse if they do it with a gun? I can see some justification in the hope that maybe people will be deterred from following the most violent courses, so maybe incidental damage is decreased or cops have a better chance of catching them. But it leads to the problem of crimes that have no corresponding laws.

If I invent a brand new way to kill someone and then I go kill them, there's no law against that!

If, for instance, a family decides to create a fake MySpace profile and use it to lead on and then emotionally destroy an already emotionally unstable girl so she kills herself, there's no law against that! And the press will shield that family from public identification!

Ah... But they didn't do it with the intent of killing the girl. We know that because they said so.

So, the police say, their hands are tied. No crime was committed!

Until it's gone, here's the actual story:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gg5xCtQtLBF6vJqWXStItGEOsJfwD8SV6U680

Nothing is different because it's on the Internet.