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Liberty

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If this debate were under the subject of Mathematical Probability, then the answer would be that community order and law should prevail. Whenever the interests of a group of people are pitted against the rights of one, the group should prevail because there are sufficient numbers to force the order and law upon the individual. However, since the subject is Social Values, the answer is that personal liberty should prevail.

I believe the argument that personal liberty is not as important as order and law results from confusing personal liberty with anarchy and anti-social behavior. Even though that theoretically may be the result in extreme cases, which is difficult to defend, community order and law in extreme cases often has resulted in government by totalitarian regimes that resort to genocide.

In similarly extreme examples, we are left arguing whether it is better to have Ted Bundy on the loose or Adolph Hitler in control. Though it is difficult to defend Ted Bundy's actions, it is fairly easy to suggest that his actions did not wreak havoc on society to the same degree as Adolph Hitler's actions.

If we were to use a classroom as a microcosm of society, we can examine how placing community order and law ahead of personal liberty negatively affects society as a whole. Within this classroom are people similar in a few ways, like age and education level, but vastly different in aptitudes, interests, and cultures. If it were possible to successfully dictate that students with the least aptitudes end the year equal to the students with the greatest, then it would follow that community order should prevail over personal liberty. However, the only way to ensure that community order prevails is to retard the growth of students except those with the least aptitude.

Though it may be impolite for one student to far exceed the intellect of the average student, and unfair for another to not be capable of achieving the intellect of the average student, it is the way it will end up. Perhaps it is unfortunate, but reality is the only way all people will ever be equal is for everyone to be poor and stupid. If community order and law were to dictate intellectual equality at any level above utter stupidity, it would require imprisonment or extermination of those who do not meet, and those who exceed, the standard. The same would be true if law were to dictate economic equality.

It is said that Socrates despised democracy contending that people are unable to

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