Steve Callaway wrote:
Mike Irwin wrote (for full text see beneath):
If a minor has not established sufficient trust/respect with his or her guardian to be trusted online without censorship or spy software enabled ..... then perhaps it would be better (for the project and possibly for the child) if they were not participating at Wikipedia?
You could quite easily extend that argument, replacing "guardian" with government and "child" with "people". Just a thought.
Steve Callaway
Consider that in the U.S.A.; We, the people, are sovereign; while George W. Bush is a paid employee, with some specifically delegated responsibilities and authority. These are not small despite being constitutionally limited, as the Taliban discovered and as Saddam Hussein (who is also sovereign but who apparently has few fellow sovereigns nearby with the desire or means necessary to constrain his actions) is about to find out.
A juvenile in the U.S. is considered incompetent to manage their own affairs and is assumed to have a guardian. If the authorities become aware that they do not have a competent guardian, one is appointed by a court. Thus we may conclude that in the U.S. the juvenile's self sovereignty has been deferred somehow despite its inalienibility. Essentially enough adults in our society have agreed to certain constraints and have enough collective force available to implement these constraints. Our founding poetry is not allowed to get in the way of survival and prosperity on a practical day to day basis.
The argument extension you propose above could be made easily only if rights are alienable and the government could convince enough people of that to maintain their authority by guile, force or divine right.
IMO, George W. Bush is making the case to the American people effectively (they believe him and support his actions and preparations for war to date) that we can no longer rely on common sense and the sovereign Iraqui people to constrain Saddam Hussein's potential use of weapons of mass destruction should conflicting interests in the Middle East lead to warfare.
I hope this clarifies things regarding the U.S.A. I have very limited exposure or detailed understanding of other cultures.
Regards, Mike Irwin