Low Earth Orbit

Libertarianism vs. libertinism

Via Best of the Web and the Amarillo Globe, we have this quote from bioethics professor Andrew Johnson:

Persons cannot rightly be forced to make their bodies available as incubators to unwanted nonpersons for nine months, especially considering the physical dangers, emotional trauma, and drastic life-changes pregnancy often entails.

I agree. However, unless it was rape then no one was “forced” in to being pregnant. Unless you’re willing to take full responsibility for your own actions, you’re not a libertarian, you’re a libertine. That’s the real difference between the two.

Oh, Canada!

[source, source]

The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected claims by francophone Quebecers to let their children attend English language schools.

In a unanimous decision, the country’s top court has upheld the language legislation in Quebec known as Bill 101 — which obliges French speaking parents to send their kids to a francophone school.

Two things spring to mind upon reading this example of the kind of oppression our neighbors to the north suffer under:

• We can see now that the Quebec language laws are not about permitting the use of French but mandating it.
• The rot’s gone deep if this kind of thing is supported by a unanimous decision
• It says all one needs to know about the desirability of being a francophone in Quebec that having francophone children needs to be mandated by the force of law. I guess Canada now has the “Berlitz Wall” that we can only eventually suffers the same fate as the Berlin Wall.