Re: OT: What is this thread about?

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 17:47:09 -0500 jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM wrote.

>America! America!  God mend thine every flaw,
>Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!
"Confirm thy liberty in law"?

Just, how, exactly, does one show freedom from government oppression by
adding further oppression?

Of course, this question only holds if one accepts that all law is
oppression (and the converse -- that liberty is essentially freedom from
legislation), which is possibly a bit of a controversial position to hold,
particularly in this law-happy day and age. It seems you can't turn on the
evening news these days without hearing the words "New legislation is being
rushed through to prevent this happening again".

My point? I have none. I'm just joining in with this slightly insane attempt
to hold the list by giving you all a sniff at my own personal insanity.
Speaking of holding the list: is it me or has the limit dropped from 100 to
99 messages fairly recently?







Paul

ObConlangBit: My non-human language is still unnamed, but I have started
substantive work on it, and it is turning out to have a particularly large
and irregular pronoun set. Also, it has sandhi, which with a limited grid of
consonants, and monosyllablic "basic" roots, leads to some rather
non-transparent compound words.