August 2, 2011 by David K. Sutton
Assuming The Worst In People
If you expect to have a free society where everyone’s civil liberties are equally as important then public policy cannot be formulated based on assuming the worst in people.
For example, negative assumptions about gay marriage in the form of questions like the following: What if someone wants to marry his dog, where does it end? This kind of thinking immediately jumps to an extreme conclusion that can only be summed up by saying that it assumes the worst in people by default. Instead, why can’t we just accept that two people love each other and that it has NOTHING to do with anyone else and leave it at that? Another example would be advocating draconian cuts in government spending under the illusion that it’s good for the entire country but knowing full-well that these cuts will have a huge impact on the poor. But that huge impact on the poor is justified because of course the poor are simply not working hard enough. Again, this jumps to an extreme conclusion which is required in order to believe the initial premise that major spending cuts would be good for the whole country.
