Here's the format for your email to the listserv:
To: sheftman@onelist.com
From: your email address here
Subject: credit assignment #5
Mr. Szasz: state his argument here in detail
Mr. Etzioni: state his counter-reaction here
Mr. Etzioni: state his argument here in detail
Mr. Szasz: state his counter-reaction here
Write your name at the bottom of the email
Here's an example:
To: sheftman@onelist.com
From: das2192@tiptoe.fhda.edu
Subject: Credit assignment #5
Mr. Szasz: There is an implied constitutional right to take into our bodies what we desire, just as there is an explicit constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Mr. Etzioni: Mr. Szasz may infer a right to self-medication but none explicitly exists in the Bill of Rights. Free access to the ingestion or injection of any substance is not a constitutionally protected liberty or guarantee.
Mr. Etzioni: In a democracy, prohibitions on the exercise of individual choice are necessary and beneficial to protect the public good. Not all citizens exercise individual freedom responsibly; therefore, laws are necessary to define the penalties when abuses of freedom result in personal, property, or other societal damage.
Mr. Szasz: Laws which prohibit free access to and use of substances are not created to protect the public good but to impose an arbitrary standard of morality onto the citizenry. The government should not be in the business of legislating morality; it is not the inherent chemical properties of the substances which is being legislated against. It is the private citizen who is being targeted because his/her personal choices are deemed as "sinful" by our political representatives or "misguided" by the medical establishment. Just because a citizen may not choose "wisely" (and therefore hurt himself or someone else in the process) does not give the government a de facto right to prevent him from making that choice in the first place.
Mr. Sheftman
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updated 10/99