Contracts, Responsibilities, and Drug-Dispensing

There have been some statements here that "Tim is interfering in the
choices of others." In particular, Perry has been saying I am a hypocrite,
that I wish to interfere with the choices of others, and so and so forth.

Let's make something clear:

-- I have no "contract" to supply drugs to anyone, nor does the friend I
have been discussing, who makes a choice _not_ to dose the friends of his
son who are in his house.

-- This "contractarian" analysis should be important to any libertarian or
believer in civil rights.

-- If someone makes a contract, formal or informal (with some caveats), to
supply a dose of drugs, alcohol, whatever, at some specified time, then
this is fine. But if no contract exists, not supplying the drugs is not
interference in choice. (Is, for a example, a Mormon interfering in the
rights of a friend by refusing to supply a drink to a visiting friend? Am I
interfering in the choice of others by refusing to allow cigarette smoking
in my home? Examples like this are easy to find.)

-- If someone claims there is an _implied_ contract in this case, this
falls apart after the first "refusal" to supply the dose. That is, Vickie,
the mother, is well aware that my friend is returning the Ritalins to her
unused, in the kid's backpack. That she continues to send the kid over,
absent the drug dose she would have preferred her son to be given, means
she has effectively made a choice that maybe the Ritalin dose is not so
important after all (or at least that my friend is able to "control" and
"handle" the kid without the drug...maybe this is giving her some second
thoughts about dosing the kid into compliance even on the weekends?).

[A cynic might suggest she is letting the alleged violations of her son's
rights  "pile up" so she can bring a lawsuit and get some of his money!
:-}]

So, I reject the straw man arguments that I am interfering with the
"rights" of others. My house, my rules. My friend's house, his rules. And
one of his rules is that he refuses to become a pill dispenser for
mind-altering drugs. Vickie can accept these rules, or not. Her choice.

(And part of this, as perhaps I did not make clear enough, is that he
doesn't like the idea of his _own_ son seeing his Dad dispensing
mind-control drugs to make a kid more compliant and passive. He is
obviously well within his rights to refuse to be a drug supplier. His
house, his rules. Would this apply if the visiting kid needed an injection
of insulin? Maybe, maybe not. It would depend. Speaking for myself, I would
refuse to supply injections of insulin to a child--I'd tell the mother or
father to not expect me to administer medical treatments beyond simple
things like aspirins or band-aids on cuts and scrapes. My house, my rules.)

It's always useful in discussing "rights," as Perry is doing, in terms of
contracts and agreements. To paraphrase Lysander Spooner, I can't find my
name or the name of my friend on any contract about supplying drugs to
visiting children.

--Tim May

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Timothy C. May writes:
> -- If someone makes a contract, formal or informal (with some caveats), to
> supply a dose of drugs, alcohol, whatever, at some specified time, then
> this is fine. But if no contract exists, not supplying the drugs is not
> interference in choice. (Is, for a example, a Mormon interfering in the
> rights of a friend by refusing to supply a drink to a visiting friend? Am I
> interfering in the choice of others by refusing to allow cigarette smoking
> in my home? Examples like this are easy to find.)

If you bring a child to someone's home, and you tell them "here are
the kids' meds -- you'll give them to the kid on time, right?" and you
say "No" right then, thats fine. However, your friend accepted custody
of the medication and of the child, did not indicate that they had no
intention of dispensing the child's medication on time, and in essense
failed to comply with normal standards of behavior -- contractual
behavior, as it were. It appears that you are trying very hard to
retrofit this behavior into your theory of what's acceptable for
people to do based on your personal distaste for a particular
treatment -- a treatment you do not understand for a condition you do
not understand, impacting a child that is not your own.

> -- If someone claims there is an _implied_ contract in this case, this
> falls apart after the first "refusal" to supply the dose. That is, Vickie,
> the mother, is well aware that my friend is returning the Ritalins to her
> unused, in the kid's backpack.

I agree that the mother at that point understands what is going on and
shouldn't be sending the child over. However, I'd say that as a social
matter, the person refusing to give the child their medicine is not
doing anyone a favor. "You see, my son, I'm demonstrating that I can
be Holier than Thou by refusing to give your playmate the medication
his parents instructed me to give him. Since I have a right not to do
so, I can exercise that right and create stress and demonstrate how
little regard I have for the way people choose to raise their own
children. Someday you can follow in my footsteps."

> It's always useful in discussing "rights," as Perry is doing,

I believe I was discussing a cognitive problem, actually, and not
rights. The only right I discussed in detail was every person's
right to tell you to mind your own business, just as you loudly tell
everyone else.

Perry