Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Sounds like the rule of law to me.

I'm not making a political point at all.
ER — (archived)

But a linguistic one. The sentence is ambiguous;

it can either mean that no statute passed for the public good should limit individual freedom, that the public good should never be used to justify the violation of individual freedom,
OR,
it can mean that the public good trumps individual freedom, and no individual freedom should be used to justify harm to the public good.

These are two contradictory concepts, but that is no reason they can't both be simultaneously true.

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