Poli-Sci Digest Volume 6, Part 5
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 1 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 31
Today's Topics:
Libertarianism &
Welfare, Unions and the Marketplace
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Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 29 Jul 86 01:24:03-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: more on libertarianism
I am not sure how to argue with libertarianism, because my difference
with libertarians seems to me to be not so much a matter of facts as a
matter of different values. I think Keith's position is reasonably
consistent if you accept his moral premises, but I don't consider his
position moral, and I don't think he would consider mine moral.
I have some degree of sympathy for libertarianism for the following
reasons:
1. I believe in nonviolence, and government action seems to
inherently involve some degree of use of force or threat of force.
2. I mistrust too much concentrated power. I think that if too much
power is given to a government for some good purpose, it is likely to
be abused later.
3. I think that government at its worst probably does more harm than
anarchy at its worst, so it is probably better to err in the direction
of too little government than too much.
4. A government can do some things well, but it is too blunt an
instrument for many purposes.
But I can't agree with the premise that I have no obligation to anyone
unless I have contracted it or have injured that person. I certainly
think we have an obligation to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and so
on. Some of our programs of government assistance may not be helpful
as they stand. Some kinds of assistance may be better done by private
organizations than by the government, and some may be better off under
more local control. And many times the unjust economic arrangements
that oppress the poor to make the rich richer are maintained by
government violence on behalf of the rich. But I don't believe that
we have an absolute right to do what we like with our property no
matter who else is suffering, and I don't believe that the only kind
of coercion is that which is done with a gun.
I don't think that any tyranny you want can be justified as soon as
you reject that premise. I have some principles which limit the
amount of power I am willing to allow the government:
1. It isn't the government's purpose to make us more moral people
(which it can't do anyway), but to try to prevent some of the worse
harm which could come to people in its absence. So it should be
limited to preventing force and fraud and providing some services
which people couldn't provide as well for themselves.
2. We have to remain free to change the government. So the
government should not be able to harass its opponents.
3. Avoid giving the government power to control vague things.
4. It is dangerous for the government to be doing things secretly.
5. It is usually better to err on the side of too little government
than too much.
I could think of others, but that is the general idea. I think it is
important that the government's power be limited, and that we should
not accept every extension of government that can be supported by some
argument of benefit for most people. I think that our government now
has some power which I do not want it to have. But I don't believe
that government should be as limited as Keith believes it should be.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
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Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 86 11:11:33 pdt
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: cit-vax!mx.lcs.mit.edu!cit-vax
Subject: Welfare, unions and the marketplace III
From: Keith Lynch < kfl@mx.lcs.mit.edu>
I am not convinced that these people are unable to work.
Most of these fathers have split in order to make the mothers
eligible for these programs. Thus these programs are viciously
anti-family, and are responsible for the breakup of more families
than slavery.
You may not be convinced; try raising a child and working at the same
time. Your reason for no fathers is simply not correct (reference:
the Bill Moyers documentary to which I referred before).
We can argue endlessly about the causes of the current situation in
the ghettos; the fact is that it exists. It is a problem of children
who are underfed, and therefore underintelligent, since an adequate
diet is essential for proper brain development, having children of
their own. Welfare may have caused the problem, but ending welfare
will not cure it.
What about all the immigrants who came here with nothing, not
even speaking or reading English, and are now doing quite well?
This isn't just something that happened hundreds of years ago. At
work we had a party last week to celebrate the naturalization of
an employee who escaped from Laos on a boat three years ago. She
spoke no English...
Wonderful anecdote. (You have a habit of arguing with anecdotes.)
They prove nothing; moreover, you seem unwilling to admit that there
are people who work hard and get nowhere, preferring to think that
they either don't work hard or don't work correctly.
What WILL help is if we make crimes MORE exciting, i.e. if more
people are armed, burglary will soon become a thing of the past.
If more people are trained in self defense, there will be less
mugging.
For every time a gun is used by a private citizen to prevent a crime,
there are 4 suicides and 10 murders committed with guns by the owner
of that gun. A majority of the crimes committed with guns use guns
stolen from the homes of law-abiding citizens. Are you willing to
force gun owners to support families whose breadwinner is killed by
their gun, or to pay for day care for children whose mother is
murdered?
One thing that engenders crime is the high cost of illegal
drugs. If all drugs are legalized, the price will fall. Also,
there will be a lot fewer dangerous overdoses since the purity
will be much more standard.
Who protects me from those who commit crimes while under the influence
of drugs? We already have an enormous problem with drunk driving;
granted that the penalties aren't stiff enough, but there are probably
people who would not be discourage by anything short of capital
punishment for killing others while under the influence. And THAT
gives the government the most dangerous power of all--the power to
deprive its citizens of their lives.
(me): We already spend a larger percentage of our national wealth
on law enforcement, and have a larger percentage of our
population in prision, than any other democracy.
Sad but true. Juries need to be a lot more hardheaded. Most
juries today are willing to fall for any harebrained expert
testimony theory. For instance the case of that guy in San
Fransisco who got a very light sentence for murder because he was
under the influence of Hostess Twinkies (!). Or Patty Hearst, who
got a relatively light sentence for armed bank robbery because she
was 'brainwashed'.
I don't understand; you responded to my comment about having a lot of
people in prison by saying that we should have even MORE people in
prison, and for longer times. For what its worth: the "guy in San
Francisco" was Dan White; he committed suicide shortly after his
recent release from prison. Patty Hearst is now married to a prison
guard; she has not, so far as I know, committed any further crimes.
Some women have literally gotten away with murder by pleading
PMS (i.e. that time of month). That should do wonders for
women's rights.
Name one, please.
Is it any wonder that the crime rate and the incarceration rate
are both so high? Sentences should be much more uniform. The
chances of an innocent person being locked up must be reduced.
The chances of a guilty person going free must be reduced, but not
at the expense of the former.
How do you suggest we do this? Uniform sentences would require the
federal government to pass laws which would supersede the states'.
Ensuring that the innocent go free inevitably means that a few guilty
ones would as well.
On business:
Similarly, an employee or ex-employee can tag his employer as a
trouble spot. There are in fact several companies I would not
consider working for, simply because of what people who work there
have said about the working conditions. Symmetry.
Yes, but can you name a company whose owners were reduced to poverty
because no one would work for them? Many employees have been, which
was my point.
(me): In the book ... another explanation for the Great Depression.
There are many explanations. I firmly believe the libertarian
one.
If I see this book in paperback I will buy it. But I doubt
he has any evidence that will change my mind.
You may BELIEVE the libertarian one; I doubt you can prove it, or even
marshal much evidence in its support. The book I mentioned is
undoubtedly available in your local public library.
Before 1929, there was a regular crash every 20 to 30 years;
they called it the "business cycle." There hasn't been
another one since the New Deal.
Huh? What about all these random recessions? They don't
compare to the 1930s, but then neither did anything before 1929.
The difference between 1929 and previous busts was a matter of effect,
not size. Since, previous to 1929, most people were on farms, they
were in no danger of starving. By 1929, a fair number of people were
urban, and thus not self-sufficient in food production. The relative
change in the size of the economy was as large. The Dustbowl, one of
the worst droughts on record, was an unhappy coincidence.
Well, I am not too familiar with social classes. I try not to
think in those terms. But it was my understanding that the
working class, as contrasted with the middle class, has been
associated with unions.
And the large middle class supposedly dates back to the
renaissance.
Sorry, I was not precise. I use the term "middle class" as an
economic distinction; it is not the same as the bourgouisie, which
dates back to at least 1200, but consists of what we call
"businessmen" now. My point was that it was unions which transformed
the working class into what we now call the middle class in this
country--the citizen who earns near the median income of $25,000 or
so.
We avoided the socialism of Europe because of, not in spite
of, our labor unions.
Well, this is a classic arguing technique. FOO may be bad, but
it prevented BAR which is worse. Didn't the Nazis argue this
way...?
George Will (who I was quoting here) was making the point that our
labor unions are mainly capitalistic organizations who believe in the
free market, and who bargained directly with their employers for
higher wages, rather than going to the government to nationalize their
industries, as happened in Europe. He, and I, are not arguing that
labor unions are bad but better than the alternative. They are mainly
good things.
There may have been positive contributions many years ago. What
have they done recently? Anything to justify them having a
government supported monopoly status to the unquestioned detriment
of the rest of the economy?
Have their bad effects been sufficiently large that they should be
destroyed? Do you think it should be illegal for a group of workers
to voluntarily band together and go to their employer and say, "None
of us are going to come to work unless you give us all a raise?" This
is the essential function of a union.
Right. The average social security recipient is wealthier than
the average social security contributer.
Agreed. As I suggested, I think we can drop Social Security from this
discussion, since we seem to largely agree on its size, effects, and
injustice. One point: the reason that Social Security taxes are now
so high is that today's workers are paying both the benefits of
current retirees AND putting aside (albeit involuntarily) the money
for their own retirement. The system is currently projected to have a
10 trillion dollar surplus by 2010, which will be used to pay the
benefits of the then-retiring baby boomers. Of course, it will be
broke again 20 years later...
Why aren't the fathers [of mothers receiving welfare] paying
child support?
Because they either cannot be found or are indigent themselves.
Well, this was the original rationale for welfare. But it has
grown by orders of magnitude. Very few of the recipients are
widows and orphans.
But most of them are mothers with small children whose fathers fall in
the categories I gave above.
Those widows (and widowers) whose spouses left little money and
had no life insurance and which have no skills of their own can be
supported by voluntary donations. There really aren't that many
of them. Most jobs offer life insurance as a fringe benefit,
whether you need it or not.
What if yours doesn't?
And most wives have skills of their own, and have been working
outside the home for quite some time.
How is this relevant to today's welfare recipients as described
previously?
(me): We, as a society, have made the value judgement that such
people should not have to sell their homes and cars ... and
live in abject poverty ...
Whoa! Who is this 'society'? *I* never made any such value
judgement.
No, but you freely choose to live in a country in which the majority
of the citizens have.
I vehemently object to being taxed to
support people with wealthier lifestyles than me.
So do I, hence my objection to Social Security. I do NOT object to
the small fraction of my salary which goes to support those on
welfare.
If enough people feel strongly enough that these people deserve
handouts, then the needy WILL get enough. If enough people DON'T
feel that way, then by what right does OUR government take our
money and use it for these programs against our will?
"What, are there no poorhouses? Are the debtors' prisons
full?"--Scrooge
This seems to be the heart of your ideas in these postings--if I may
paraphrase, that taxation is theft, at least whenever the government
uses tax money for a purpose with which an individual does not agree.
I submit that by choosing to live in the United States (and it is a
free choice), you are agreeing to abide by all its laws, including
paying your taxes even if you don't agree with every purpose to which
those tax dollars are being put, purposes with which, ideally, a large
majority agrees. (As an aside, I disagree with the majority's choice
in the last election; I DON'T argue that choice was invalid or morally
indefensible.) Your difference with the mainstream is that you
disagree with the ways the vast majority of tax dollars are used. May
I suggest you either (1) move to another country, or (2) refuse to pay
that fraction of your taxes which you feel is improperly used.
Thoreau went to prison for non-payment of property taxes, which he
felt to be immoral; do libertarians do the same? Please don't call
taxation theft unless you are willing to resist said theft.
Other responsibilites, primarily work and family, prevent me from
continuing this dialogue further. You have enlightened me, and forced
me to put my own beliefs in some coherent form. I may even go check
out some libertarian books from the library and read further! Any
recommendations?
Steve
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End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 1 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 32
Today's Topics:
Technology, Research and the Free Market (2 msgs) &
Welfare &
Proprosed Privacy Amendment (2 msgs)
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Return-path: < campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 86 10:50:46 EDT
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU
Subject: Re: Why the US Post Office exists
Reply-to: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU
In article kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu writes:
> From: Jim Aspnes < asp@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
>
> The US Post Office exists, and (used to) lose money, because they
> will deliver a first-class letter anywhere in the United States
> for a nominal fee. No private mail company has ever claimed that
> it could provide the same universality of service at the same
> price as USPS.
>
> I think someone choosing to live outside the city should suffer
> (and enjoy) all the consequences of doing so. I don't see any reason
> why some customers should subsidize others. Or why taxpayers should
> subsidize either group.
Universal, inexpensive communications yield substantial benefits both
economically, and politically. Economic example: Sears Roebuck drew
most of its early growth from mail order business from rural
customers. Political example: affordable mails allowed rural people
to participate in political processes occurring hundreds (state
capitol) or thousands (Washington) of miles away. "Subsidizing" those
parts of the country where is is more expensive to operate than
private industry would like winds up costing everyone less in the long
run. The U.S. wouldn't be the world's premier agricultural region if
rural settlement hadn't been encouraged the way it was in the 19th
century. And despite all the self-righteous breast beating of
capitalist ideologues, the single biggest reason for the wealth of the
U.S. is not our economic system, but our agricultural and mineral
wealth, tapped by rural pioneers.
Without quoting from the original at length, let me recall that Keith
objected to telephone monopolies. Please recall that when telephones
first started, there WAS competition, and it DID NOT WORK. Businesses
often had to have three, four, or five phones on each desk, because
the private phone companies didn't interconnect. Recall also that
with the technology of the 19th century it was impractical to allow
more than one phone company to place wires on telephone poles in most
areas. They needed an actual pair between each subscriber and the
central office, and the wires were much larger then than they are now.
Telephones did not become successful, and never would have, until a
regulated monopoly was established with the charter of providing
universal service.
It is also important to note that telephone poles are located on
public property (the streets), which is "owned" (controlled) by local
governments. Thus, the local government should be allowed to
distribute access to the poles as they see fit. If the people don't
like it, they can vote in new local officials.
> There are some things that must be provided by a just society,
>
> There is no such entity as 'society'... [more objectivist blather
> follows]
Of course there is such an entity as 'society'. Just because it
cannot be precisely defined does not mean that it doesn't exist.
Does "your neighborhood" exist? Does the "middle class" exist?
Does "religion" exist? None of these can be exactly defined, yet
they all exist.
Here's the dictionary definition most relevant to this discussion: "A
group of human beings broadly distinguished from other groups by
mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships,
shared institutions, and a common culture." Of course there are many
overlapping societies in which one may be said to be a member; I am a
member of the "societies" of the town of Maynard, the state of
Massachusetts, the Greater Boston area, the American northeast, the
American middle class, and "western" society in general. Each of
these societies provides me with different benefits. My town provides
me with an educational system for my children, police protection,
roads, and yes, a cable TV monopoly. Western society provides me with
legal traditions, literature, religious institutions, international
law, and so on. It's sophomoric to claim that society doesn't exist.
Now, many objectivists and libertarians like to moan and groan about
how society has no right to "pick my pocket", or "force me to do
something". Balderdash. You are a member of any number societies
by virtue of being born and raised by them. If you don't like it,
fine, go live on a mountaintop and eat wild hickory nuts. But if you
expect to be able to participate in the advantages that society
provides -- culture, economic activity, safety, medicine -- none of
which you can provide all by yourself -- then you must also be willing
to contribute your share to society.
I was once an objectivist myself -- in high school. I grew out of it,
and most other objectivists I've known have, too. Objectivism (and
its cousin, libertarianism) are smugly self-satisfying -- just the
ticket for young people who are still struggling with the "leaving the
nest" syndrome and identity construction of adolescence. But they
cannot speak to the larger problems of human society one must face as
a fully functioning member of human civilization.
--
"There are two kinds of science: physics, and stamp collecting."
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
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Return-path: < tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU>
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Communities
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 86 10:45:12 -0800
From: Tim Shimeall < tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 22 Jul 86 22:30:25 EDT
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
> Subject: Technology, wealth, and liberty
> I assume you mean governments, not communities. There is no such
> thing as a community, only individuals, governments, and various
> voluntary organizations.
Community (ka-mu'-na-ti) n. a locality where people reside; people
having common interests; the public, or people in general; common
possession or enjoyment (L. communis)
(Webster's Dictionary, 1966 edition)
Taking the above definition, it is OBVIOUS that communities (in some
senses of the word) exist. I don't think you'd dispute the first
meaning listed (localities). It is the other meanings I'd like to
deal with here:
People frequently bind together in groups sharing common interests. I
assert that there are two types of such groups: voluntary communities,
and involuntary communities. Voluntary communities (using the
definition above) are any collection of people sharing common
interests. It thus makes sense to speak of the community of people
who read POLI-SCI, or the community which supports US space efforts.
I assume that this is parallel to the "voluntary organizations" in
your message. The point where I disagree with you is the existence
of involuntary communities.
An involuntary community is one in which the alternative to
participation is the loss of highly valued personal attributes, such
as life, personal liberty (lost through imprisonment), etc. Such
communities exist. One example is the community of citizens. One
can move between parts of this community (by changing allegiance from
one government to another) but one cannot choose to abstain from
participating in this community (be the citizen of no country, to the
point of refusing to obey any country's laws at will) without
suffering substantial penalties.
Involuntary communities exist because it is deemed desirable to
absolutely forbid certain types of behavior. Whether or not they
SHOULD exist is open to debate. The fact that they DO exist is
not an issue.
As always, I await your thoughtful reply.
Tim
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Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, 29 July 1986 20:13:25 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Cc: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: welfare
1. You are confusing Reagan and Regan with regard to the women and
jewelry (not diamonds) comment.
2. The statement that fathers split to make the mother eligible for
means-tested benefits is highly dubious. Most of those on welfare are
unwed teenage mothers, or divorcees. Many states have welfare laws
designed to keep the husband around in a married couple, and the
federal government has taken action recently (seen somewhere in the
New York Times) to force other states to change their laws so that
they do not cause family breakup. The fathers in the unwed mother
case don't split since they were never around. They don't have any
money anyway. Remember the high black teenage unemployment rate? The
divorcees can get off welfare when their ex-husbands start providing
child support.
3. Massachusetts has had a workfare program for a number of years, as
has Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania program isn't so good since it
doesn't really provide training, and has too much of a make-work
element. The Massachusetts program has been relatively successful at
getting people off welfare with a combination of welfare, training,
and work.
4. Most pension plans have unfunded future liabilities. Since there
are about 105 million working and at least 26 million retired
Americans, it is hardly surprising that there is a $10T liability, or
about $95,000 per working person. That comes to $9500 a year if you
are retired for 10 years. There's no problem if you make sure that
there is sufficient surplus built up to handle potential future
deficits. For example, a surplus is building now to handle the
deficit that will come when Baby Boomers retire. This surplus is
being generated by those Baby Boomers. By changing the law, you
ensure that you can always cover the liability. The law has already
been changed so that the retirement age will rise to 67, and taxes
will increase. Future liability is increasing, but so are the taxes
to pay for it. Current retirees got a good deal. Future retirees
won't get a good deal because their money could have been earning
higher interest in savings accounts. The Social Security system is no
longer a pyramid scheme, since a long-term plan to reconcile taxes and
payments is in place. Future economic developments may require
adjustments (as has been necessary in the past), but I don't see how
you can predict collapse.
A separate issue for the long-term future is one raised by Nils
Nilsson in the Summer 1984 issue of AI Magazine. If productivity
keeps on increasing even at relatively low rates, we may find it
difficult to consume all the goods and services produced. Longer
schooling and earlier retirement help some, but only for so long. If
this situation comes true, then we may be lowering, rather than
increasing, the retirement age 100 years from now.
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Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 86 23:20:39 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Proposed amendment
To: Hoffman.es@XEROX.COM
Cc: KIN%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
I prefer to keep constitutional amendments as simple as possible.
How about the following:
The United States and no state shall make any law
pertaining to private activities of informed, consenting
persons. Activities are deemed private unless involving a
clear and present danger to uninformed or non-consenting
others.
This intentionally does not define "informed", "consenting", or
"person". I would like to think that our thoughts about these
terms are evolving and improving over time.
Lawyers and legislators manage to find invisible loopholes in the
most lucid prose. Look at how they have managed to interpert away the
second amendment!
The main problem is 'clear and present danger'. This can be used to
justify sodomy laws (to prevent spread of AIDS), drug laws (to prevent
people from harming others while they are on drugs and not able to
control their actions), prohibition of alcohol (on the same grounds as
drugs), and prohibition of pornography (on the grounds that it
(according to Meese) causes people to commit violent sex crimes).
'Informed' is another loophole. It can be argued that certain
actions are so irrational that the person performing them must
necessarily either be not informed or not sane.
Also, do you think people should be allowed to play very loud music
outdoors at 2 am? It certainly ruins a lot of people's sleep, but is
it a clear and present danger? What about shining spotlights into
people's windows at night? What about a peeping tom? What is the
clear and present danger there?
...Keith
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Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, 29 July 1986 23:49:11 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
To: hoffman.es@xerox.com
Subject: proprosed privacy amendment
What are "others?" Is a person a human being, a mammal, an animal, a
vertebrate, plant, or what? Can you screw your dog under this
amendment? How about torture your cat? What is "a clear and present
danger?" Is smoking in front of your kids a clear and present danger
since they are much more likely to get sick? What about whipping your
kids hard enough to scar them, but not kill them? Is that a clear and
present danger? If you screw your dog at night in the living room
with the lights on and curtains open, is this private, assuming
screwing your dog is allowed with the curtains closed? (The Supreme
Court has ruled that you would have no exceptation of privacy if you
can be easily seen from the street, a plane, etc). What about incest?
Is the possibility of a deformed child a clear and present danger?
What if the female's on the pill?
This proposed amendment seems so vague that it could be stretched to
conflict with many existing widely-accepted laws, such as cruelty to
animals or child abuse. I think to be useful, the privacy must fit in
with the rest of the bill of rights and the existing set of
widely-accepted laws.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 1 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 33
Today's Topics:
Governments and Monopolies &
Wealth and Property (3 msgs) &
Speaking in Tongues &
Proprosed Privacy Amendment (2 msgs)
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Return-path: < fagin%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 09:56:26 PDT
From: fagin%ji@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: anti-trust
John Mills writes, in reply to Keith Lynch:
> Monopolies can and would form under PURE capitalism. That is
> why we have anti-trust laws.
> Once a large, wealthy person or business
> controls most of a market, it is relatively easy to keep your
> current market share and get most of the rest.
Evidence please. If you're familiar with an example of a
monopoly that existed in the US without government assistance,
please tell us about it. And I'll save you the trouble: don't
use AT&T, U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, or the railroads as examples.
Believers in antitrust fail to understand the terrible
consequences of allowing the political marketplace to pronounce
judgements on economic associations. Over 80% of all antitrust
cases are between competing firms and do not involve the federal
government. This suggests that the real purpose of antitrust
law is to permit businesses to use the legal arena to avoid
competition, and not to prevent monopolies.
And when the feds jump in, they never apply any meaningful
standard to judge whether or not an industry is monopolized.
How could they? Consider the wording of the Sherman Act, which
prohibits "unfair restraint of trade". This is so
ambiguous that it's meaningless. If company X is charging a price
that the powers that be feel is to high, they're obviously
charging higher than the "market" price, and are monoplizing
the industry. If company X is charging a price perceived to
be to low, company X is engaging in "predatory" pricing and
is attempting to monopolize. (In cases like this, it is
usually competing companies that bring the suit). And
if company X is charging what everybody else charges,
then they're ALL engaging in a "shared monopoly", whatever
that is.
The Sherman and Clayton Acts should be repealed. They've
screwed the consumer ever since the turn of the century.
Barry Fagin
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 30 July 1986 00:07:10 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: wealth
This concentration of wealth is rediscovered or commented upon every
so often. While a significant fraction is controlled by the old
family fat cats that might come to mind, a large part of it is simply
due to the fact that wealth is a magnification of income differences.
The more you make, the more you can proportionately save and invest.
A recent study of wealth among blacks and whites makes this obvious.
If you consider that the average income is something like $25,000, and
some people have incomes of several million dollars per year, then the
people at the top are earning 40 or more times the average. The
amount available for saving and investment is probably double that.
So is it any surprise that the top 0.5% holds 33% of the assets? If
the top 0.5% earn $1M, and the other 99.5% earn $25,000, then my
simple analysis implies the top 0.5% holds 29% of the assets, which is
close to the actual value.
The issue then is the range in incomes, rather than the range in
wealth. Is it wrong that this huge range exists? Should taxes siphon
it off? I would claim that for the most part, these incomes reflect
value provided to the employer or customers. If anything, I would
claim that we don't see enough variation. It is well-known that some
programmers are ten times more productive than others, but I don't see
a 10:1 range in pay scales. Is it wrong for Sam Walton to amass $4B
with the success of WalMart stores? I know several people that became
millionares by founding a small company that grew big. They certainly
took a big risk, and provided their customers with value at least as
great as their wealth. I say don't begrudge their success.
------------------------------
Return-path: < campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 01:13:59 EDT
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: Communities
Reply-to: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU (Larry Campbell)
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
> What if you were part of a group, a community if you prefer, and it
> is decided that henceforth everyone is to divide all their money
> equally. Since, lets say, you have more money than everyone else in
> the group put together, and since you worked very hard for many years
> spending as little as possible to earn that money, you probably
> wouldn't be too pleased with the decision. You would probably even
> be willing to permanently leave the group rather than give up your
> hard earned wealth. But you are informed that that is not a
> choice...
> ...Keith
Ahh, but that *is* a choice. You are perfectly free to empty your
bank accounts, convert all your dollars to lumps of gold, and go live
alone in a cave for the rest of your life. In fact, many of us would
be quite pleased if you did.
--
"There are two kinds of science: physics, and stamp collecting."
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 30 July 1986 10:21:58 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: running down property
Anyone who thinks that owners won't run down property have had either
limited experience or incredible luck with landlords. If the landlord
truly cared about long-term value, or leaving the best possible
property for their kids, they would keep it up. In fact I have had
landlords whose conscious policy was to run an apartment into the
ground, so that ideally it had zero value on the day they died. Not
all landlords are like this, but some are. In some cases, running
into the ground means destroying the value of the land for a long
time, such as creating a bogus toxic waste dump. It only takes one in
a long string of owners to do this.
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Wed 30 Jul 86 21:52:01-EDT
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: "Good" english ???? Grrrrrrr!
Keith Lynch writes:
> At work we had a
> party last week to celebrate the naturalization of an employee who
> escaped from Laos on a boat three years ago. She spoke no English
> then, but now speaks better than a lot of inner city types who have
> lived in the US all their life.
Who says that the English spoken by "inner city types" is worse than
that spoken by anyone else?!?! Different, yes. To those of us
fortunate enough to have received a good deal of education, it sounds
"bad" because it is different from what we were taught is "good". But
that definition is in the eyes (ears?) of whoever is teaching it.
The purpose of language is to communicate with others. People within
the inner city, speaking this "deficient" English, can communicate
with others very clearly. But because you or i have a difficult time
understanding it, does that make it inferior? Go to England sometime,
and be amazed at all of the "deficient" speakers of English there!!
Several British people i know could not understand a word that Jimmy
Carter said the entire time that he was President. Does that mean his
English is "inferior"? Or is it theirs?
joe testa
testa-j%osu-20@ohio-state.arpa
"the next time that you are tempted to run into a moviehouse and yell
'fire', you should instead run into a firehouse and yell 'movie'. "
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM>
Date: 30 Jul 86 09:39:21 PDT (Wednesday)
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Proposed amendment
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Cc: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM, KIN%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
I had proposed a trial wording for a privacy amendment:
The United States and no state shall make any law pertaining
to private activities of informed, consenting persons.
Activities are deemed private unless involving a clear and
present danger to uninformed or non-consenting others.
From: Keith Lynch
The main problem is 'clear and present danger'.
This can be used to justify sodomy laws (to
prevent spread of AIDS), drug laws (to prevent
people from harming others while they are on
drugs and not able to control their actions),...
and prohibition of pornography (on the grounds
that it (according to Meese) causes people to
commit violent sex crimes).
I completely disagree with your first objection. Any anti-sodomy law
would be unconstitutional under the proposed amendment insofar as it
pertained to informed and consenting parties. That is, if both
parties to sodomy are informed (including informed about AIDS) and
consent anyway, no law could touch them. On the other hand, it would
probably permit a law saying that both parties to consensual sodomy
would have to swear to being informed about AIDS risks. Well, I'd
allow that. I'm all for information!
As to drugs, I certainly do NOT intend to wipe out drunk driving laws,
for example. That is, I DO wish to "prevent people from harming
others while they are on drugs" to the extent that such harm is
reasonably forseeable. What I want to prohibit are laws against
private drug use, and I think the proposed amendment would do that.
As to porn, I love it. And I think any anti-porn laws should be
outlawed by the First Amendment. (Yes, I know the courts think
otherwise.) In any case, I definitely had such things in mind when I
used the "clear and present danger" phrase. I don't think the Meese
commission showed any such danger. They SAID there is a danger, but
they couldn't and can't back it up.
From: Keith Lynch
'Informed' is another loophole. It can be argued
that certain actions are so irrational that the person
performing them must necessarily either be not informed
or not sane.
Hmm. I would like to see the state forced to take my word for it if I
said I knew what I was doing, including facts about A, B, C, ..., and
Z. Now if they think I'm insane, that's a separate issue to be tried.
From: Keith Lynch
Also, do you think people should be allowed to play
very loud music outdoors at 2 am? ... What about
shining spotlights into people's windows at night?
What about a peeping tom?
No. No. What about one?
I think overly loud music forced upon me (at any time) IS a clear
danger to me. (Note that a club could have it, since I can enter and
leave as I wish.) Same about a spotlight. As for a peeping tom,
you're right, there could be no laws against one; what's the problem?
My amendment certainly doesn't prohibit laws against trespassing or
the like. If you wish to permit others on your property, but you
don't want them looking in your window, it's your responsibility to
use your curtains. If you don't want them on your property at all,
that's certainly your right.
-- Rodney Hoffman
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM>
Date: 30 Jul 86 09:52:30 PDT (Wednesday)
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: proprosed privacy amendment
To: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
From: Hank.Walker
What are "others?" Is a person a human being,
a mammal, an animal, a vertebrate, plant, or what?
Can you screw your dog under this amendment? How
about torture your cat?... What about whipping
your kids ....?
I said originally that our thoughts about [terms like "person"] are
evolving and improving over time. Here's a quote I like (it's been
lightly edited):
From Richard Rorty's book, "Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature":
Personhood is a matter of decision rather than knowledge, an
acceptance of another being into fellowship rather than a
recognition of a common essence.
Knowledge of what pain is like or what red is like is attributed
to beings on the basis of their potential membership in the
community. Thus babies and the more attractive sorts of animal are
credited with "having feelings" rather than (like machines or
spiders) "merely responding to stimuli." To say that babies know
what heat is like, but not what the motion of molecules is like is
just to say that we can fairly readily imagine them opening their
mouths and remarking on the former, but not the latter. To say that
a gadget that says "red" appropriately *doesn't* know what red is
like is to say that we cannot readily imagine continuing a
conversation with the gadget.
Attribution of pre-linguistic awareness is merely a courtesy
extended to potential or imagined fellow-speakers of our language.
Moral prohibitions against hurting babies and the better looking
sorts of animals are not based on their possessions of feeling. It
is, if anything, the other way around. Rationality about denying
civil rights to morons or fetuses or robots or aliens or blacks or
gays or trees is a myth. The emotions we have toward borderline
cases depend on the liveliness of our imagination, and conversely.
Now torture is a clear and present danger to the "other".
Non-consensual violence, including sexual violence, is also. Are
animals "others"? I'd say so personally, but I'm content to let
"society" struggle with the evolving definition of that term.
From: Hank.Walker
This proposed amendment seems so vague that it could
be stretched to conflict with many existing widely-
accepted laws, such as cruelty to animals or child abuse.
Huh? How does it conflict? If anything, it strengthens such laws.
From: Hank.Walker
I think to be useful, the privacy must fit in with the
rest of the bill of rights and the existing set of
widely-accepted laws.
Of course. I proposed it as an AMENDMENT, not as an entire complete
constitution.
-- Rodney Hoffman
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 1 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 34
Today's Topics:
The Courts and Rights &
The Death penalty &
Property rights
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
From: Eyal mozes < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 20:08:49 -0200
Subject: the courts and rights
Cc: kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu
In message < 12226107001.23.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> , Keith F. Lynch
writes:
> 2) Try to get a constitutional amendment. The Constitution is what
> the Court has to follow. The Court doesn't really have all that
> much power. If there was an amendment saying that people have to
> wear green hats on Tuesdays, the Court would have to live with
> that, they couldn't overrule it.
>
> Good thing this court was not around during the Lincoln era, eh?
>
> Well, slavery was perfectly legal where states did not have laws
> against it. Until the 13th amendment was added to the Constitution.
> And it really wasn't up to the Court. The Dred Scott decision is
> ridiculed today, but it was the only decision the Court could have
> come to at the time, given the Constitution as it existed.
> The Supreme Court does NOT have the power to eliminate BAD laws.
> It has the power to eliminate UNCONSTITUTIONAL laws. Not the same
> thing at all.
Well, that's not true. There are many cases in which the court's
interpretation of what is or is not constitutional depends on the
ideology of the judge. The constitution contains several general
statements guaranteeing individual rights; such statements can indeed
be used to eliminate bad laws (if a bad law is one that infringes on
individual rights).
One obvious example is the ninth amendment: "the enumeration in the
constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people". Historically, very few court
decisions refer to this amendment; but if judges referred to it more,
and interpreted it according to its original intent as a general
protection of individual rights, then many laws violating individual
rights would have been eliminated. This amendment could have been used
to make slavery illegal right from the start, and it could certainly
have been used to reverse the Dred Scott decision.
Another important (and historically more influential) example is the
statement, in the fifth amendment, that no person shall be "deprived
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". What does
it mean to be "deprived of property?" Should we regard laws such as
rent control, occupational licensing, or minimum wages - which
restrict people in the use of their property - as depriving them of
their property? If so, then this deprivation is clearly without due
process of law, and is therefore unconstitutional, and these laws can
be eliminated by the courts. This is known as the "substantive due
process" interpretation; it was applied in most relevant decisions up
to the New Deal, and a good case can be made (and is made, for
example, by Bernard Siegan in his book "Economic Liberties and the
Constitution") that this was the original intent of the statement. But
today, as we all know, it is interpreted quite differently.
In recent years, we are witnessing a lively debate between the
conservative, Reagan-appointed judges and the older, liberal judges,
about the doctrine of "judicial restraint", i.e., about whether the
courts should play an active role in protecting rights or allow
congress and the administration a free hand. But both sides in the
debate are really obscuring the issue, by package-dealing two distinct
principles. I quote from an editorial in Barron's National Business
and Financial Weekly, November 25, 1985 (by the way, the editorials in
Barron's, written by Dr. David Kelley, are an excellent source of
timely, well-reasoned political commentary from a consistently
pro-individual-rights point of view): 'The philosophy of judicial
restraint actually contains two principles. One is the "jurisprudence
of original intent" - the idea that judges should be bound by the
literal language of the constitution and the intent of the framers.
The other is the doctrine of judicial restraint itself: judges should
defer wherever possible to the executive and legislative branches ...
in fact the principles are distinct; indeed, they are incompatible.
.... The objection to the liberal activists in the courts is not their
excessive zeal for individual rights, but their tendency to create
bogus new "rights", which, like bad money, are driving out the real
ones. ... In the circumstances, what the country needs is a judiciary
that will be MORE active in protecting rights. Judicial restraint will
make it harder, not easier, to trim the government back to something
resembling the vision of the framers'.
Eyal Mozes
BITNET: eyal@wisdom
CSNET and ARPA: eyal%wisdom.bitnet@wiscvm.ARPA
UUCP: ...!ihnp4!talcott!WISDOM!eyal
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 23:01:18 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Death penalty
To: david@RICE.EDU
From: David Callahan < david@rice.edu>
Can you reference any study which establishes that the death
penaly deters crime (particularly murder)? This is an often stated
defence of capital punishment which is seldom backup up with
evidence.
No I can't.
I oppose the death penalty. You were reading that comment of mine
out of context.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 22:58:50 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Property rights
To: dab@BORAX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: KIN%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: dab@BORAX.LCS.MIT.EDU (David A. Bridgham)
The value of something in a capitalistic system is only that value
which can be gotten from it in the market place.
Not true. In a capitalist system, the value of something is
whatever the owner decides it is. If the owner of a piece of land
decides that the deer that live on the land are worth more than what
developers are willing to pay for the land, then they cannot compel
him to sell it.
The life that used to live [on Manhattan] had no free market value
and so was swept aside to make room for that which did.
What do you perceive the value of wildlife as being? Manhattan is
just one small island. Do you really think the world would be a
better place if it had been left wilderness? A few extra square miles
of wilderness rather than a wealthy city? Is development EVER
justified, or should all land remain in a state of wilderness? If
development is never justified, does this mean people shouldn't build
houses, but should huddle in caves or perhaps in trees (if they are
careful not to damage the trees)? If development is sometimes
justified, how does one decide when? In a free system, the owner of
the land decides when it is justified. In a socialist system, the
government does. In a fascist system, industries and/or individuals
favored by the government get to decide. Which of these do you
advocate?
I view capitalism as people
fighting it out in the market place (competitively not physically)
with their only goal being to succeed in the system.
People have many different goals. Capitalism is the only system
that allows people to pursue any goal they please (except the goal of
harming others).
Most of us do not wish to become millionaires. At least, we don't
wish for it to such an extent that we are willing to sacrifice to the
extent necessary. I value free time and friendship more than money.
If I had less money, I might value money more. If I had more, I might
value it less. But in no case would I value money to such an extent
that I was willing to give up everything else to gain more of it.
Consider people who win millions in lotteries. Most of them do not
change their habits very much. Most of them do not even quit their
jobs, however little those jobs pay.
There is no explicit desire ... to destroy the environment, but
neither is there any reason not to.
There are as many reasons not to as there are people who choose not
to. It is up to each individual how important the wilderness is. The
wilderness has no chance of being preserved unless some people value
it. Obviously, many people do. Including you and I. Does it really
make any sense to say that people as a group oppose destruction of
wilderness but people as individuals do not? Why should it be up to
government at all? Government didn't create wilderness, government
(usually) doesn't destroy wilderness. What does government have to do
with it at all?
So I am not proposing abandoning capitalism just yet; I don't have
anything to replace it with. I'm just pointing out the problems
with this system as I see them. Do you really believe that
capitalism is the ultimate economic system? There can be no
better?
Well, it depends on what is meant by better. Two obvious
definitions:
1) Providing the greatest happiness and fullfilment for the greatest
number of people.
2) Providing the greatest liberty to the greatest number of people.
I don't think capitalism has any competition under either
definition.
I can conceive of a possible future competitor under category 1. I
can imagine that someday a supercomputer will be built that is
completely benevolent and has such intelligence and mental capacity
that it is as familiar with each person as the person's closest
friends. In fact, the system would BE many people's closest friend.
This system would then be able to figure out what the optimal
distribution of resources would be. It would tell you that someone
would come by to take away your new stereo, but you wouldn't object,
because you would know that you will soon be told to take something of
even greater value (to you) from someone else. The computer would
tell you where to work and what to do there.
If such a thing could ever be built and programmed, and if it could
somehow be guaranteed to always be benevolent, never break down, be
sabotage-proof, be cracker-proof, etc, etc, then I might believe that
it could result in a higher degree of total personal happiness in the
world. Assuming that people of the future do not mind being treated
like children.
Nevertheless, even if such a thing were to be possible someday, I
would still oppose it. The value of personal liberty is inestimable.
While it might succeed at criterion 1, it would certainly fail at
criterion 2. And it would prevent any possibility of future
innovation, unless we assume that it is smarter in every way and more
creative in every way than every person alive put together and every
person ever to be born EVER, put together. I don't know how we could
possibly know that, even if it was true. And if it WAS true, I would
find it a source of sorrow, not joy. There would be no possible
purpose in life. One might as well have a circuit wired to one's
pleasure center and spend one's final hours in total ecstacy plugged
into the wall socket, not noticing that one is dying for lack of food
and water.
In socialism, the government takes the place of my hypothetical
supercomputer. Needless to say, it does a pretty poor job of it. If
a government could somehow be more intelligent in every way and more
knowledgable in every way than all of the citizens put together, and
if it is also benevolent (unlike every socialist state I have heard
of) then maybe you could have a socialist system that is as good as a
capitalist system. Except that that most important element -
freedom - would be missing.
People who argue against capitalism often say something like "FOO
should be done, < describe at length why the lack of FOO is bad> and
capitalism won't do it". This is pointless unless they also explain
why no free person or voluntary organization would ever do FOO (even
though FOO is essential!), and why a government would NECESSARILY do
FOO, even if none of the people the government consists of or
represents would ever do FOO.
Much more likely is that we pollute the earth so bad that it can
no longer support us. Lack of potable water is already a serious
problem in many places ...
The rarer clean water gets, the more valuable it is, and the more
incentive people have to not pollute it. Same with every other
threatened resource.
I haven't noticed any lack of clean water, despite being in the
middle of a rare drought. I know that there are water shortages out
west, where large government water programs provide farmers with
enormous amounts of water for less than market value. Is it any
wonder that consumption goes up and supply goes down?
Relying on a very few highly hybridized strains of food crops has
a high potential for lossage due to epidemic, ...
Right. For instance the Irish Potato famine in the 1840s. This
lesson has been learned, and I don't think this sort of thing is a
major problem anymore.
But apparently the same problem exists in some animals and right
now there is such a disease hitting many of the chickens on the
east coast.
I haven't noticed any increase in chicken prices lately.
In truth, I don't see the whole human race being eradicated by
any of these. I do see the population being drastically and
forceably reduced.
By increased chicken prices? By more expensive water in the west?
The only real pollution disaster in the past ten years was the
accident in India. I don't want to make light of the death of 2500,
but do you really think one such accident a decade, or even one such
accident a week, could wipe out or even seriously reduce the world
population?
This may sound very strange to someone who thinks in old
movie cliches, but I firmly believe that people now are living
in closer harmony with nature than ever before.
Name calling? Sigh. You're right though, it does sound
strange. Milk comes from a cardboard carton, meat is just food
you buy at the store not the flesh of a once living animal
Yes, this is in closer harmony with nature. Nature does not consist
merely of trees and cobwebs and quicksand and mosquitos. Pasteurizing
milk is the best way to come to terms with the natural bacteria found
naturally in natural milk. Air conditioning is based on the same
natural laws that cooling by sweating is based on. Having meat pre-
packaged and sometimes even pre-cooked is a natural division of
natural human labor, allowing more people to have more time to do
other things than butchering.
When people are happy and comfortable, we are living in harmony with
nature. When people are starving and miserable and dying of disease
and opression, we are not living in harmony with nature. It makes no
difference either way whether it is done in a tent or in a skyscraper.
It's the same nature either way, and one ignores the laws of nature at
one's own extreme peril.
(and most people can make no sense at all of the suggestion that
plants are the same way), ...
Surely you aren't saying it is unnatural to eat plants and animals.
Animals do it, so it must be natural.
What would you suggest people eat instead?
In order for land to be preserved, it must be in someone's
interest to do so. You don't come out and say it, but you
obviously think that someone should be the government. I
don't.
That is obvious only to you my friend. I don't come out and say
it because I don't believe it. I don't trust the government to do
*anything* right.
Then who should do it? You say that wilderness must be preserved,
and you claim that freely acting indivuduals and voluntary
organizations (i.e. capitalism) will not preserve it. Who else will
do the preserving but government? Who are you saying should do it?
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 4 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 35
Today's Topics:
Welfare, Unions and the Free Market
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 22:13:45 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Welfare, unions and the mareketplace III
To: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
You may not be convinced; try raising a child and working at the
same time.
Plenty of people do just that.
If population is too high, people will stop having as many children-
IF they have to bear the full costs of raising the children.
Your reason for no fathers is simply not correct (reference: the
Bill Moyers documentary to which I referred before).
Sorry, I didn't watch that (or any) TV program. Could you please
use books and magazines as references?
Welfare may have caused the problem, but ending welfare will not
cure it.
It may not cure anything, but it will prevent making things worse.
My main point was not that welfare does the opposite of what it is
supposed to do, though it does. My main point is that welfare is
theft from those who have to pay the taxes for it. Welfare
contributions should be voluntary.
(You have a habit of arguing with anecdotes.)
Real life is made up of millions of anecdotes. YOU have a habit of
arguing from TV shows. Is that where you get all your information?
... moreover, you seem unwilling to admit that there are people
who work hard and get nowhere, preferring to think that they
either don't work hard or don't work correctly.
In the vast majority of cases this is indeed the case. But my main
point is that even if someone does work hard and get nowhere (and by
working hard I include working SMART, i.e. find another job if your
current job (or career path) appears to be a dead end) but I do not
think that it is MY fault, so I don't see why I should pay the person.
And if it's just his perception that he is underpaid, or that the
job offers he is getting are beneath his dignity, well, things are
tough all over. I would like to be an astronaut and a millionaire.
That doesn't mean other hard working people have to pay me because I
am neither.
For every time a gun is used by a private citizen to prevent a
crime, there are 4 suicides and 10 murders committed with guns by
the owner of that gun.
I have seen this before, and I thought it had been given a decent
burial. It seems bogus statistics always come back to haunt us.
Lets see if I can't shoot it down (ahem). What constitutes
preventing a crime with a gun?
1) A person who was considering a life of crime decides otherwise when
he realizes how many people are armed. If he would have committed
a burglary per week for 50 years, that is over 2,500 crimes
prevented with guns. And how many of those do you count? Zero.
2) A burglar is captured at gunpoint by a resident. He serves a
twenty year sentence. How many of the perhaps one thousand crimes
prevented do you count? One.
3) A hundred muggers stop mugging having read of five muggers being
shot by their intended victim in a subway. Figuring one mugging
per day for twenty years, over 700,000 crimes have been prevented.
Many of those 700,000 muggings would have been murders. How many
do you count? One.
4) A robber is shot by the cashier. Who can say how many crimes the
robber would have committed? Who can say how many robbers stop
robbing after hearing of the shooting? Who can say how many
potential robbers decide that crime isn't worth it, and go on to
make major contributions to the world? But in your statistics,
this counts as just one crime prevented. Perhaps not even one,
if the crime was completed before the robber was shot.
5) If an invasion of the US is deterred by people being armed, does
that count as a crime being prevented? As just one crime?
6) If a revolution is deterred by people being armed, does that count
as a crime being prevented?
Many of the murders and all of the suicides could have been
committed without guns.
In Switzerland, every adult owns a gun. The murder rate is very low
there, much lower that in the US. There are few burglaries and few
other crimes. And the Nazis didn't even THINK of invading
Switzerland, despite having invaded or being allied with every
bordering country.
What would you have as a penalty for gun ownership? Surely not life
in prison. Five years maybe? Well, the possibility of a five year
sentence is almost certainly going to keep innocent people from owning
guns. But is it going to keep criminals from owning guns? When they
know that the crimes they plan to commit with those guns carry much
more serious sentences? I doubt it. Any such law would have
precisely the opposite effect from the effect desired.
Perhaps you think that if laws are passed, guns will go away. This
isn't going to happen. Plenty of guns will be available overseas. We
haven't been able to stop drugs, why should we be able to stop guns?
And they aren't that hard to make. Working guns have been constructed
by PRISONERS in the penitentiary! Use some sense.
Are you willing to force gun owners to support families whose
breadwinner is killed by their gun, or to pay for day care
for children whose mother is murdered?
If THE OWNER shot the breadwinner, certainly! If the breadwinner
was shot with a stolen gun, of course not. The person who pulled the
trigger is responsible.
If someone steals your car and runs over someone, are you
responsible? A lot more people are killed by cars than by guns!
But even if all the facts were on the side of the anti-gun nuts,
which they aren't, the most important consideration of all is simply
one of freedom. As long as someone is doing no harm, the government
has no business regulating his behavior. Guns are power. It is a
very bad sign when a government disarms its citizens. Who is in
charge, anyway? If the government doesn't trust the population, it
should dissolve it and elect a new population. I mean, when and why
were we all judged incompetent?
Seriously, I consider it a grave insult to be told that I cannot be
trusted with firearms.
Who protects me from those who commit crimes while under the
influence of drugs?
If drugs are legalized, the price will drop enormously. Why should
marijuana be more expensive than tobacco? Since the price is so much
lower, addicts won't need to commit crimes to get the money for their
habit.
We already have an enormous problem with drunk driving;
Yes, but we DON'T have an enormous problem with drunks shooting
people to get money for their next fix. Alcohol is just as
mind-warping and just as addictive and just as destructive as any
other drug. Why is it different? Only because alcohol happens to be
legal and the other drugs don't.
What do you suggest be done about drunk driving? Prohibition has
been tried, and doesn't work. During prohibition, organized crime
flourished, and plenty of people were killed by poisonous alcoholic
drinks. Prohibition of drugs is having a similar effect. The only
logical response to drunk driving is severe penalties. That is also
the only logical response to drugged driving.
I don't understand; you responded to my comment about having a lot
of people in prison by saying that we should have even MORE people
in prison, and for longer times.
No, I was giving examples to show how completely random the justice
system is. I was giving examples of both extreme leniancy and extreme
severity. When being innocent is no guarantee that you won't go to
prison and being guilty is no guarantee that you will, and when it is
anyone's guess for how long in either case, prison is no deterrent.
For what its worth: the "guy in San Francisco" was Dan White; he
committed suicide shortly after his recent release from prison.
Perhaps if he had served a longer sentence he would feel he had
atoned for his crime and that he didn't have to kill himself. I know
that he was harassed by many people after he was released, but I doubt
that was the reason he killed himself - he could simply have moved to
another city.
Uniform sentences would require the federal government to pass
laws which would supersede the states'.
I don't favor mandatory sentence laws. Room must be left for the
judgement of the judge and the jury. What we need is more common
sense on the part of judges and juries.
Why do you automatically assume that such a law would have to be a
federal law rather than a state law?
Yes, but can you name a company whose owners were reduced to
poverty because no one would work for them? Many employees have
been, which was my point.
There have been a few. Can't think of the name of any at the
moment. But neither can I think of the name of any blacklisted
employees at the moment. But I don't doubt that there are a few of
them. Do you really think there are very many? In what fields?
Sorry, I was not precise. I use the term "middle class" as an
economic distinction; it is not the same as the bourgouisie, which
dates back to at least 1200, but consists of what we call
"businessmen" now.
Does anyone still use words like bourgousie and proletariat? I
thought they went out in the 1930s, if not earlier. I have no idea
which class I or anyone I know would be in. I don't think the terms
have much meaning.
Have [labor union's] bad effects been sufficiently large that they
should be destroyed?
No. Did I say they should be destroyed? I said that they should
not be given rights not shared by their individual members.
Do you think it should be illegal for a group of workers to
voluntarily band together and go to their employer and say, "None
of us are going to come to work unless you give us all a raise?"
No. Do you think it should be illegal for the employer to say "get
back to work right now or you are all fired"? As happened with the
air traffic controllers strike?
The [social security] system is currently projected to have a 10
trillion dollar surplus by 2010, ...
This is bogus accounting. They don't have a surplus unless it is
possible to end the social security tax and to continue to give social
security benefits to everyone who ever contributed, equal to at least
the amount (plus inflation) that they contributed. This is not even
close to possible. What they mean by surplus is if everyone continues
to pay taxes (to be increased as necessary) everyone retired will
continue to get benefits. Even by that standard, I find ten trillion
dollars utterly incredible. Do you perhaps mean ten billion or ten
million?
Most jobs offer life insurance as a fringe benefit, whether
you need it or not.
What if yours doesn't?
Well, what if it doesn't? How does that make it MY problem, why
should *I* (and other taxpayers) have to pay? If I am insured, I am
already (voluntarily) paying for benefits for contributers who have
died. I should also contribute (involuntarily) for benefits for
people who didn't bother to pay anything themselves?
And most wives have skills of their own, and have been working
outside the home for quite some time.
How is this relevant to today's welfare recipients as described
previously?
It explodes the stereotype that a woman without a man is helpless
and needs financial aid to survive.
I vehemently object to being taxed to
support people with wealthier lifestyles than me.
So do I, hence my objection to Social Security. I do NOT object
to the small fraction of my salary which goes to support those on
welfare.
But don't you think it should be up to you? You don't object, but
don't you think you have the RIGHT to object? What if it increases
slowly but steadily each year, faster than your salary increases. At
what point do you object? Do you think you should have any say so at
all? Or do you consider your paycheck to be government property, to
be picked over by the bureaucrats and the remainder tossed to you when
they are finished with it?
"What, are there no poorhouses? Are the debtors' prisons
full?"--Scrooge
Please do not assume I am a Scrooge just becuase I think that a
person should have control over their wealth. I am not advocating
that they give none of it to the needy, I am advocating that it be
their choice how much to give to the needy, and to which needy. Just
as Scrooge freely chose to voluntarily donate some of his wealth near
the end of the book. (No, he was not coerced - he was merely shown
the natural results of his not doing so.) The book would have been
quite different if the ghosts or the authorities were to have taken
his wealth by threat of force.
This seems to be the heart of your ideas in these postings--if I
may paraphrase, that taxation is theft, at least whenever the
government uses tax money for a purpose with which an individual
does not agree.
Yep.
I submit that by choosing to live in the United States (and it is
a free choice), you are agreeing to abide by all its laws, ...
I didn't say I was evading taxes. I just think they are unjust.
What about when slavery was legal? It was illegal for a slave to
run away. Was it immoral too? Can there be no such thing as an
unjust law?
I may be agreeing to abide by the laws, but I am not agreeing to
agree with all the laws. Surely you think that people have a right to
complain about bad laws?
May I suggest you either (1) move to another country,
What other country? There are plenty of countries much further
along on the socialist path than the US. Are there any less far gone?
As far as I know the US government is the best national government in
the world. Which is not to say it can't be made better. Much better.
(And much smaller.)
or (2) refuse to pay that fraction of your taxes which you feel
is improperly used.
That would be all of it. Not that I object to all of the uses to
which it is put, and not that I wouldn't voluntarily give the same
amount of money to the same recipients. It is the whole idea of
involuntary taxation that is repugnant to me. It is nothing less
than armed robbery and partial slavery.
Thoreau went to prison for non-payment of property taxes, which he
felt to be immoral; do libertarians do the same?
Some do.
Please don't call taxation theft unless you are willing to resist
said theft.
Huh? What about someone who is robbed or raped. Did the fact that
they did not (lets say) resist their attacker mean that they consented
to the robbery or the rape?
I do not think that evading taxes would be a useful thing to do.
There would be too great a chance of being caught. If I was caught I
would be sent to a very unpleasant prison, and my motives would be
misunderstood. If not caught, I would live in fear of someday being
caught, and, since I would be hiding evidence of the cheating, it
wouldn't send any message to anyone.
Other responsibilites, primarily work and family, prevent me from
continuing this dialogue further.
I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps if you use a really good text
editor and practice rapid typing, a few hours each weekend would
suffice to continue the discussion?
You have enlightened me, and forced me
to put my own beliefs in some coherent form. I may even go check
Out some libertarian books from the library and read further! Any
recommendations?
Anything by Ayn Rand. _The_Moon_is_a_Harsh_Mistress_ by Robert
Heinlein. Anything by L. Neil Smith.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 37
Today's Topics:
Communities &
TV, Charity, Arms, Drugs &
Spelling &
Libertarianism (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 00:29:19 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Communities
To: tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU
From: Tim Shimeall < tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU>
An involuntary community is one in which the alternative to
participation is the loss of highly valued personal attributes,
such as life, personal liberty (lost through imprisonment), etc.
Such communities exist. ...
Yes. The Mafia is one. Nobody gets out alive.
The question is not whether such involuntary organizations exist.
They do. The question is whether they should exist.
My objection was to the use of the word 'community' when
'government' was meant. The word 'community' is so overused, and used
in so many different meanings, that I prefer to not to use the word.
And I object when others use the term without defining it.
Involuntary communities exist because it is deemed desirable to
absolutely forbid certain types of behavior.
Here is the problem. A non-member of an organization is exempt from
organization rules. But you are assuming that all rules are
organization rules. This is not true. Robbery, rape, and murder, for
instance, are objectionable not because there happen to be rules
against them, but because they are simply wrong. They are wrong in
that they violate individual's fundamental liberties, not in that they
violate an organizational rule.
This reasoning is understandable given the enormous number of
superfluous state, federal, and local laws that we have. Most of laws
encode no great moral truth, but are completely arbitrary. They
change from place to place and from time to time for no obvious
reason. These laws serve only to reduce respect for the law.
The Nuremberg trials are a good example. Many Nazis were given
severe sentences for actions that were not actually against the law
when and where they were performed. The Nuremberg judges correctly
asserted that these actions (mass murder, torture, etc) were
objectively wrong, and no law or lack of a law can ever make them ok.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 00:48:20 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: TV, Charity, Arms, Drugs
[ Having spent several years in front of both (and books), I find
that there is value in TV, you just have to go looking for it ...
I don't have infinite time. I have to pick and choose. I choose
not to watch TV (or listen to the radio (except for music and late
breaking news)) because:
1) I can read much faster than people speak. Spoken english is mostly
useful for talking with another person, not for one way or recorded
communication.
2) The FCC has decided that the First Amendment doesn't apply to TV
and radio stations. Thus many viewpoints get weeded out. There
are libertarian (and socialist) magazines. There are no
libertarian (or socialist) radio or TV stations. I don't know
quite how the FCC has gotten away with this amazing coup.
While initially negative about your 'voluntary contribution'
assertion, I wonder: every year newspapers have stories about
needy families, and these people are virtually buried in
contributed food and clothing. Maybe so, maybe so...
Charity is a multi-billion dollar industry.
It doesn't really make sense to me to say that people will not
voluntarily donate to a cause but will vote for people who will force
them to donate. Do most people think that the cause is worth donating
to or don't they?
'Arming the peasants' is an attractive idea, but the social
effects could be staggering.
This was one of the main principles behind the American Revolution.
Look at the Second Amendment.
I am not sure when or how it got sidetracked.
The old slogan "an armed society is a friendly one" may hold, but
some inner-city neighborhoods may become literally free-fire zones
(those that aren't already, that is).
I think that if someone intends to use a gun for robbery and murder,
a law against gun ownership isn't going to deter them much.
We may bring Beirut to us...
The problem with Beirut isn't that people are armed, but that there
is essentially no enforcement of laws against murder, kidnapping, etc.
A better example of a heavily armed citizenry is Switzerland.
Lastly, concerning the assertion made a while back (v6 #25) that
selling drugs should be legalized: what penalty (if any) for
selling drugs to minors? -CWM]
The same as the current penalty for selling alcohol to minors. I am
not aware of any drug more dangerous than alcohol, unless it's
tobacco. And I have never heard of a drug more addictive than
tobacco. People who have quit both heroin and tobacco have told me
that quitting heroin was much easier.
...Keith
[ Well, lets start at the top: I choose to watch TV because 1) visual
stories (e.g. movies, adventure dramas - which I have an unaccountable
weakness for) can often tell more faster than books, and with greater
impact (there are lousy books, too, y'know); 2) regardless of the
general poor quality of TV news, I can get quick exposure to stories
of the day through channels like CNN and the late lamented SNC; 3) I
can get movies without commercials on one of the three movie channels
I subscribe to. (You may argue that this isn't "TV" - but it sure
comes in on that thing I call a TV). Further, its something I can do
and hack at the same time (don't ask me how, it just is). I read all
day at work off of *this* silly bloody tube... I don't look for TV to
give me political reality, just movies and an occasional political
viewpoint I am free to discard (for this I am partial to "The
McLaughlin Group" - a real band of zanies if ever there were some).
There is a terrible view that people will believe whatever appears on
the screen (most often held by those whose opinion is not broadcast in
prime-time). You want your views sent out? Pay the money. Buy the
commercial time.
I am personally in favor of allowing anyone who wants to own a gun
to do so. However, I point out that if everyone were to own a gun,
and since a very small minority have any real notion of how to use one
(and the judgement to know when to use one), things could get a little
flakey. That's all. I doubt that another American Revolution will
result from an armed citizenry. Shotguns don't do well against a B-52
strike (i.e. our government will always have bigger guns).
Lastly, waving your hands and saying, "well, cigarettes are bad
too" is not an answer. Personally, I would much rather see a 12 year
old smoking a cigarette than shooting heroin (the best thing, of
course, is to see a 12 year old doing neither). Same goes for a 19
year old. Smoking cigarettes is dumb, yes, but you won't get
hepatitis from a dirty cigarette, and you can't get a 'bad batch' of
cigarettes. I rather doubt that most minors are aware of the dangers
of even 'recreational' drug use. - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 21:50:57 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Spelling
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu
Keith, Keith, Keith. You said in your article that you're
self-educated. It shows.
It's "paid", not "payed". And it's "purchased", not "purchaced".
Sorry. Sometimes my fingers have minds of their own. I will try to
do better.
(This sentance has three erors.)
...Keith
[ A friend of mine has a t-shirt with this on it, he's stopped wearing
it - people keep following him around trying to figure out the third
error. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 22:44:45 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Libertarianism by profession
From: < Name withheld at sender's request>
I've noticed that computer programmers, engineers, etc.
seem to be more prone to libertarian viewpoints than judges,
lawyers, social workers, etc., ...
Perhaps this is partly because judges, etc, have to meet political
criteria to obtain and retain their jobs. Look at the wringer
Rehnquist is being put through for having dissented too many times.
Inside every lawyer is a politician thinking of running for office.
He has a better chance if his politics are conventional.
Judges, many lawyers, and most social workers are paid by the
government. They are likely to think of what they are doing as
important, and the way they are paid for it as being reasonable.
Most judges, etc, are not exposed to any opinions except mainstream
ones. Most technically educated people are more well read than most
liberal arts types. Not in 19th century British literature, but in
modern authors such as George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, Ayn Rand,
Nathaniel Branden, Vernor Vinge, and L. Neil Smith among many others.
I get the impression that the most recent literature that is taught
to liberal arts students is from around the turn of the century. At
that time socialism was in vogue among the literatti, and most of the
better writers (Jack London, H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, Edward
Bellamy) were socialists.
I wonder if this is because libertarian
views are reductionist, breaking social systems into small,
autonomous interacting components. Individuals with a
non-engineering background seem to have a ?paternalistic
?wholistic non-reductionist (or reducing to levels above the
autonomous individual) focus.
Yes, I think that is part of it. Only technical types seem to
realize the enormous complexity of the economy, the immense quantity
of information processing that goes on, and how only a distributed
system can hope to handle it.
The social 'sciences' types ironically often think that all that is
necessary for things to run smoothly is for everyone to have good
intentions. Engineers know that good intentions are neither necessary
nor sufficient for anything.
People without a good undertanding of how systems work, and by
system I mean everything from a computer network to a forest to the
news media to a civilization, have this strange idea that there must
always be an ALPHA MALE running things. In a country, he is the king
or the premier or the emperor or the president. In a forest he is the
Lord God. In a computer network he is a computer person at one of the
sites. In the news media, he is the secret head of the media.
In fact none of these beings perform the functions usually imagined,
and some of them don't even exist. But most people without a good
technical education find it incredible that things will (or do) run
just fine without these folks.
Some people even go so far as to deny the existance of seperate
major organizations, and insist that there must be one small group or
one man secretly running everything behind the scenes. For instance
the Trilateral Commission, the Bavarian Illuminatti, the Godfather,
God, the Devil, little green men from another planet, etc, etc.
Try explaining to your nontechnical friends that trees can grow
without anyone pulling, that computer systems can run just fine
without systems staff around (for a week or two at least), that people
live in harmony not because of an enormous criminal justice system but
because they are acting in their own self interest, that the Voyager
probes, once they got free of Earth, were pushed almost entirely by
their own momentum rather than by powerful rockets and constant
attention from the ground, and that the US economy would get along
just fine even if Volcker and Reagan went away.
Reagan is responsible for very little of what good things have
happened and for very little of what bad things have happened. He is
often wrongly blamed for everything from terrorism in the middle east
to bad weather in the southeast. He is often wrongly credited for
everything from low inflation to the Statue of Liberty restoration.
One of the few important things he does have partial control over is
the tax rate. I am glad he opposes any tax increase. I am dismayed
that most of Congress does not agree with him.
Or is it just that the utility functions (values) used
by libertarians differ from that of non-libertarians in the
tradeoff of short term pain versus long term gain? Examples would
include hot topics such as job displacement: an individual loses
his job because the local plant closes/relocates, but the long
term effect for other individuals is positive because they can now
buy cheaper (if relocation of plant) products than before, or
shareholders have more income from dividends that can be spent
elsewhere, etc. ...
Well, that too is important. Libertarians tend to think with their
brains rather than with their glands. The worse things are not always
the most photogenic things. Jet crashes are more newsworthy than car
crashes, but which kills more people? AIDS is more horrifying than
heart disease and cancer just because it is newer. Nobody even made a
million dollars on a movie by portraying a large corporation or a
wealthy person in a sympathetic light. (Next time you see a heart-
rending performance of a poor person being downtrodden by the cruel
rich, keep in mind how much money those actors REALLY have.) A
bankrupt farmer or an unemployed steel worker make better news copy
than a tax increase. How much news coverage did this year's
multibillion dollar social security tax increase receive?
Why do you request anonymity? What do you fear if your name is seen
across the net? You've seen how opinionated I am, and they haven't
taken away my security clearance yet. :-)
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < fagin%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 86 10:17:32 PDT
From: fagin%ji@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: Libertarianism vs. Liberalism
Lynn Gazis writes:
> But I can't agree with the premise that I have no obligation to
> anyone unless I have contracted it or have injured that person. I
> certainly think we have an obligation to feed the hungry, heal the
> sick, and so on....
Well, of course, this is one of the central tenets of modern
liberal political theory, so it bears closer examination.
The main problem with it is that it's full of phrases that sound
wonderful and make you feel good but are in fact extremely vague.
> "...we have an obligation..."
"we": Everyone in the world? Do people in China have an
obligation to help the sick in India? I must assume you're talking
about America.
"an obligation": ...such that if we don't fulfill it then the
use of force is justified? This must be what you mean, since
if you didn't think force was justified to compel ethical
obligations we'd be in agreement. Thus so far we've got:
"People in America may be compelled to ..."
> "... feed the hungry":
Everyone in America who is hungry?
Assuming this is the case, there is still the matter of
redistributing the food. Food is not something the world
is endowed with that can be transferred to the hungry
by legislative fiat. It is grown by people, who usually
want something in exchange for it.
Same with medical care. Despite the massive amount of
governmental involvement in it, in the final analysis
it's provided by particular persons who don't like
being coerced. Anyway, with a few finishing touches
I think I can legitimately rephrase Lynn's belief as:
"It is just that people in America may have force used against
them in order to make sure that noone is hungry,
noone is sick, and so on ..."
(It is the "and so on" that's responsible for the vast majority
of governmental activity in the US that I find objectionable,
but let's carry on ...)
This new formulation seems far more interesting.
My apologies to Lynn if something got lost in translation.
I also apoligize in advance by referring to this argument
as a liberal one, even though Lynn may not consider herself
a liberal.
The problem with statements like Lynn's is that it ignores
the basic nature of human beings: free, independent (albeit
extremely social) creatures with free will.
It confuses *ethical* values with *political* ones:
"X is obviously a good thing, therefore everyone should
be forced to do X". Or, perhaps a bit more accurately,
"X is so obviously a good thing that using a little bit
of force against people to achieve X is just". These
kind of statements, if accepted as axioms (on faith,
if you prefer), are of course not debatable. You either
accept them or you don't. However, as with any theory,
one hopes that the axioms upon which you build your
theory of justice are 1) clear, 2) have some basis in reality,
and 3) consistent. Alas, one can't get the same kind of
clarity and consistency in political philosophy that one can in
mathematics, but they still seem worth striving for.
Anyway, contrast the liberal axiom of justice with
the libertarian one: "Coercion must not be used against an
individual who has not initiated force or fraud".
Ambiguous? Of course, but much clearer than the liberal
axiom. Basis in reality? You bet. It arises from
the nature of human beings; independent (albeit
extrmely social) entities each with free will, each
inherently precious. By contrast, the liberal
axiom seems transitory and ephemeral: once I leave
the country my "obligation" to help people here dis-
sappears. (I'm assuming that noone out there thinks
it's legit to force people in Indonesia to help the
homeless in New York). Again, the non-coercion
principle refers to all human beings everywhere; it
is applicable no matter what arbitrary geopolitical
boundaries surround the person in question (though,
alas, it is usually unenforceable).
An even more compelling reason for accepting the non-coercion
principle as an axiom is that it *includes* action
under the liberal philosophy of government. The NCP
allows a great deal of freedom of action to help the
sick and feed the hungry; the NCP and moral action are entirely
compatible with one another. (In fact, some have argued
that moral action performed under coercion is not really
moral at all, but this isn't net.philosophy). The point
is that liberal principles of justice are not nearly so tolerant.
I think helping the sick and feeding the hungry are good things;
that's why I send money to CARE and the Red Cross. I just think
liberty and voluntary choice are even better. Especially
when a society based on the NCP would be a society far healthier
and more prosperous than the present one.
--Barry
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 4 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 36
Today's Topics:
Power and wealth (2 msgs) &
Ancient Libertarianism &
Fraud, Insanity &
Welfare and Social Spending
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 00:04:48 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Power and wealth
To: ucsbcsl!uncle@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
Cc: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
about 1/2 of 1 percent of the US population posesses
about 1/3 of the total assests of the US
References please? I am sure this is completely false.
Severing critical context from the public discourse
is a Hauptmethedologie and a Hauptziel of reaganism
Could we have an english translation please?
ASSERTION: TOO MUCH POWER IN THE HANDS OF TOO FEW IS BAD.
Agreed.
ASSERTION: MONEY ISSSSSS POWER, JUST AS MUCH SO AS THE POLITICAL
POWER OF ANY KOMISSAR.
False.
Government power is the power to coerce others. This includes the
power to rob, to imprison, to torture, and to kill.
Money is the power to freely trade with others. This includes the
power to trade money or other wealth with anyone who would rather have
the money or other wealth offered than what he is willing to offer in
trade for it. It also includes the power to refuse to make such a
trade. Nothing more.
There is no obviously no comparison between these two kinds of
power.
TAX "Reform"???? "Flat Tax" = trojan horse II.
I would rather see a flat tax than the present byzantine system, but
what I really want is a voluntary tax.
FREEDOM AND JUSTICE do not require or depend upon reaganism,
they are ANTIPODAL to reaganism.
Reagan is not the issue. He is just one man. Government in all its
forms is the issue.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 14:08:08 pdt
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: re: money, power, justice, chnage.
RE: Keith Lynch's reply re: is money power? etc:
Our most fundamental disagreement appears to be his
rejection of the assertion that excessive wealth IS excessive
power just as excessive administrative power of government
officials. To suggest that money is nothing more than
the power to freely trade with others is, i believe, factually
wrong; money is simply indirect-addressing of power,
money stands for a power over objects and services.
Furthermore, money is not identical with freedom; there is
money in the soviet union AND in south africa!
I continue to maintain what, i believe, is a consistent
position in opposition to ALL abuses of power; abuses of
power invaribaly arise out of excessive concentrations of
power; money IS power; A policeman's truncheon is power.
In attempting to deal with the full spectrum of abuse of
power across all social and political barriers, one
sometimes falls prey to an analytical double standard
because one feels that if one agrees to a well reasoned
position (not necessarily the position i have advanced),
one fears that its implications may be in some way
unacceptable. What i am trying to say is that IF
what i have said is so, then the implications are not
that our system or their system or both systems must
be abolished, but rather that excessive power should
be circumscribed here, there, and everywhere. I would
not consider it a damper on my pecuniary initiative if
there should be a maximum-assests law limiting the
amount of wealth i could accumulate to, say
(100 * US-per-capita-GNP); i also do not consider the
twenty-second ammendment to be a damper upon political
initiative in this country; Justice in society is
the ultimate issue, not political rhetoric of any
variety masquerading as a spokesman for Justice when
it is really serving as a mercenary of excessive, abusive
privilege.
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Thu 31 Jul 86 15:27:29-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: ancient libertarianism
But the worshippers and lovers of those gods, whom they delighted to
imitate in their criminal wickedness, are unconcerned about the utter
corruption of their country. '... The laws should punish offenses
against another's property, not offenses against a man's own personal
character. No one should be brought to trial except for an offense,
or threat of offense, against another's property, house, or person;
but anyone should be free to do as he likes about his own, or with his
own, or with others, if they consent.... It is a good thing to have
imposing houses luxuriously furnished, where lavish banquets can be
held, where people can, if they like, spend night and day in
debauchery, and eat and drink till they are sick: to have the din of
dancing everywhere, and theatres full of fevered shouts of degraded
pleasure and of every kind of cruel and degraded indulgence. Anyone
who disapproves of this kind of happiness should rank as a public
enemy: anyone who attempts to change or get rid of it should be
hustled out of hearing by the freedom-loving majority: he should be
kicked out, and removed from the land of the living....'
St. Augustine, City of God
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 00:36:27 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Fraud, Insanity
[ 'Fraud', as I understand it, is by 'consent', but with the one
party misrepresenting him/her/itself to the other. ...
By consent I mean informed consent.
Also, I've always thought that "not guilty by reason of insanity"
was a judgement that the person had performed the act, but was not
'responsible' for it (whatever that means) - not "innocent". -CWM]
Right. I think that the verdict should not be called 'guilty and
insane' or perhaps 'guilty but insane'. I don't think it should be
called 'not guilty by reason of insanity'. A person who is not guilty
should go free.
Some states now have a verdict 'guilty but mentally ill'. Not quite
sure what the point in that is. I have never heard of a mental
illness that destroys free will. Why not a verdict 'guilty but
physically ill' or 'guilty but nearsighted and overweight'?
I think insanity is an overused defense. It should only apply if
the defendant really had no idea what he was doing. For instance if
he thought the person he was shooting was a giant cockroach.
Obviously, it is often difficult to tell what the defendant was
thinking. But the Hinckley case offends common sense.
Also, I think that nobody found not guilty by reason of insanity
should be involuntarily confined for a longer period than he could
have been imprisoned had he been convicted of the crime.
In fact, nobody should ever be involuntarily committed unless it is
found by a court during a criminal trial that he has committed a
crime.
...Keith
[ Well, 'informed consent' depends on the point of view. Surely a
con-man gives a stilted picture of reality to the mark, but the target
considers him/herself to be well informed (the mark of a really artful
con, after all, is that the mark gives the money over enthus-
iastically). I myself could greatly benefit from a defense of
'guilty but nearsighted and overweight'... -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thursday, 31 July 1986 11:45:46 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: welfare and SS
By the high black teenage unemployment rate I meant that the teenage
fathers didn't have any money to support their kids anyway. This was
obvious when watching a few TV specials on unwed teenage mothers.
These guys may be amazingly irresponsible, but the only money they
have seems to come from dealing drugs.
In general the amount of money obtained from child support is usually
substantially higher than that provided by welfare. The problem in
the past has been for the mother, lacking resources, to fight the
legal battle to get the fater to pay (the case of the mother having
money and the father having custody is rare enough that we will
neglect it here). I know divorced mothers, and every one of them who
wasn't getting their full child support was fighting to get it, not
sitting around on welfare.
By "retirement age" I actually meant the age that Social Security
starts paying full benefits, minus whatever factor is used when you
have other income. The age is scheduled to increase, in order to hold
down the number of Baby Boomers receiving benefits at any one time.
The Social Security system is not a Ponzi scheme, but an income
transfer system, just like welfare. The difference is that your
benefits are determined by your income, rather than need. The amount
of the GNP going to the system is a political decision. If benefits
are rising too fast, the rules are changed to limit them, as has been
done. If taxes aren't high enough to provide the desired benefit
levels, then taxes are raised, as they have been.
Those who retired in the past got back way more than they would have
by investing their money, unless they investment was fantastic. That
obviously could not go on forever, and future retirees will do worse
than private savings, since at best they will be getting Treasury Bond
interest rates.
My point on future productivity is that over time the average number
of years worked has decreased, through earlier retirement, and longer
schooling. But these trends only consume a factor of 2 or 4 increase
in productivity. Beyond that, you have to really live like the filthy
rich, or reduce your work hours, in order to blow all the money.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 00:20:49 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Social spending
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
... Most of those on welfare are unwed teenage mothers, or
divorcees. Many states have welfare laws designed to keep the
husband around in a married couple, ...
Marriage is not the issue. The father should share with the mother
the costs of raising a child. This is true whether or not they are or
ever were married. This is true whether or not they are or ever were
living together.
Many people choose not to get married, either because of the severe
marriage penalty tax, or because they aren't sure they won't soon want
to switch partners, or because they oppose the institution of marriage
for whatever ideological reasons.
Remember the high black teenage unemployment rate?
Do you think this is the cause or the effect of welfare?
The divorcees can get off welfare when their ex-husbands start
providing child support.
Why should they bother pressing for child support from the fathers?
They get money either way. In many cases, the mother splits the
welfare check with the father. Whether or not he is employed.
The [social security] law has already been changed so that the
retirement age will rise to 67, and taxes will increase.
Why should there be any mandatory retirement age? Why should the
age be up to government, anyway?
Yes, taxes will increase. This is the solution to the shortfall?
Perhaps, but it is a cure that is worse than the disease. The social
security tax is said to be 7.35 percent, but that doesn't take into
account the employer contribution and the fact that it is on before-
tax income. Social security actually takes about a quarter of the
average employee's after tax income. And no deductions are allowed
for anything, not even for being blind or having dependents.
How high should it be allowed to go? Who decides how high is high
enough? The current tax rate is higher than last year's, and is as
high as it has ever been. Do you think it will ever go down? Do you
think it will ever remain constant? Do you think the economy can
indefinitely tolerate an endlessly increasing tax of this size?
Current retirees got a good deal. Future retirees won't get a
good deal because their money could have been earning higher
interest in savings accounts.
So could the money of the current retirees.
The Social Security system is no longer a pyramid scheme, ...
Yes it is. It is a classic Ponzi type scam. Money from later
investors is paid to earlier investors, giving the illusion that money
is growing.
A separate issue for the long-term future is one raised by Nils
Nilsson in the Summer 1984 issue of AI Magazine. If productivity
keeps on increasing even at relatively low rates, we may find it
difficult to consume all the goods and services produced. ...
Maybe so, but I am willing to give it a try!
If this situation comes true, then we may be lowering, rather than
increasing, the retirement age 100 years from now.
Why should we (I assume you mean government) have anything to do
with deciding when someone should retire?
Many people get much enjoyment from their jobs. I do not see that
increased productivity need lead to unemployment. There is an
infinite amount of work to be done. It's just that there is only a
finite amount that anyone can afford to pay people to do. As the
wealth of the world increases, the amount of affordable work will also
increase. A simple example is if I was very wealthy I would hire
people to do such things as design and build a mansion for me. And I
would eat out more often, leading to more restraunt jobs, and I would
buy more goods, leading to more retail and manufacturing jobs, etc,
etc.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 38
Today's Topics:
Welfare, gun control, and philosophy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 13:37:10 pdt
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: cit-vax!MX.LCS.MIT.EDU!KFL
Subject: Welfare, gun control, and philosophy (long)
Keith Lynch writes:
Sorry, I didn't watch that (or any) TV program. Could you please
use books and magazines as references [for welfare history]?
Sure, but I'm not sure its any more accessible to you. There was a
multi-part series in the Los Angeles Times within the last year on the
poor, who they are, what they're like, and so on.
(You have a habit of arguing with anecdotes.)
Real life is made up of millions of anecdotes. YOU have a habit
of arguing from TV shows. Is that where you get all your
information?
Let us refrain from personal insults here. As I mentioned previously,
I do not at present own a TV set either. The Bill Moyers documentary
(which is the only TV show I've mentioned in this dialogue) was that
rare thing--a network program with real information in it. You argued
against welfare on the basis of people you knew who were collecting
welfare and not working (at one point--you have other arguments). I
might as well argue for gun control because I know of people who were
shot to death by the owners of legal handguns. I don't. Anecdotes
are a poor basis for public policy.
For every time a gun is used by a private citizen to prevent a
crime, there are 4 suicides and 10 murders committed with guns
by the owner of that gun.
I have seen this before, and I thought it had been given a decent
burial. It seems bogus statistics always come back to haunt us.
Do you claim that it is not a fact? If you don't, then it is not a
bogus statistic. If you do, please cite another study which shows
more privately owned handguns are used to stop crimes than are used to
commit murder.
1) A person who was considering a life of crime decides otherwise
when he realizes how many people are armed. If he would have
committed a burglary per week for 50 years, that is over 2,500
crimes prevented with guns. And how many of those do you count?
Zero.
Talk about bogus statistics! If you're going to count hypothetical
crimes not committed as the result of private gun ownership, you also
have to count hypothetical murders not committed as a result of the
ban of said ownership. [Note that I did not say, and do not say now,
that I favor a ban on all gun ownership.]
Many of the murders and all of the suicides could have been
committed without guns.
Yes, but a handgun (1) can kill at a distance and (2) is easily
concealed. How do you feel about private ownership of mortar shells?
Hand grenades? Land mines? Atomic weapons?
In Switzerland, every adult owns a gun. The murder rate is very
low there, much lower that in the US. There are few burglaries and
few other crimes. And the Nazis didn't even THINK of invading
Switzerland, despite having invaded or being allied with every
bordering country.
This is a fine myth for the gun nuts, which I am happy to now explode.
The guns in Switzerland are owned by the government, and are placed in
a sealed case in your home which is inspected every year. You are
heavily fined if the seal is broken except as a result of your annual
training in the militia or to defend yourself from another gun
wielder. I would actually favor such a system here. As for the
Nazis: they did consider invading Switzerland, but decided that the
strategic gains of possessing Switzerland were not outweighed by the
its value as a neutral country and the fact that they would not have
to fortify their border with it. The Alps are a great barrier as
well.
Are you willing to force gun owners to support families whose
breadwinner is killed by their gun, or to pay for day care
for children whose mother is murdered?
If THE OWNER shot the breadwinner, certainly! If the breadwinner
was shot with a stolen gun, of course not. The person who pulled
the trigger is responsible.
At last we reach an agreement. This raises a general point, which I
will get to below.
If someone steals your car and runs over someone, are you
responsible? A lot more people are killed by cars than by guns!
True, but cars are not DESIGNED to kill people. Handguns are.
Seriously, I consider it a grave insult to be told that I cannot
be trusted with firearms.
Not seriously, I consider it a grave insult to be told that I cannot
be trusted with 5 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium.
The only logical response to drunk driving is severe penalties.
That is also the only logical response to drugged driving.
Should it be illegal to drive drugged at all? Or should you only be
penalized if you actually injure people or property while doing so?
See also below.
I don't understand; you responded to my comment about having a
lot of people in prison by saying that we should have even MORE
people in prison, and for longer times.
No, I was giving examples to show how completely random the
justice system is.
I stand corrected.
Uniform sentences would require the federal government to pass
laws which would supersede the states'.
I don't favor mandatory sentence laws. Room must be left for the
judgement of the judge and the jury. What we need is more common
sense on the part of judges and juries.
We agree here. How do you reach this desirable goal?
Why do you automatically assume that such a law would have to be
a federal law rather than a state law?
Because if certain states had more lenient penalties than others,
people would move to those states to commit crimes. I suppose the
alternative is to have the states voluntarily band together and enact
uniform penalties (subject to the common-sense criterion above), but
this probably isn't possible--look at the huge state to state
variation in the penalties for marijuana possession, for example.
Do you think it should be illegal for a group of workers to
voluntarily band together and go to their employer and say,
"None of us are going to come to work unless you give us all a
raise?"
No. Do you think it should be illegal for the employer to say
"get back to work right now or you are all fired"? As happened
with the air traffic controllers strike?
No
The [social security] system is currently projected to have a
10 trillion dollar surplus by 2010, ...
This is bogus accounting. They don't have a surplus unless it is
possible to end the social security tax and to continue to give
social security benefits to everyone who ever contributed, equal to
at least the amount (plus inflation) that they contributed.
That's like saying that IBM is one billion dollars in the red (or
whatever), because they could not meet that much of their outstanding
obligations if they stopped selling any computers.
What they mean by surplus is if everyone continues
to pay taxes (to be increased as necessary) everyone retired will
continue to get benefits.
No, they actually mean surplus. The SS taxes now being paid are more
than the retirees of the next 30 years will require; the amount of the
excess is projected to be 10 trillion (yes, a 1 with 12 zeroes after
it) by 2010. The article I read this in was in the NY Times in August
1985. (I only read the NYT when I visit my parents in NJ, hence my
precision about the date.)
Please do not assume I am a Scrooge just becuase I think that a
person should have control over their wealth... Just as Scrooge
freely chose to voluntarily donate some of his wealth near the end
of the book.
Which doesn't change the fact that the plight of the poor in Dickens's
London was not improved much by voluntary charity.
Other responsibilites, primarily work and family, prevent me
from continuing this dialogue further.
I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps if you use a really good text
editor and practice rapid typing, a few hours each weekend would
suffice to continue the discussion?
Typing isn't the problem; the time to compose them is. I decided to
respond to your message on my lunch hour, but I must painfully admit
to not being very enlightened by it.
[Books you recommended:] Anything by Ayn Rand.
_The_Moon_is_a_Harsh_Mistress_ by Robert Heinlein. Anything by L.
Neil Smith.
I was hoping for non-fiction. I have read "The Moon is..." and "Atlas
Shrugged." The former was not set in the US of today; it is doubtful
that the latter was, and it did not in any event set forth a way of
moving the US to a libertarian society without extreme chaos. I might
just as well recommend Dickens's books, or The Grapes of Wrath, as
justification for socialism. They at least have the advantage of
being based on real people's real experiences.
SOME THOUGHTS ON LIBERTARIANISM
(At the risk of being pretentious.)
I. Public and private good
I just had an interesting discussion with someone here at work who
considers himself a libertarian by philosophy, though he admits that
he sees no practical way to move the US to a libertarian society at
present. He reminded me of something that we had both learned in an
introductory economics course at Caltech, though I had forgotten it,
and that is the distinction between a private and a public good. A
private good is an action (or inaction) whose benefits only go to the
person or persons taking that action (or inaction). A public good is
a course of action from which everyone, or at least most people,
benefit, even if only one or a few people take that action. It is
public goods, I maintain, which are the proper domain of the
government to provide, funded by mandatory taxes.
The classic example of a public good is national defense. Everyone
who lives in the US benefits from its existence, even if they
contribute nothing to it. Thus, every individual would decide to
contribute nothing to national defense, because he gets its benefits
whether he does or not. Result: no defense. Moreover, in the current
age of atomic weapons, it is clearly unreasonable to expect a
completely voluntary military (which I believe libertarians favor) to
defend the nation. (Some argue that welfare is a public good; I'm not
so sure.)
Do libertarians deny the existence of public goods? If yes, they had
better have some damn good ideas about how to defend us from Soviet
ICBM's in the absence of mandatory taxes for national defense.
II. Property rights, or "Whattaya mean I can't build my A-Bomb?"
Another thought from Econ 101: what one can or can't do with one's
property depends on how one defines property rights, and property
right conflicts can always be adjudicated by contract--a bribe, is
what my professor called it. For example, if property rights are
defined in such a way that you are allowed to build a factory on any
property you own, your neighbors should be willing to pay you not to
pollute. If, on the other hand, they are defined so that your
property right includes clean air above your property, then the
factory builder should be willing to pay you to allow him to pollute
or, equivalently, pay for pollution control devices out of his own
pocket.
The practical difficulty arises when one person's use of her property
causes harm to others who are either very distant, or causes harm far
in excess of her ability to compensate for such harm. Acid rain is a
good example. It is generated by Midwest coal-burning power plants
and mills. It harms a wide area, including killing of fish and damage
to potentially harvestable timber. If the power plant owners have to
pay for this damage, who do they pay, and how is it divided up? What
if they cannot possibly raise enough money to pay for all the damage
done? And if you can make the utilities pay, they will pass the cost
on to their customers--who aren't being hurt by the acid rain, but are
paying the cost of getting rid of it.
Governments have responded to these practical difficulties with a host
of laws, which are restrictions on personal decisions--you must own a
car with a muffler, and whose pollutant output is less than some
standard; your factory cannot put into the air less than a certain
amount of sulfur dioxide, and so on. Robert Oliver, an economics
professor at Caltech, has proposed another possible solution, which
uses the free market--selling licenses to pollute. The government
would issue certificates, each of which was good for the right to put
a certain amount of sulfur dioxide in the air. A free market would be
allowed in these certificates after their initial sale by the
government. Oliver addresses the practical implementation of this
scheme in his article in Caltech's "Engineering and Science" magazine.
But he warns that it only works in the LA Basin, where the effects of
the pollution are restricted by geography to a limited area.
How does a libertarian address these problems? Do you have an
alternative to pollution-control laws?
III. Capitalism, or "Dr. Peptide's Liver Pills"
A functioning capitalist system is the most efficient possible
allocation of goods and services. That said, capitalism can only
function in a given market if all of the following conditions hold:
(1) Free (as in no-cost) entry and exit from the market.
(2) Multiple competitors
(3) The market price of a good accurately reflects its cost.
(4) Buyers have all the information they need to assess the value of a
good.
All of these assumptions break down in the real world. Wheat farming
costs a lot to get into, and a lot to get out of. There exist natural
monopolies, such as electric power, where the largest producer is
always the most efficient and can thus drive all competitors out of
business. Prices of goods do not reflect "hidden costs" such as the
damage done to faraway trout streams by the excessive use of chemical
fertilizers. And manufacturers have a vested interest in hiding
harmful side-effects of products they sell.
Government intervenes when these conditions are not met, via such
things as labeling and truth-in-advertising laws, the Food and Drug
Administration, anti-trust laws, and government regulation of such
unavoidable monopolies as electric power and (until recently) the
phone company. Government also intervenes with such things as product
testing, to ensure that buyers know that a manufacturer's claims are
correct; such claims are often difficult to verify without access to
a large, well-equipped laboratory.
Do libertarians have a solution to these very real problems?
IV. Individual liberty, or "Bang, you're dead!"
Here is where I mostly sympathize with the libertarian ideal: that
you should be able to take any action which demonstrably does not harm
anyone else. The practical problem, again, is that there are certain
activities which are inherently very dangerous and have such a large
potential for really catastrophic damage to others. In these cases
(drunk driving, making home-made A bombs), the government feels
justified in banning these activities, even if a given instance of
said activity does not actually result in any harm to others.
Advocates of handgun control make a similar argument in their own
favor. On the other side of the political fence, those who favor bans
of certain drugs judge that legal alcohol and tobacco cause such harm
to those who do not engage in their use that it justifies continuance
of the ban on other illegal drugs (although attempting to reinstate a
ban on something after it is once legal is a practical impossibility).
I assume libertarians are against such bans on personal activities,
even those with large amounts of potential harm to others. What
alternative do you offer to protect those who are killed by handgun
owners or drunk drivers? If capital punishment, then how does your
abhorrence of government square with giving government the most
dangerous power of all--the power to deprive citizens of their lives?
V. Conclusion
I hope this hasn't been too long or boring! A final few points:
assuming that you can answer the above questions in a manner which
will satisfy a majority of your fellow citizens, can you lay out a
plan for the conversion of the United States into a libertarian
society? To borrow only one point from Lynn Gazis (sp?), how would
you compenstate those who are already committed by decisions made due
to past government actions? For example, many people moved to the
suburbs in the last 40 years because of roads which were paid for out
of general taxes, so they may not be able to afford their share of the
entire upkeep cost of those roads in the absence of general taxes or
afford the cost of moving someplace closer to where they work.
Stephen Walton, Ametek Computer Research Division
ARPA: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 39
Today's Topics:
Privacy Rights Amendment (2 msgs) &
Libertarianism &
Justice
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 23:05:28 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Privacy Rights Amendment
To: Hoffman.es@XEROX.COM
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
I had proposed a trial wording for a privacy amendment:
The United States and no state shall make any law pertaining
to private activities of informed, consenting persons.
Activities are deemed private unless involving a clear and
present danger to uninformed or non-consenting others.
... if both parties ... are informed ... about AIDS and consent
anyway, no law could touch them.
My point was that someone could argue that if you catch AIDS there
is a danger of spreading it to non-consenting persons. This danger
might be remote, but the government clearly doesn't think so, witness
the recent ruling that employers can fire AIDS victims on the grounds
that they are contagious.
Is increased taxation a clear and present danger to the taxpayers?
I would claim that it is. So you agree that no taxpayer money should
be used to treat AIDS victims or to find a cure or a vaccine?
... I think any anti-porn laws should be outlawed by the First
Amendment. (Yes, I know the courts think otherwise.)
I think any anti-porn laws are already illegal under the First
Amendment. I don't know why the government doesn't see this. I
don't know why they think it is even up to them to evaluate the
effects of the material. It is protected by the First Amendment
even if everyone who ever glances at it turns into a mass murderer.
In any case, I definitely had such things in mind when I
used the "clear and present danger" phrase. I don't think the
Meese commission showed any such danger. They SAID there is a
danger, but they couldn't and can't back it up.
Well, all they have to do is say it. What they say goes. What you
and I say doesn't go. That is how it works. That is what I want to
change.
... Now if they think I'm insane, that's a separate issue to be
tried.
Is it? Is insanity illegal? I think a person should be found
incompetent only if they committed a crime. And then only for at most
the duration of the maximum sentence for that crime.
I am horrified at the recent ruling that declared someone
incompetent because he loaned money to the LaRouche people. Let me
emphasize that I am no fan of that crackpot LaRouche, but freedom of
expression and of political belief is inalienable. If people can have
their freedom taken away for supporting an unpopular cause, in what
sense were they ever free? Is this what this country has come to?
Also, do you think people should be allowed to play
very loud music outdoors at 2 am? ... What about
shining spotlights into people's windows at night?
... I think overly loud music forced upon me (at any time) IS a
clear danger to me. ... Same about a spotlight.
The annoyance is obvious to me. The danger is not. How does one
distinguish between the two? It can't be left up to the annoyed
person to decide. What if someone claims they are endangered by the
sight of your (painted purple with pink polka-dots) house? This may
be a legitimate annoyance, but is it literally a danger? No. But
neither is a spotlight.
Don't get me wrong, I like your amendment. But I think it needs
work. Different people see different things in it. Personally, for
instance, I am greatly bothered by tobacco smoke and I think that
smoking around non-consenting persons should be illegal. Does your
amendment support me in this? It seems to. But I would bet that a
smoker would interpret it quite differently.
Any amendment however well intentioned and no matter how well
written can be misinterpreted. Look at the ruins of the Second
Amendment. Look at the anti-porn laws, which exist despite porn
clearly being just as protected by the First Amendment as it would be
by your amendment. An amendment can only be a guideline. What is
needed is common sense on the part of the government. Unfortunately,
that seems to be in extremely short supply.
As for a peeping tom, you're right, there could be no laws against
one; what's the problem?
Or against wiretapping, reading other people's mail, etc. A strange
consequence of a 'privacy rights amendment'!
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM>
Date: 1 Aug 86 13:59:32 PDT (Friday)
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Privacy Rights Amendment
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
From: Keith Lynch
My point was that someone could argue that if you catch
AIDS there is a danger of spreading it to non-consenting
persons.... witness the recent ruling that employers can
fire AIDS victims on the grounds that they are contagious.
Exactly what type of law pertaining to this do you foresee, and how
does any proposed privacy amendment pertain to it? You've already
vehemently defended an employer's right to fire anyone for any reason
whatsoever, and, while not completely agreeing with that, I've already
conceded that hiring and firing do not fall under any privacy rights
amendment.
[About porn being a danger:] What [Meese Commission] says goes.
What you and I say doesn't go. That is how it works.
Wrong. That commission's report has utterly no effect. Legislation
is required to put it to work, and THAT is what my amendment would, I
think, prohibit.
The annoyance [of overly loud music and spotlights] is obvious
to me. The danger is not. How does one distinguish between the
two?
To be determined in the courts. Personally, I see no great problem
convincing judges and juries that ear-splitting music and
sleep-shattering spotlights are a "clear and present danger" to my
health, and I don't think I could convincingly say the same about
viewing a house painted purple with pink polka-dots.
Don't get me wrong, I like your amendment. But I think it
needs work.
I agree.
I am greatly bothered by tobacco smoke and I
think that smoking around non-consenting persons should be
illegal. Does your amendment support me in this?
Good questions. I need to think about that one.
Or wiretapping, reading other people's mail, etc.
I tend to think wiretapping and reading other people's mail would
remain generally illegal under the Fourth Amendment (forbidding
unreasonable search and seizure).
-- Rodney Hoffman
------------------------------
Return-path: < king@kestrel.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 86 11:20:12 pdt
From: king@kestrel.ARPA (Dick King)
Subject: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #31
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 29 Jul 86 01:24:03-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: more on libertarianism
I am not sure how to argue with libertarianism, because my
difference with libertarians seems to me to be not so much a matter
of facts as a matter of different values. I think Keith's position
is reasonably consistent if you accept his moral premises, but I
don't consider his position moral, and I don't think he would
consider mine moral.
I have some degree of sympathy for libertarianism for the following
reasons:
1. I believe in nonviolence, and government action seems to
inherently involve some degree of use of force or threat of force.
2. I mistrust too much concentrated power. I think that if too
much power is given to a government for some good purpose, it is
likely to be abused later.
3. I think that government at its worst probably does more harm
than anarchy at its worst, so it is probably better to err in the
direction of too little government than too much.
4. A government can do some things well, but it is too blunt an
instrument for many purposes.
But I can't agree with the premise that I have no obligation to
anyone unless I have contracted it or have injured that person. I
certainly think we have an obligation to feed the hungry, heal the
sick, and so on.
Maybe you do, and maybe you don't. What you seem to be claiming,
however, is that you have the right and obligation to COMPEL ME to do
this.
By the way, a "social safety net" would not be inconsistent with
libertatian society. It would be as possible for a voluntary group to
agree to transfer money to those in the group who happen to run into
certain types of hardship as it is now possible for a group to agree
to transfer money to those members who die, or whose houses burn down.
The word is "insurance".
There are xxx main problems with private unemployment insurance:
adverse selection (more poor risks than good risks buy insurance) and
behavior modification (the knowledge that you have unemployment
insurance might cause you to behave in ways that make payment more
likely). This last problem is indeed a problem with unemployment
insurance as it now stands.
The former problem, adverse selection, is not faced by government*
programs. It is, however, faced by existing insurance companies, who
have developed ways to deal with it. Most life insurance is sold on
the basis of a physical examination, and if you make certain claims
(such as "non-smoker") there may be a two-year period during which a
benefit can be contested if it looks like a claim was fraudulent.
Insurance companies seek information concerning the applicant on which
to base a risk judgement (and liberals continually tighten the noose
by trying to prevent the insurance companies from taking such factors,
such as age of the driver for auto insurance, into account; but this
is another story). An unemployment insurance company would probably
need to look at a customer's resume and interview the customer before
setting a rate, and there may be a 1-year elimination period for
certain types of terminations, but this is not terrible.
In summary, if you really believe that a large number of people want a
social safety net but will only help pay for one if every other or
most other participants also do so, start an unemployment insurance
company.
1. It isn't the government's purpose to make us more moral people
(which it can't do anyway), but to try to prevent some of the worse
harm which could come to people in its absence. So it should be
limited to preventing force and fraud and providing some services
which people couldn't provide as well for themselves.
2. We have to remain free to change the government. So the
government should not be able to harass its opponents.
3. Avoid giving the government power to control vague things.
4. It is dangerous for the government to be doing things secretly.
5. It is usually better to err on the side of too little
government than too much.
Name one government that fits your five criteria!
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
-dick
*all generalizations, including this, are false. Different states
have different levels of unemployment insurance payment and I know
personally two people who chose to live in states where payments were
higher because they expected to drift in and out of the labor market.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 23:16:23 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Justice
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
... libertarians believe that one of the functions of government
should be to prevent people from infringing on other people's
rights.
Not simply ONE of the functions, but the ONLY function.
Well, to do this, a government has to provide some sort of
judicial system, since not all members of the society will
voluntarily respect each others rights.
True.
This is bound to make (at least part of) the world a better place.
Well, yes. What I was objecting to was the idea that by
redistributing wealth among people convicted of no crimes the
world becomes a better place.
Then there is the question of how one manages to establish this
judicial system. It will take money. But, you object to taxation
as "robbery".
I object to INVOLUNTARY taxation.
Certainly the concept of "user's fees" cannot apply here, ...
Certainly it can. Convicted criminals can be fined. The losing
side or both sides in civil trials can be billed for court costs.
Retail companies can start a fund to pay for special prosecutors,
just as they now have a fund to place those anti-shoplifiting ads.
An enforcement tax can be placed on all contracts. It would be
perfectly ok to make contracts without paying the tax, but if you
do so you cannot sue if the contract is violated except by paying
court costs.
justice should be available to everyone, not just those with
money.
Is it now? There ARE volunteer attorneys for the impoverished
accused. Many attorneys will take civil cases on a contingency basis.
The court appointed attorneys for indigent defendants are worse than
useless, in my experience.
Is it not reasonable that, in exchange for a justice
system designed to protect everyone, that some form of taxation be
used to support it?
To protect everyone's rights, it is necessary to violate everyone's
rights? No, it is not reasonable.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 40
Today's Topics:
Monopolies (2 msgs) &
Murder and Justice (2 msgs) &
SDI &
Employment and Wealth
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 86 23:19:59 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Monopolies
To: Mills@MULTICS.MIT.EDU
From: Mills@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Monopolies can and would form under PURE capitalism. ... Once a
large, wealthy person or business controls most of a market, it is
relatively easy to keep your current market share and get most of
the rest.
Only if their services and prices are at least as good as the
competition. Otherwise competitors would flourish. Or would come
into existance if there weren't any.
It can ... be bad if they simply buy out the competition, sell
products at a loss until there competition goes under, ...
This would be pointless unless they kept the prices down after the
competition goes under (in which case consumers would benefit).
Otherwise, competitors would spring up again and they would have to
repeat this expensive cycle over and over until they went broke or
got wise and started selling for a fair price.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 2 Aug 86 20:11:25-EDT
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #33
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 86 09:56:26 PDT
From: fagin%ji@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: anti-trust
Evidence please. If you're familiar with an example of a
monopoly that existed in the US without government assistance,
please tell us about it. And I'll save you the trouble: don't
use AT&T, U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, or the railroads as examples.
Are professional sports teams included in those examples too?
Willie Lim
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 86 01:26:57 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Murder laws
To: mob@MEDIA-LAB.MIT.EDU
From: Mario O. Bourgoin < mob@MEDIA-LAB.MIT.EDU>
[your proposed amendment] makes murder laws unworkable because
there is no way of deciding afterwards that the person was not
voluntarily involved in the dangerous activity.
The presumption in cases like shooting, stabbing, robbery, etc, is
that the victim did not consent.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Fri 1 Aug 86 13:59:28-EDT
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Justice
To: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From Keith Lynch:
> [from me earlier:]
> Certainly the concept of "user's fees" cannot apply here [to the
> judicial system],...
>
> Certainly it can. Convicted criminals can be fined. The losing
> side or both sides in civil trials can be billed for court costs.
> Retail companies can start a fund to pay for special prosecutors,
> just as they now have a fund to place those anti-shoplifiting ads.
> An enforcement tax can be placed on all contracts. It would be
> perfectly ok to make contracts without paying the tax, but if you
> do so you cannot sue if the contract is violated except by paying
> court costs.
That's fine in certain cases, but can it always be applied? Say the
cost of conducting a murder case (salaries of attorneys and judges,
cost for maintaining a courtroom, etc.) is $XXXXX. Now say a
defendant is found guilty and so is liable for these expenses. What
if he/she has nowhere near this amount of money? Does this mean that,
since the government knows before the trial that the accused will not
have enough money to pay for the trial if found guilty, that the
person cannot have a trial? Or does it mean that the convicted person
will somehow have to "work-off" the debt? I thought we got rid of
debtor's prisons a long time ago. Anyway, i'm not familiar with the
actual costs of a trial, but i can imagine that the cost for a
complicated case could easily exceed the amount of money that convict
could "earn" for the rest of his/her life.
> justice should be available to everyone, not just those with money.
>
> Is it now? There ARE volunteer attorneys for the impoverished
> accused. Many attorneys will take civil cases on a contingency
> basis. The court appointed attorneys for indigent defendants are
> worse than useless, in my experience.
Yes, it is. No matter who you are, or how much money you have, you
have a right to a trial by your peers. I said nothing about the
quality of representation. I would much rather have the right to a
trial, with an idiot for an attorney (i'd rather defend myself), than
be denied a trial at all because i didn't have enough money.
One could argue that, in analogy to pro bono cases accepted by
attorney to act as defense lawyers, judges could also volunteer their
time to serve in indigent cases. This is unacceptable, since a judge
is NEEDED to hold a trial; if no judges feel generous this month, no
trials. However, one does not NEED a defense attorney, so a defendant
could still receive a trial. Besides, there are all of those other
expenses -- electricity for the court room, for example -- who
volunteers to pay for them??
> Is it not reasonable that, in exchange for a justice
> system designed to protect everyone, that some form of taxation
> be used to support it?
>
> To protect everyone's rights, it is necessary to violate everyone's
> rights? No, it is not reasonable.
The reason that most of law is complicated (probably more complicated
than it needs to be, of course) is that there are conflicts between
laws, and conflicts between rights. Personal rights are not mutually
exclusive. I have the right to use a gun. I have the right to not be
shot by someone else. So, society (oops -- the government,
"representing" its constituency) weighs each of these rights and comes
to the conclusion that the right to not be shot outweighs the right to
shoot a gun, so it passes laws saying that "you can shoot your gun,
but not at other people."
I think the same thing applies here. I have the right to keep my
money. I also have the right to access to a fair judicial system.
Since the harm done by lack of access to justice -- possibly being
thrown in jail for life -- outweighs the harm of some of my money
being taken away, we must provide first for a judicial system. If the
only reasonable way to guarantee equal access to the justice system is
by taxation, then that is the way we are forced to do it.
-joe testa
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 86 15:01:28 pdt
From: pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #122
> Date: Saturday, 12 July 1986 12:25-EDT
> From: harvard.harvard.edu!maynard!campbell at ucbvax.berkeley.edu
> To: arms-dXX.LCS.MIT.EDU
> re: 10 warheads
> Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
> Organization: The Boston Software Works, Inc.
>
> > ...Just
> > what constitutes "extensive protection" against ICBMs (personally I
> > don'tmind 10 warheads getting through but would object to 1000) and
> > just how likely SDI is to achieve it is a different question. ...
> >
> > Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> > {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
>
> Gee, Henry, I don't know about you, but 10 warheads would definitely
> ruin MY day. Seriously, what bothers me most about SDI is that it
> attempts to solve what is essentially a POLITICAL problem with
> TECHNICAL means. This is compounded by the Reagan administration's
> demonstrated contempt for political solutions. It's much better to
> simply prevent the missiles from ever being fired than it is to
> attempt to construct untestable defenses which by their nature
> require a level of performance that most workers in the field
> publicly state is impossible to achieve.
> --
> Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
> ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston
> UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
What bothers me most about the opposition to SDI (whose value as a
system is completely separate from the advisability of building it),
is the desire to solve an essentially POLITICAL problem with MORE
POLITICS. It is, indeed, "much better to simply prevent the missles
from ever being fired", but that is rather like saying "it is much
better to simply prevent bad things from happening". The unavoidably
adversarial nature of free societies and the Soviet Union make it
impossible for sufficient trust to be developed in both directions
that nuclear weapons can go away.
Why do some people have more trust in TECHNICAL solutions than
POLITICAL solutions? Because TECHNICAL solutions require no trust of
the Soviet Union, something likely to change over time in
unpredictable ways. IF a technical solution can be developed, it
doesn't require trust of the good intentions of the Soviet Union --
something that many people in this country manage to delude themselves
about, time and time again.
Clayton E. Cramer
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 86 01:45:24 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Employment and Wealth
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
By the high black teenage unemployment rate I meant that the
teenage fathers didn't have any money to support their kids
anyway. This was obvious when watching a few TV specials on unwed
teenage mothers. These guys may be amazingly irresponsible, but
the only money they have seems to come from dealing drugs.
Your perception is that blacks can only thrive through welfare or
crime?
The Social Security system is not a Ponzi scheme, ...
Yes it is. No money is invested. No wealth is created. The
illusion of growth is created by shifting money from recent
contributors to earlier contributors. No different from a classic
pyramid scheme or a chain letter. Like a chain letter, Social
Security promises wonderful things (a secure retirement) if you send
money now, and threatens dire consequences (jail, fines) if you choose
not to.
It is illegal to start a private pension plan that is run on these
principles, for obvious reasons.
Those who retired in the past got back way more than they would
have by investing their money, unless they investment was
fantastic.
If you are refering to the first group of retirees, this is
certainly true, since they contributed nothing to the system when they
were working (because it didn't exist yet). Great payoffs for the
first generation are characteristic of any pyramid scheme.
My point on future productivity is that over time the average
number of years worked has decreased, through earlier retirement,
and longer schooling. But these trends only consume a factor of 2
or 4 increase in productivity. Beyond that, you have to really
live like the filthy rich, or reduce your work hours, in order to
blow all the money.
I wouldn't mind doing more work of my own choosing. I like to work,
and I work primarily for the enjoyment of it not for the money (though
since I need money, I would work elsewhere if they didn't pay me
enough). What I don't like is the lack of choice of projects. If I
was wealthy enough I could work on whatever struck my fancy.
I don't think that people of the future will live like the rich of
today, any more that the people of today live like the rich of the
past. People today spend a lot of money on things that didn't exist
in the past and wouldn't have been affordable by hardly anyone if it
did. Caeser may have lived in an immense palace, but he never flew on
a plane. The Pharoahs may have had enormous pyramids and tons of
gold, but they had no air conditioning. King Henry VIII was certainly
one of the wealthiest people alive at the time, but he died of
something that people on welfare are easily cured of. Wealth today is
more likely to be spent on fancy cars than on armies of servants.
More likely to be spent on a moderate house in a good location than on
a marble mansion in a random location. The age of outrageous
consumption ended with the Titanic. Did you know that berths on the
Titanic went for over $4000? That was an IMMENSE amount of money for
1912, more than most people's lifetime earnings.
I don't know what I would spend my wealth on, were I an average
person of 100 years from now. Probably not on beachside property or
BMWs. Maybe on interplanetary (or interstellar) travel? Maybe on
truly unimaginable amounts of computer power?
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 41
Today's Topics:
Welfare, Gun Control, and Philosophy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 86 01:25:26 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Welfare, gun control, and philosophy (long)
To: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
Cc: walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Anecdotes are a poor basis for public policy.
Whenever I use statistics, people reply with anecdotes. So I
thought I would try anecdotes. There are plenty more where that one
came from.
For every time a gun is used by a private citizen to
prevent a crime, there are 4 suicides and 10 murders
committed with guns by the owner of that gun.
I have seen this before, and I thought it had been given a
decent burial. It seems bogus statistics always come back to
haunt us.
Do you claim that it is not a fact?
Yes! What do you think the paragraphs after that one were for?
1) A person who was considering a life of crime decides
otherwise when he realizes how many people are armed. If he
would have committed a burglary per week for 50 years, that
is over 2,500 crimes prevented with guns. And how many of
those do you count? Zero.
Talk about bogus statistics! If you're going to count
hypothetical crimes not committed as the result of private gun
ownership, you also have to count hypothetical murders not
committed as a result of the ban of said ownership.
But you WERE counting those murders. Since ownership is NOT banned,
they are NOT hypothetical.
What sort of crime is EVER not committed except a hypothetical one?
If it wasn't hypothetical, then it WAS committed.
The purpose of handguns is not to blow away burglars caught in the
act. Deterrence is far more important. But you don't count it at
all. You only count crimes that handguns FAILED to deter as being
prevented! Crimes that weren't prevented at all, only interrupted.
The fact that a thing can be abused is no excuse to ban it for
everyone else.
concealed. How do you feel about private ownership of ...
Atomic weapons?
At last, a substantive argument.
I wish I had a good answer to that. I don't. Nuclear weapons have
NO legitimate uses. All I can say is that it is slightly unfair to
use the existance of nuclear weapons as an argument against
libertarianism when the weapons have been produced only by governments
for use against other governments. If most major nations had been
libertarian at the time, nuclear weapons would never have been
invented. They have no possible use and are very expensive.
I really have nothing to say in defense of private ownership of
nuclear weapons except that government ownership leaves me just as
uneasy. They are difficult and expensive to build. For that reason,
only a few governments have them. If private ownership were allowed,
few if any companies or individuals would be able to afford the damn
things. Those that would be able to would hopefully have enough sense
to see that there is no point in doing so.
Unfortunately it looks like the cost of nuclear weapons is coming
down as technology advances and as the world becomes a wealthier
place. This would make private ownership - whether it is legal or not
- more likely. It also makes ownership by more and more governments
virtually inevitable. I wish I had an answer. I don't. All I can
say is that libertarianism is not the problem, will not add to the
problem, and will not solve the problem.
Vernor Vinge has written a few stories set in an ultra-technological
libertarian future. Some individuals in these stories own whole
nuclear arsenals, starships, SDI systems, etc. Not that they are
especially wealthy, but that technology is very advanced. Great fun
to read.
And what about starships? I am sure they will exist someday. Will
they be privately owned, or government owned? Either way, they will
be very dangerous. A large spacecraft traveling at a significant
percent of the speed of light would do enormous damage if it were to
crash into the Earth. Even large interplanetary liners capable of
carrying a few hundred people to another planet in a few days or weeks
would be much more destructive that a nuclear bomb if it were to crash
into the ground. I don't have any good solution. I don't know of
anyone who does.
One possibility is that the owner of a device be required to post
bond equal in value to the most destruction that device could cause.
If that were to be done, obviously nobody could afford to post bond
for nuclear bombs. Most people wouldn't be able to post bond for
cars, however. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea.
:-)
If someone steals your car and runs over someone, are you
responsible? A lot more people are killed by cars than by
guns!
True, but cars are not DESIGNED to kill people. Handguns are.
So? You might as well say handguns are DESIGNED to deter crime, and
cars aren't.
Guns can be used for a lot of things besides killing people. For
instance killing animals, shooting a person to wound rather than to
kill, capturing crooks, target practice, skeet shooting, gun
collecting, etc, etc.
Regardless of what guns or cars are DESIGNED for, it is a fact that
a lot more people are killed by cars than by guns. Even if you
include justified killing with guns (i.e. self defense).
Should it be illegal to drive drugged at all? Or should you only
be penalized if you actually injure people or property while doing
so?
I can see it either way. What I *CANNOT* see is forbidding 20 year
olds from drinking on the grounds that they might drive. Should a 20
year old who drinks moderately and doesn't drive at all be imprisoned?
At the 7-11 there is a sign saying they will not sell alcoholic
beverages to anyone who does not show them a drivers license, no
matter how old they look. Seems to be they have it exactly backwards!
I don't favor mandatory sentence laws. Room must be left for
the judgement of the judge and the jury. What we need is more
common sense on the part of judges and juries.
We agree here. How do you reach this desirable goal?
I have no idea. I could say 'better education' but that begs the
question.
Why do you automatically assume that such a law would have to
be a federal law rather than a state law?
Because if certain states had more lenient penalties than others,
people would move to those states to commit crimes.
Well, then those states with the higher crime rate would be
motivated to enact similar laws. You could reason the same way about
countries and conclude that all nations should have identical laws.
This is bogus accounting. They don't have a surplus unless
it is possible to end the social security tax and to continue
to give social security benefits to everyone who ever
contributed, equal to at least the amount (plus inflation) that
they contributed.
That's like saying that IBM is one billion dollars in the red (or
whatever), because they could not meet that much of their
outstanding obligations if they stopped selling any computers.
Yep, it is like saying that. I doubt IBM is in the red. I know *I*
am not, nor is the company I work for.
The SS taxes now being paid are more
than the retirees of the next 30 years will require; the amount of
the excess is projected to be 10 trillion (yes, a 1 with 12 zeroes
after it) by 2010.
I think inflation is about nine percent (yes, I know the government
says otherwise). If it continues, 10 trillion dollars in 2010 is only
about 1 trillion dollars today (or 100 billion in 1960). Even so,
that is a lot of money. What do they plan to invest it in? And why
not simply reduce the tax instead?
Ten trillion is a 1 with THIRTEEN zeros after it, not twelve.
Which doesn't change the fact that the plight of the poor in
Dickens's London was not improved much by voluntary charity.
The world was simply not a very wealthy place at the time.
Productivity is enormously greater now than in the 1850s. The
majority would have had to have been poor at the time no matter what.
They were better off in the cities than in the countryside, however.
Otherwise they would have stayed on the farm. But you will find few
books and probably no TV programs showing the poor in the city as
being anything but downtrodden, exploited, and oppressed, or showing
the poor in the countryside as being anything but happy and healthy.
Consider "The Waltons" and "Little House on the Prarie". Why no
"Little Rowhouse in the Slums"? Aren't city folk allowed to be happy
in their poverty?
I was hoping for non-fiction. I have read "The Moon is..." and
"Atlas Shrugged." The former was not set in the US of today; it
is doubtful that the latter was, ...
The latter was. At least at the time it was written. The former
was set on a Moon colony of Earth, a plausible and not too distant
future.
Ayn Rand has written a lot more nonfiction than fiction. Most of it
still in print, too. Check out the philosophy section of any good
library or bookstore.
The classic example of a public good is national defense.
Everyone who lives in the US benefits from its existence, even if
they contribute nothing to it. Thus, every individual would
decide to contribute nothing to national defense, because he gets
its benefits whether he does or not. Result: no defense.
How do you explain the billions voluntarily donated to various
charities every year?
And how did the Statue of Liberty get restored? Surely everyone
reasoned that it would get restored whether or not they personally
contributed, right?
Moreover, in the current age of atomic weapons, it is clearly
unreasonable to expect a completely voluntary military ...
Why?
Voluntary has two meanings here. In this context it is usually
meant to distinguish from a drafted military. I think you are using
it to designate an unpaid self-supplied force, like George
Washington's army mostly was.
Well, I definitely oppose the draft. I do not think it is necessary
for military forces to be unpaid and self-supplied, however. They
would be paid by the government. The difference from the present
system is in how the government would get the money to pay them.
A few things would change. We would not have a standing army in
Europe. There would be more reliance on reserves than on a large
peacetime military. We would have 100 or fewer nuclear weapons rather
than ten thousand. There would be far less waste, fraud, and abuse,
and fewer billion dollar boondoggles like the recently cancelled
DIVAD.
(Some argue that welfare is a public good; I'm not so sure.)
By your definition, it clearly is not. Welfare benefits
individuals, thus it is a private good.
Do libertarians deny the existence of public goods? If yes, they
had better have some damn good ideas about how to defend us from
Soviet ICBM's in the absence of mandatory taxes for national
defense.
Do you have some damn good ideas on how to defend us from Soviet
ICBMs in the *PRESENCE* of mandatory taxes for national defense?
... if property rights are
defined in such a way that you are allowed to build a factory on
any property you own, your neighbors should be willing to pay you
not to pollute.
You have the right to build a factory on your property, since it is
your property.
But that does not imply a right to pollute your neighbor's property,
which does indeed include the air on the property.
If, on the other hand, they are defined so that your
property right includes clean air above your property,
They are.
then the factory builder should be willing to pay you to allow him
to pollute or, equivalently, pay for pollution control devices out
of his own pocket.
Exactly.
The practical difficulty arises when one person's use of her
property causes harm to others who are either very distant, or
causes harm far in excess of her ability to compensate for such
harm.
Why 'her'? 'Him' is standard english for a person of unspecified
sex.
She should not cause damage that she doesn't pay for, regardless of
the distance.
Acid rain is a
good example. It is generated by Midwest coal-burning power
plants and mills. It harms a wide area, including killing of fish
and damage to potentially harvestable timber. If the power plant
owners have to pay for this damage, who do they pay, and how is it
divided up?
They pay the owners of the resources they destroy, of course.
What if they cannot possibly raise enough money to pay for all the
damage done?
Then they shouldn't do the damage. Either it is cheaper to use
anti-pollution devices or to compensate the damaged parties.
Whichever is cheaper is what they should do. If they can do neither
and still sell power, they should go out of business.
And if you can make the utilities pay, they will pass the cost
on to their customers--who aren't being hurt by the acid rain, but
are paying the cost of getting rid of it.
That is part of the cost or producing the power they are paying for.
If someone comes up with a way to generate power for less cost, then,
in a free market, the new technology will supplant use of coal.
Governments have responded to these practical difficulties with a
host of laws, which are restrictions on personal decisions--you
must own a car with a muffler, and whose pollutant output is less
than some standard;
Right. Since pollution harms everyone by damaging the public air,
these are reasonable laws, if not taken to unrealistic excess.
your factory cannot put into the air less than a certain amount of
sulfur dioxide, ...
I think you mean 'more than'.
Robert Oliver, an economic professor at Caltech, has proposed
another possible solution, which uses the free market--selling
licenses to pollute.
I think this is already being done. I read an article in a recent
issue of either _Discover_ or _Science_86_ that talked about pollution
brokers.
The government would issue certificates, each of which was good
for the right to put a certain amount of sulfur dioxide in the
air. A free market would be allowed in these certificates after
their initial sale by the government.
One problem with this is it presupposes that the damage the
polluters are doing is to the GOVERNMENT. Not true. Government is
not who should be compensated for pollution.
... capitalism can only function in a given market if all of the
following conditions hold:
(1) Free (as in no-cost) entry and exit from the market.
(2) Multiple competitors
(3) The market price of a good accurately reflects its cost.
(4) Buyers have all the information they need to assess the value
of a good.
It works best if those conditions hold. But they are not essential.
And 2, 3, and 4 are CONSEQUENCES of a free market, not pre-conditions.
Condition 1 never holds.
All of these assumptions break down in the real world. Wheat
farming costs a lot to get into, and a lot to get out of.
So?
There exist natural monopolies, such as electric power, where the
largest producer is always the most efficient and can thus drive
all competitors out of business.
Not true.
Prices of goods do not reflect "hidden costs" such as the damage
done to faraway trout streams by the excessive use of chemical
fertilizers.
They should. In a free market they would.
And manufacturers have a vested interest in hiding harmful
side-effects of products they sell.
And their competitors have a vested interest in revealing these
effects.
... those who favor bans
of certain drugs judge that legal alcohol and tobacco cause such
harm to those who do not engage in their use that it justifies
continuance of the ban on other illegal drugs ...
Well, there are several sorts of harm: (I include 'drunk' in
'drugged')
1) Drugged driving or operating any potentially dangerous equipment.
2) Crime while under the influence.
3) Medical costs of being on drugs.
4) So-called 'passive smoking'.
5) Making things safer for smokers makes them more expensive and/or
more dangerous for the rest of us.
6) Fires caused by careless smoking.
The solution to 1 is to either make the drugged activity a crime or
to make it a crime only when it has bad consequences (i.e. perhaps
drunk driving could be legal, but if you kill someone while drunk
driving it is considered murder).
The solution to 2 is for the same laws to apply to people under the
influence as to sober people. A crime is a crime and no amount of
drugs or alcohol should ever excuse one.
The solution to 3 is for none of their medical costs to be borne by
anyone but the drug (or alcohol or tobacco) user. No government money
should pay for their (or anyone's) treatment. Medical insurance
agencies should be encouraged to have seperate policies for users and
non-users, allowing much lower rates for the latter. Coal mines and
asbestos companies should be exempted from paying medical costs for
worker's lung disease for any worker who smokes.
The solution for 4 is a law against smoking around nonconsenting
nonsmokers and around children.
I can't think of a good solution for 5 or 6. It is unreasonable
that upholstry must be treated with fire-proofing chemicals that cause
cancer and that increase the cost and decrease the comfort of
furniture, simply because too many careless smokers managed to set
fire to themselves and their surroundings. But abolishing the law
would put nonsmokers who live in the same apartment building at risk.
(although attempting to reinstate a ban on something after it is
once legal is a practical impossibility).
Not at all. Most currently illegal drugs were legal before 1933.
When prohibition ended, lots of drugs were made illegal. Some say
this was mainly to provide continued employment for the prohibition
police.
I assume libertarians are against such bans on personal
activities, even those with large amounts of potential harm to
others.
I see nothing wrong with using drugs so long as no nonconsenting
person is forced to breath the fumes, pay the medical bills, be
robbed, be run over by a drunk or drugged driver, etc.
What alternative do you offer to protect those who are killed by
handgun owners or drunk drivers?
Well, there are severe laws against robbery and murder. The penalty
for drunk driving should also be severe, at least if someone is hurt
or property destroyed.
If capital punishment, then how does your
abhorrence of government square with giving government the most
dangerous power of all--the power to deprive citizens of their
lives?
I oppose capital punishment.
... can you lay out a plan for the conversion of the United States
into a libertarian society?
We are already closer than any other country I know of. And in some
ways, Reagan has brought us closer yet.
Sure:
1) In the next few major elections, Libertarians win the presidency
and most seats in congress.
2) A few new laws are passed, and many old laws are removed. If the
Supreme Court objects, amend the constitution as necessary.
... how would you compenstate those who are already committed by
decisions made due to past government actions? For example, many
people moved to the suburbs in the last 40 years because of roads
which were paid for out of general taxes, ...
Well, those roads aren't going to go away.
I see your point, though. The classic example is the tax deduction
for mortgage interest payments. This deduction is obviously unfair
and should be abolished. But if it was abolished, many people would
not be able to pay their mortgage payments.
The unfair policies are mostly in the form of extra taxes and
special tax deductions. However, since taxes would be radically
reduced or eliminated under a Libertarian administration, the lack of
deductions would not be a problem. People who had a lot of reductions
would get a little wealthier. People who had few deductions would get
a lot wealthier.
The only losers would be those who are getting money from the
government. People with government pensions should continue to
receive them, albeit without cost of living increases (which would not
be needed since the cost of living would initially go DOWN thanks to
lowere taxes for retailers, landlords, etc, and would then stabilize
as we go onto a gold standard or some other fixed standard). The REAL
losers would be Social Security recipients. This is unfortunate for
them, and I am sure they would complain, saying that they had made
lots of donations to the system and were now to get no benefits. This
would be true, but I don't see any other way. The first generation of
recipients received benefits without having made any donations. Like
any pyramid scheme, it has to collapse sooner or later, to the great
detriment of those who were about to profit. Or perhaps Social
Security could be privatized and made voluntary. Since the over 65
age group is on the average the wealthiest age group, I'm not too
worried about it. *I* don't expect to ever receive a dime from Social
Security whether the libertarians win or not.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 42
Today's Topics:
Justice &
Welfare &
Technology, Research and the Free Market (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 20:16:53 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Rights
To: eyal%wisdom.bitnet@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
From: Eyal mozes < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
... The objection to the liberal activists in the courts is not
their excessive zeal for individual rights, but their tendency to
create bogus new "rights", which, like bad money, are driving out
the real ones. ...
Exactly. For instance what does it mean to have a 'right to a job'?
Who is compelled to give a job to whom, and who is compelled to pay?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 20:12:39 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Liberty
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
I think most of the people who receive government assistance only
do so for short periods of time while they are down on their luck.
So? Most people who mug you only mug you once.
But it is not only people who are not "fundamentally dishonest"
and who want to "sit around watching TV all day" who won't want to
get a job if the government pays more for welfare than they can
make at a job. I would have to value self-sufficiency very highly
indeed to leave my (hypothetical) children to be cared for by
someone else in order to go out and make money so that they can be
less well fed and clothed and lose the free medical care they are
getting.
I don't blame you. Especially if you have been paying taxes to
support such people all along.
I am not saying individuals should forfeit benefits the government
guarantees them. I am saying it is the guarantees that should change.
What I meant by 'fundamentally honest' is that few people who could
quit their jobs and live BETTER by being on welfare choose to do so.
Saying that "society" is to some extent responsible for crime
means that "society" can somehow alter its behavior to make crime
less frequent, and that it ought to do so.
I agree that individuals can do much to reduce crime. Better locks,
not walking through bad neighborhoods alone after dark, being armed at
home, and being good at self defense all help. This does not of
course justify a crime if the victim has failed to be prudent about
preventing it.
If there are ways of reducing crime which are more effective than
heavy punishments for the criminals, then we should try them
(provided the cost in personal liberty is not too high).
Agreed. One promising new technique is electronic probation, where
a person's movements are monitored via an electronic bracelet. This
is a great restriction on freedom and privacy, but it is better than
being in jail. And cheaper. And the probationer is free to work to
pay for court costs and victim restitution.
Keith, what would you do about people who are needy because of
past injustices of the government. Is it wrong for the government
to compensate them, since it has to take money from everyone to do
so?
This is a problem. But we have faced it before. Before the 1860s,
slavery was justified on the grounds that, while it was obviously
unfair to the slaves, slaveowners would suffer enormously if they lost
their slaves. And they were right. They did. And the government did
not compensate them.
Another analogy to slavery is that it was also justified by the fact
that every major civilization had had slaves. The 'republican' Romans
had slaves. The 'democratic' Greeks had slaves. The Egyptians had
slaves. The Hebrews who escaped from Egyptian slavery had slaves.
How, they asked, could any civilization stand without slavery? Who
would do the scut work?
Taxation and mandatory government power are justified today on the
same two grounds. I think that they are as mistaken as the slave
apologists were in the 1860s. History does not have to continue as it
has. We are on a higher moral plane than the Romans and Greeks and
Confederates. We can be on a higher moral plane yet.
No inconvenience to slaveholders justified slavery for one minute.
It is true that without slavery everyone was better off in the long
run, and it is true that without taxation everyone will be better off
in the long run. But that is not THE MAIN REASON for doing away with
either.
What ought the government to do in the way of protecting children?
They should not be completely at the mercy of their parents, but
all kinds of excessive restrictions on people's freedom are
justified in the name of protecting children.
I think the present laws against child abuse are pretty fair. One
thing I would add to them is that it should not be legal to smoke
around children (this is not, however, mainstream libertarian
thought).
I think that the current 'awareness' of child abuse goes too far,
and threatens to result in unreasonable laws.
I do not think children should be taken from their parents unless
there is real abuse. Having a sloppy apartment does not constitute
abuse. Both parents working does not constitute abuse.
Keith, not everyone agrees that government interference caused the
Great Depression. So, if you want to use that as an argument,
could you either sum up why you think this is so or give a pointer
to some explanation.
Read Ayn Rand's book _Capitalism: an Unknown Ideal_.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 19:26:13 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Phones, Roads
To: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Long distance phone rates were being used to subsidize local
service ... Now, local rates are going up, deprived of their
subsidy.
Good. Let people pay their fair share.
I don't know about anyone else, but my phone bill is in fact
higher than it was, because the decrease in the cost of my long
distance doesn't make up for the increase in the cost of my local
service.
Mine too. Strange sort of subsidy that makes it more expensive for
everyone when it is removed. Perhaps the price increase has more to
do with local service being a monopoly? I suspect the now absent
subsidy was used only as an excuse for increasing local rates. I
don't guess there is any way to find out unless local phone
competition is legalized.
There used to be [competing local phone companies].
But it wasn't very good.
Perhaps this had more to do with the 19th century technology in use
at the time?
Can you imagine the VHS vs. Beta vs. 8mm video competition
extended to telephone service?
Be real. There would be interconnects. After all, all the
incompatible computer networks interconnect.
Can you imagine, instead of the many competing computer CPUs, memory
schemes, languages, formats, etc, what things would be like if the
government had simply granted IBM a monopoly in the 1950s? Is it
possible that phone service today could have been as far ahead of the
phone service of the 1950s as computers today are ahead of computers
of the 1950s?
... the motorists on the LA freeways ... would be better off if
they car-pooled. Even if they each found only 1 other person with
whom they ride-shared once a week, it would reduce the number of
cars on the road by 20%, which would eliminate rush-hour traffic
jams ... But, if only a few people car pool, they give up the
freedom of choosing the time they arrive, the time they leave, and
where to go for lunch, AND do not benefit from a reduction in the
number of cars on the road, because it isn't large enough to make
a difference. So no one car pools.
The idea should be to make the person pay for the resources he is
consuming. This can include inconvenience to others. The owner of
the road is free to set policy. Presumably he wishes to maximize
revenues. In order to do so, he needs to maximize value. Things are
made confusing by the fact that the owner of the road is usually the
state, federal, or local government, rather than a company. But the
principle is the same.
I don't know about LA, but around here (DC area) a lot of people
carpool. Many major highways allow only vehicles with 3 or more
people during rush hours. I think this is reasonable, but I think
they should also allow 2 and 1 person vehicles if the people are
willing to pay extra for the privilege.
One thing I have heard about Los Angeles - correct me if I am wrong
- bus service is often the most logical way to get around, but the
city run bus service in Los Angeles is said to be atrocious. So bad,
in fact, that few people even think about using bus service.
Since a person is not likely to ride a bus after paying a lot for a
car, even if the city buses got better or a private bus system were to
start up, few people would start riding it until their cars wore out,
which would take years. Much of the traffic problem can probably be
traced to the historic lack of competing private systems. But it is
not clear just what to do about it now.
It is certainly costing the people of the city considerable
revenues. Los Angeles would be a great place for tourists to visit,
except that potential tourists who don't drive don't find it practical
to visit the place.
I don't think nonusers should ever have to pay for the roads. Users
should pay in proportion to their usage. Usage can be defined in
terms of incremental cost of road maintenance plus incremental
inconvenience to other users plus amortized costs of road
construction. As such, I find automobile ownership taxes and gasoline
sales taxes the least objectionable ways of paying for government
owned roads. It is not reasonable to pay for roads from income taxes
or general sales taxes.
Government run city bus service is subsidized in many places. I
think it should be self supporting, via fares, with one exception.
The one exception is that since it is not fair that people who ride
the buses are delayed by traffic jams caused by others, it is
reasonable that users of the vehicles in the traffic jams be assessed
the value of the time lost by bus riders, which should be given to the
riders in the form of lower fares. I don't know just what the best
way to do this is, especially since most roads are owned by the
government.
I believe you give too much credit to the enemies of capitalism,
and that you do capitalism a disservice by refusing to admit that
while it is the best possible economic system, it is not perfect.
That depends on what you mean by not perfect. Not everybody would
suddenly become healthy, wealthy, and wise if there was a purely
capitalist system. In that sense it is far from perfect. It doesn't
solve the problem of nuclear war. In that sense it is far from
perfect.
But in the sense that it is the best system known, and in the sense
that it is the most MORAL system that CAN be known, it is as close to
perfect as we are going to get.
It makes little sense to me that since it is the best system known
but not perfect it must be mixed with a worse system. That seems to
be what you are saying.
But let's not ignore a few flaws ... to which I see no remedy
other than government intervention in the market.
And people in the middle ages saw no remedy other than prayer and
total obedience to the local bishop. And people in earlier ages saw
no remedy but human sacrifice. I don't think that we of the 20th
century have reach the endpoint of human knowledge.
...Keith
[ I take issue with your statement on people in the middle ages.
Middle ages man was in many ways as energetic and intelligent as 20th
century man. Indeed, the Reformation, Norman Conquest, Crusades, rise
of Venice and Genoa, the "Renaissance", and a host of other events
were due entirely to people NOT obeying the local bishop (or one of
the up to 3 local popes). - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 19:46:47 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Postal service
To: Mills@MULTICS.MIT.EDU
From: Mills@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
What if the level of service, start-up and maintenance costs and
revenue are such that no business or corporation is interested?
Then it probably isn't practical - yet. Commercial air travel was
possible in 1910, but not practical. Travelling to the moon was
possible in 1969 but not practical (did we really gain anything by
going?).
Is it valid for the government to require people to bear the costs
of such a project?
No.
If the government has to take on the project, is it reasonable to
restrict the actions of others that will make the result more
expensive?
I can see why one would think that it would be, but this merely
becomes another argument that government shouldn't have gotten
involved, then it would not have been in its interest to distort the
economy.
Services expensive to provide should be expensive. Services
inexpensive to provide should be inexpensive. One should never
subsidize the other, nor should taxpayers subsidize either.
The question of requiring people to bear the costs is easy. If
there is a real consensus that the project is a good thing, there
will be little objection to forking over the money for it.
Fine. If it can be done with voluntary contributions, I have no
objection.
You get into problems when people perceive they are paying more
than their fair share or they don't agree with the project in the
first place.
Or if they aren't even aware of what the project is. How many
people have a good idea on just what tax revenues go to pay for? Or
how wasteful and mismanaged most of those projects are? Or how much
of social spending goes to people WEALTHIER than the average taxpayer?
By being citizens of a particular country/government, we have
agreed to a particular method of figuring how much an individual
should have to pay and how that money is distributed.
You might as well say that by being a citizen of Germany in the
1930s, a person has agreed as to what should be done with the Jews.
Hitler was elected by the majority. Does that mean everything he did
was ok?
If you don't like it you can have protests, try to elect
candidates who agree with you...
That's what I am doing.
The question of restricting competition is harder. One hybrid
solution might be to open the profitable parts to free-enterprise,
with the government taking a cut of the the profits.
But the government takes a cut out of ALL profits in EVERY industry.
And it takes a cut of ALL wages, ALL dividends, ALL interest payments,
ALL inheritence. Everything.
Why should there even be a question of restricting competition? You
are still thinking in terms of a totalitarian government. That ANY
competition that takes place takes place because GOVERNMENT willed it.
And that they are free to rescind their consent at any time for any
reason. And that they are free to set tax rates as high as they like,
and increase them at any time for any reason.
My attitude is that GOVERNMENT exists because INDIVIDUALS will it.
That INDIVIDUALS are free to rescind their consent to the government
at any time for any reason.
I feel this would be fair to the companies, as they are not
providing the full range of services, but are increasing the cost
of those services.
If government were not involved in the market, these questions could
not even arise.
If the company would provide the full range of services, then they
should be allowed to compete without special charges.
So you DO oppose taxation for some companies and their employees and
stockholders?
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 5 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 43
Today's Topics:
Proposed Privacy Amendment (2 msgs) &
The Mother Tongue (2 msgs) &
Cost of Justice &
The Story of the Cave &
Rent control
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 20:35:01 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Proposed Amendment
To: Hoffman.es@XEROX.COM
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
... witness the recent ruling that employers can
fire AIDS victims on the grounds that they are contagious.
You've already vehemently defended an employer's right to fire
anyone for any reason whatsoever, and, while not completely
agreeing with that, I've already conceded that hiring and firing
do not fall under any privacy rights amendment.
I was using that ruling simply to illustrate that it is the
government's position that AIDS is a danger to nonconsenting people.
I DO support an employer's right to terminate someone even for a silly
reason, just as I support an employee's right to resign even for a
silly reason. The government, however, does not. So it is clear that
they do not think that fear of casual exposure to AIDS victims is
unreasonable. And from that I conclude that they would hold that
someone having AIDS presents a clear and present danger to others, and
thus behaviors that make AIDS likely are not protected under your
proposed amendment.
That [Meese] commission's report has utterly no effect.
Legislation is required to put it to work, and THAT is what my
amendment would, I think, prohibit.
The Meese comission report comes to the conclusion that someone's
viewing pornography results in a clear and present danger to others.
Thus it would not be protected under your amendment. I still don't
see why it isn't protected under the FIRST Amendment! The First
Amendment is just as clear on the subject as yours.
I tend to think wiretapping and reading other people's mail would
remain generally illegal under the Fourth Amendment (forbidding
unreasonable search and seizure).
What about peeping? Your previous response implied that one could
only be a peeping tom on one's property. This is not true.
Binoculars can be used. And apartment dwellers do not own or control
the space immediately outside their windows in any case. If
binoculars are used to read private documents through someone's
window, does that constitute search and seizure? Nothing physical is
siezed, but the same is true when secret computer files are remotely
viewed. What if it is private behavior rather than private documents
that is viewed? Should the law recognize a difference?
This is not just paranoia. Where I work there is a rule that
windows must be blocked before sensitive documents can be exposed,
even though the only way to see desktops through the windows would be
from midair or outer space.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM>
Date: 4 Aug 86 09:17:48 PDT (Monday)
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Proposed Amendment
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I think most of your feared scenarios come from rather far-fetched
interpretations of "danger". (Yes, I know the scenarios are not
necessarily your own, but rather Meese's, for instance.) That's
precisely why I put in "clear and present danger". As I said before,
I don't believe judges and juries could be readily convinced that
private, consensual sodomy presents a "clear and present danger" of
AIDS to some other party, nor that private viewing of pornography
presents such a danger.
-- Rodney Hoffman
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 21:20:04 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Good English
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Who says that the English spoken by "inner city types" is worse
than that spoken by anyone else?!?!
The great majority of potential employers, that's who. Also, the
great majority of teachers, professors, professional people, etc.
If these people are to participate in a major way in the economic
and political life of our country, they had better learn to talk
straight.
Different, yes.
Are you sure it isn't objectively worse? Can it convey the same
thoughts? Can classes in physics, mathematics, history, and business
be conducted in it? Can the professions of banking, programming, law,
and medicine be conducted in it? Is it a legitimate language like
Spanish or Japanese? Or is it a collection of slang and gutter talk,
only able to coherently convey thoughts of sex, gambling, violence,
crime, and drugs?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Mon 4 Aug 86 14:53:17-EDT
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Good English
To: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
> From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
>
> Who says that the English spoken by "inner city types" is worse than
> that spoken by anyone else?!?!
>
> The great majority of potential employers, that's who. Also, the
> great majority of teachers, professors, professional people, etc.
> If these people are to participate in a major way in the economic
> and political life of our country, they had better learn to talk
> straight.
Yes, yes, yes. I agree that, to function effectively in this country,
one must speak the "standard" American English (for the region you're
living in). My objection to the "tone" of your statement (is that
possible in written communication??) is that similar statements are
often used to argue that the "inner city types" are somehow inferior
to everyone else. Since "inner city types" often means "blacks", such
statements are often used to argue "blacks are inherently inferior to
whites", when in fact it's just the crummy environment they grew up in
that hasn't provided them with a decent education. Even if that's not
what you meant ( and i have no reason to believe that it is ), that's
the way that some other people will interpret it.
> Different, yes.
>
> Are you sure it isn't objectively worse? Can it convey the same
> thoughts? Can classes in physics, mathematics, history, and business
> be conducted in it? Can the professions of banking, programming,
> law, and medicine be conducted in it? Is it a legitimate language
> like Spanish or Japanese?
Sure, if people in the inner city had learned enough physics or
math...
Depends what you mean by "worse". Since not too much computer
programming, medicine, law, etc. is practiced by inner-city residents,
there is no need for their language to be able to convey such
concepts. That doesn't make it an "illegitimate" language, just as
some obscure language spoken by some people on a South Pacific island
isn't illegitimate. Also, remember that many of the "legitimate"
languages -- whichever ones those are -- often do not have the proper
words for certain things or concepts, so they borrow them from other
languages.
> Or is it a collection of slang and gutter talk,
> only able to coherently convey thoughts of sex, gambling, violence,
> crime, and drugs?
> ...Keith
I suspect that, at this, it might be MORE effective than standard
english :-)
- joe testa -
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 20:54:38 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Cost of Justice
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Say the cost of conducting a murder case (salaries of attorneys
and judges, cost for maintaining a courtroom, etc.) is $XXXXX.
Now say a defendant is found guilty and so is liable for these
expenses. What if he/she has nowhere near this amount of money?
There is no requirement that the fine be restricted to the cost of
the trial. The fine can be made sufficient to subsidize unsuccessful
and indigent trials. Trials can also be paid for by voluntary
individual contributions, by the victims, and by voluntary
organizations of potential victims.
... does it mean that the convicted person will somehow have to
"work-off" the debt? I thought we got rid of debtor's prisons a
long time ago.
We are speaking of people who have been convicted of a crime, not of
people who have simply gone into debt. So why not? You think that
prisons DON'T make convicts work? If so, you are wrong.
For first time and nonviolent crimes, electronically supervised
probation is a promising and inexpensive alternative to imprisonment.
The probationer can work normally while under such supervision.
Anyway, i'm not familiar with the actual costs of a trial, but i
can imagine that the cost for a complicated case could easily
exceed the amount of money that convict could "earn" for the rest
of his/her life.
Like anything else government pays for, the cost of trials has gone
up enormously. I think it can be reduced a lot without interfering
with anyone's rights. And it is in the interests of the defendant, if
he thinks he is likely to be found guilty, to waive expensive features
of the trial.
You DO realize, the vast majority of criminal cases do NOT go to a
jury trial, or even a judge trial, but are plea bargained. This is in
the interests of the defendant if he thinks he will be found guilty,
and is quite inexpensive.
No matter who you are, or how much money you have, you have a
right to a trial by your peers.
Right. This is important and should not be changed.
Besides, there are all of those other expenses -- electricity for
the court room, for example -- who volunteers to pay for them??
Be real. If the courtroom is lit by ten flourescent 40 watt bulbs,
and the trial lasts 10 hours, at $0.07 per kilowatt hour that would
cost less than thirty cents. If this is the best that opponents of
libertarian philosophy can come up with, we must be doing pretty well.
If the only reasonable way to guarantee equal access to the
justice system is by taxation, then that is the way we are forced
to do it.
And if the only way to guarantee equal access to the justice system
was by slavery, would you support that? There is no evidence for
either assertion.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 21:05:26 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: The Story of the Cave
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu
Ahh, but that *is* a choice. You are perfectly free to empty your
bank accounts, convert all your dollars to lumps of gold, and go
live alone in a cave for the rest of your life. In fact, many of
us would be quite pleased if you did.
Sigh. It is true that the main postulate here is that it is never
immoral to simply mind one's own business. But this does not imply
having nothing to do with others.
Suppose I do just that. I live alone in a cave and raise and eat
potatoes. In the next cave over is someone who lives alone and raises
and eats carrots. Suppose one day we get to talking, and decide to
trade some of our food. So I give him some of my potatoes and he
gives me some of his carrots, and we are both satisfied with the
bargain.
At this point the IRS agent knocks at the cave and says "I saw that!
Those carrots are INCOME. You can avoid taxes by living alone and
dealing with nobody, but when you traded with your neighbor you became
subject to taxes." I object "These carrots aren't income, I got them
in return for potatoes of equal value. And the government had nothing
to do with the growing of either crop." He says "No matter. And I
plan to tax your neighbor, too. Those potatoes he got from you were
also income. I will be taking a percentage of both crops." I give
him a percentage and start eating what remains.
At this point the state tax agent knocks at the cave and says "I saw
that! You owe state income taxes on those carrots. AND you owe SALES
taxes on the POTATOES!" My neighbor and I both give him a percent of
our crops. My neighbor is so despondent that he doesn't watch his
footing. He falls down a ravine and is killed. He willed his crop to
me, so I go over to his cave to tend his carrots.
At this point another taxman shows up and demands a further percent
of what remains of the carrot crop as INHERITANCE tax.
Sigh.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 21:13:30 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Rent control
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Anyone who thinks that owners won't run down property have had
either limited experience or incredible luck with landlords.
Or perhaps live in an area without rent control. Rent control is
what makes running down property the only way the landlord can break
even.
In fact I have had landlords whose conscious policy was to run an
apartment into the ground, so that ideally it had zero value on
the day they died.
Please tell us, was rent control in effect?
Do you think that private enterprise exists at the convenience of
government, that government must watch like a hawk, ready to seize the
land if the landlords behave in ways the government doesn't like?
That seems to be what you are implying. You seem to be saying that
some landlords act irrationally and that governmnent should take over
the property, or at least the control of the property, to utilize it
to better ends.
Even if an apartment gets shoddy, can't it be fixed up?
In some cases, running into the ground means destroying the value
of the land for a long time, such as creating a bogus toxic waste
dump.
Huh? How many landlords have done THAT to your apartment? How many
do that to ANY apartment?
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 6 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 44
Today's Topics:
Governments and Libertarians (4 msgs) &
Take up Thy Terminal and Walk &
Technology and Research and the Free Market &
Proposed Privacy Amendment &
Property
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 86 01:09:14 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Government
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
I think that government at its worst probably does more harm than
anarchy at its worst ...
Note that (most) libertarians are not anarchists. Government has
the power to protect people's true rights, by preventing invasion and
restraining criminals.
In fact, it has been pointed out that total anarchy is identical to
total government. If there is no authority to prevent the formation
of a coercive government, one will come into existence. And since
there are no laws in an anarchy, this government would be perfectly
legal, as would any laws that it passes.
I certainly think we have an obligation to feed the hungry, heal
the sick, and so on.
And who decides how great each individual's obligation is? Is it
immoral for us to not spend every saved dollar on aid to Ethiopia or
wherever?
... I don't believe that the only kind of coercion is that which
is done with a gun.
Please explain.
... [Government] should be limited to preventing force and fraud
and providing some services which people couldn't provide as well
for themselves.
What services are those, other than preventing force and fraud?
Avoid giving the government power to control vague things.
Vague things is pretty vague. Please elaborate.
It is dangerous for the government to be doing things secretly.
Much of defense relies on tight security. Or was this not what you
meant?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Date: Mon 4 Aug 86 10:13:27-PDT
From: Terry C. Savage < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #21
While I agree with many of his positions, Keith Lynch's
contention that Society does not exist is a pedantic Libertarian
fiction. It is quite simple to define a society to be some group
of people and...presto! Society exists using that defintion,
within the context of that discussion. Defining a social entity can
be analytically useful. If one then wants to say that this
entity as defined should not/cannot/must not do "x", fine, then that
is an assertion of viewpoint, or a hypothesis
that can be teseted against fact. To say that Society doesn't exist
is just silly.
TCS
------------------------------
Return-path: < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Date: Mon 4 Aug 86 15:26:16-PDT
From: Terry C. Savage < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #22
Keith suggests that the reason Libertarians don't get more votes in
elections is ignorance/lack of education/lack of understanding. To
an exten this is true. To a greater extent, it is because Libertarians
and their views are percieved as downright wierd by most people (even
though I personally agree with most of them). The party would do a
great deal better if candidates would adopt specific policy
positions closer to the mainstream,but in the "proper" direction.
Trouble is, these positions aren't "ideologically pure", and we
(Libertarians) can be as fanatic/unreasonable about the details of
our ideology as anybody else.
TCS
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 4 Aug 86 23:58:47-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: more libertarianism
Keith is right, I was too vague in saying that the government should
not have power to do vague things. Let me reword it: the government
should protect people from concrete dangers, not nebulous ones, e.g.,
rape, not the possibility that rape might increase because of a
nebulous thing caled "pornography", child abuse and neglect, not being
an unfit parent in some more nebulous sense, violent revolution, not
"subversive publications".
Yes, secrecy for national defense was what I had in mind when I talked
about the dangers of the government doing things in secret. I can
see, even as a pacifist, that we need spies; knowing about other
countries weapons and policies is as necessary for effective arms
control as for building an effective military. And of course spying
involves secrecy. But when the NSA can spy for years on the likes of
Joan Baez (who, whatever you think of her politics, is not violent)
without people knowing about it, then the ability of the government to
act without our being able to know and control what it is doing has
gone too far. I want to be sure that the government is not using
national security as an excuse to harrass people who are peacefully
objecting to its policies. I also do not see why the government
should be able to covertly do things like bombing Cambodia or
organizing ex-members of Somoza's National Guard to overthrow the
Sandinista government. I think that the government is now able to do
more things covertly than it legitimately needs to be able to do for
national defense.
In response to someone else's comment on insurance, I don't see why
people whose jobs don't provide life insurance are a problem. They
are free to switch to a job which does provide life insurance, or they
can buy their own privately. Why should everyone even have life
insurance? If you have no dependents, it isn't all that necessary.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 4 Aug 86 22:05:54-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: moving to another country if you don't agree
Why should Keith move to another country or resist the law if he
considers taxation theft? What is wrong with his staying in this
country and trying to persuade his fellow citizens of his views?
Why should he have to risk going to jail for them in order to argue
for them? And what other country should he go to? There is no
country in the world with a libertarian system of government. I
am not sure if there is any that comes any closer to libertarianism
than ours; there certainly aren't many. As a pacifist, I have gotten
very tired of hearing people say, when I object to some military
intervention, that people with my views should leave the country,
so I don't like to hear that kind of argument directed at other
people either.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 86 21:51:48 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Who pays?
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU
Universal, inexpensive communications yield substantial benefits
both economically, and politically.
Those who receive the benefits should be the ones to pay for them.
Economic example: Sears Roebuck drew most of its early growth from
mail order business from rural customers.
At the expense of nonconsenting others? If so, how do you justify
it?
... despite all the self-righteous breast beating of capitalist
ideologues,
Flattery will get you nowhere.
the single biggest reason for the wealth of the U.S. is not our
economic system, but our agricultural and mineral wealth, tapped
by rural pioneers.
Another fine myth.
Tell that to Mexico. Or does the agricultural and mineral wealth
of the continent stop abruptly at the Mexican border?
Is Japan's recent success due to its adoption of free enterprise?
Or is agricultural and mineral wealth responsible there too? Strange
how no communist countries seem to have any.
... when telephones first started, there WAS competition, and it
DID NOT WORK. Businesses often had to have three, four, or five
phones on each desk, because the private phone companies didn't
interconnect.
You think this might have a little bit to do with the low level of
19th century electronic technology?
Recall also that with the technology of the 19th century it was
impractical to allow more than one phone company to place wires on
telephone poles in most areas.
I won't argue the point. But do you think we would be restricted to
such technology today?
Telephones did not become successful, and never would have, until
a regulated monopoly was established with the charter of providing
universal service.
Various countries have telephone systems with various degrees of
regulation. Without exception, the less regulation, the more
succesful the phone service. Who can say how much more successful
ours would have been had it been as unregulated as, say, the computer
industry?
Of course there is such an entity as 'society'. Just because it
cannot be precisely defined does not mean that it doesn't exist.
What I meant is that it is not meaningful to talk of society as it
it were an entity. People were saying 'society has decided...' and
'it is society's fault that...' and 'society should pay...', etc,
which is not conducive to any kind of discussion since it doesn't
really seem to mean anything.
Now, many objectivists and libertarians like to moan and groan
about how society has no right to "pick my pocket", or "force me
to do something".
See, here you are doing it. What you are talking about is called
'government'. Why not use the word? It isn't all THAT loathsome.
... if you expect to be able to participate in the advantages that
society provides -- culture, economic activity, safety, medicine--
Presto! Now society has a new meaning. It doesn't mean government
in this paragraph. Government supplies none of those except possibly
safety. You can have so much fun when you change the meaning of words
in the middle of an argument.
none of which you can provide all by yourself --
No, I have to voluntarily trade what I can produce for these things.
What does government have to do with that?
... then you must also be willing to contribute your share to
society.
Shazam! Now 'society' means 'government' again! Clearly you don't
mean the people I get these various good things from. I already paid
for them. You mean I should also pay TAXES on them, for a reason
never specified.
I was once an objectivist myself -- in high school. I grew out of
it, ... Objectivism (and its cousin, libertarianism) are smugly
self-satisfying -- just the ticket for young people who are still
struggling with the "leaving the nest" syndrome and identity
construction of adolescence. But they cannot speak to the larger
problems of human society one must face as a fully functioning
member of human civilization.
Wow! Subsumtion! This is the technique used by O'Brien when
brainwhing Winston Smith in George Orwell's _1984_. O'Brien showed
that he CONTAINED Smith, that Smith's every thought, that his whole
mind, was a SUBSET of O'Brien's.
This can be done by saying "I (used to feel | would have felt) that
way (when | if) I was [younger and] (less mature | less wise | more
stupid | less well educated | smug and self righteous) [but I know
better now | but I grew up | but I grew out of it]."
I could equally well make the same argument on the other side. I
won't bother. All I will say is I that I am no adolescent, I am not
struggling with any syndromes, I do not have an identity crisis, and I
feel that I *AM* speaking to the larger problems of human society, and
I *AM* a fully functioning member of human civilization.
I don't know your background, but I strongly suspect you have had
far less experience with human civilization in all its forms than I
have.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @lll-tis-a.ARPA:mcb%lll-tis-b.ARPA@lll-tis-gw.arpa>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 86 19:39:33 pdt
From: Michael C. Berch < mcb%lll-tis-b.ARPA@lll-tis-gw.arpa>
Subject: Re: Proposed amendment
Reply-to: mcb%lll-tis-b.ARPA@lll-tis-gw.arpa (Michael C. Berch)
[Keith F. Lynch's proposed noncoercive acitvities amendment...]
> . . .
>
> Every person who is at least 21 years of age shall be presumed
> to be capable of voluntary consent, unless he has voluntarily
> declared himself incompetent, or has been declared incompetent
> by a court of law after having been convicted of a crime. The
> period of incompetency declared by a court shall not exceed the
> maximum sentence allowed for the crime he was convicted of.
I'm with you most of the way, but I'm wondering about the sort of
cases where:
1. X is dangerously crazy, presents a clear and immediate danger of
committing a violent crime, but has not yet committed the crime.
If there is no civil committment or temporary detention for being "a
danger to society or oneself", what is to be done? Private action
seems reasonable, but might unreasonably expose a quick thinking
bystander to liability.
2. X commits a crime while insane, pleads "guilty but insane" (or
whatever), and after his statutory period of incompetence is still
dangerously crazy. Should he be let out? If so, are the authorities
then liable for his subsequent acts?
I worry less about the civil impediments of incompetence (lack of
capacity to contract, consent to risks, etc.) than about dangerously
crazy people wandering around since the state has no right to protect
them "from themselves." Is there a way around this?
Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Monday, 4 August 1986 11:50:18 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Running down property
There is no rent control in Pittsburgh, nor do they build toxic waste
dumps. My point was that land owners often do things that do not make
long-term economic sense because the consequences are beyond their
planning horizon. I was trying to deflate these odes to land owners
that I was hearing.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 6 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 45
Today's Topics:
Property Rights (2 msgs) &
Government Services &
Government and Subcultures &
TV Censorship/Bias &
Suicide Rights
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 86 00:33:29 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Running down property
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
My point was that land owners often do things that do not make
long-term economic sense because the consequences are beyond their
planning horizon.
I have seen little evidence for long term government planning. By
long term I mean anything past the next election. At least landlords
are interested in the property for their expected lifetime.
Not that it would matter if the evidence was otherwise. The point
is that the owner of a thing, whether the thing be land or whatever,
is the owner and has control. He is not a trustee, holding the land
in trust for the benefit of the tenants, potential future tenants, the
government, or whoever. If he wants to chase everyone out when their
lease expires and turn it into a toxic waste dump, that is his
perogative (so long as he can guarantee none of the toxic waste
escapes from his land). Not that I have heard of many landlords doing
that!
I was trying to deflate these odes to land owners that I was
hearing.
It is not that I am terribly fond of land owners, and it is not
that I have any vested interest. I don't own any land, and I rent
an apartment and have been doing so for many years, during which
time the rent has nearly doubled. It is simply that I don't think
that the land really belongs to the government or the tenants, and
I cannot and will not condone robbery or slavery, however soft the
velvet glove that contains the iron fist.
I get the impression that we are talking past eachother. I think I
understand what you are saying, but you don't seem to understand what
I am saying. To make sure I understand you, let me try to paraphrase
what I think your position might be:
1) Land cannot really belong to anyone but the government. The
government allows the semblance of private ownership for
efficiency's sake, but always retains the real title. Government
can and should decide how each parcel of land should be utilized,
and should take an especially agressive role if the landlord
seems to be doing something unreasonable with the land.
2) The landlord really does own the land. But government has the
power to interfere in this ownership if it thinks it knows better
than the landlord. Similarly, it can interfere with any
transaction and lifestyle based on the whim of congress or even the
whim of unelected Nth agency bureaucrats. The citizens should
cooperate with this in all cases, as it is the citizen's duty to be
subservient to the State in all cases.
3) The free enterprise system is good, but landlords are not a part
of it. Renting out apartments is actually a form of extortion or
other coercion and the landlords should be punshed.
Please tell me which of these (if any) represents your position,
and we can continue from there.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, 5 August 1986 14:03:41 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: land rights
I think property ownership is similar to freedom of speech. One don't
have an absolute right to freedom of speech, because that may
interfere with the rights of others ("fire" in the theater). You
don't have any problem with that. Similarly, I think one doesn't have
an absolute right to do what one wants with property because that may
interfere with the rights of others. If we restrict ourselves to just
the property of others, it is obvious that ANYTHING you do to a piece
of property will have some influence on the value of my nearby
property. Some changes, such as kitchen remodeling, are small enought
to ignore. On the other hand, if you let your house look like a trash
heap, then this will bring down my property value. Now it is also the
case that if you develop some piece of forest next to my house, my
property values will fall. Therefore the situation is one of trading
off your rights to modify your property and my rights to be protected
from property-damaging effects of those modifications. There's no
black and white.
Property owners naturally want to be protected from property-damaging
effects. Hence we have zoning laws, housing codes, etc. The public
in general often feels that some perceived public good is more
important than some individual property rights, hence the California
Coastal Commission was created. If we had no controls, or minimal
controls, then we would really be relying on custom and vigilantism
rather than law. Anyone who did something with their property that
was too far out of line would find themselves the target for arson,
sabotage, or personal attack.
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 4 Aug 86 23:58:13-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: what services a government should provide
Well, actually I am not sure what services the government can better
provide than private organizations. I have at various times leaned
toward liberalism, socialism, and libertarianism, and have never quite
been able to convince myself that any system was right. I don't
believe in principle that it is impossible for the government to do
something better than voluntary organizations, nor do I believe in
principle that because something must be done, it must be done by the
government.
I would have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of
having the government providing a service and see how they apply to
each case, and also find out whether experience suggests that the
government is better at providing this service than voluntary
organizations.
There are several possible advantages to having the government provide
a service:
1. It is convenient for one group to take care of the overhead of
allocating money among all the various good causes and judging who is
needy rather than having each individual have to take the time. Since
this same service can be provided by voluntary groups like United Way,
it doesn't seem to be a good reason for the government to provide for
charity.
2. There are some cases where people's negligence in providing for
themselves might be hazardous to other people, e.g. contagious
diseases. The government could provide these services cheaply to
encourage people to use them. On the other hand, this is a list which
could be extended very broadly, and no one really wants the government
to do everyone's car repairs.
3. There are some things, like fires, earthquakes, and floods, which
put everyone at some small amount of risk. It makes sense to me for
everyone to share the cost of local fire departments.
4. It is easier for a government to provide a service uniformly over
a geographic area.
5. Some services ought to be reliably provided. If people don't see
voluntary organizations reliably providing these services, they may
want the government to provide them. Of course, they also have the
alternative of publicizing the problem and trying to form a voluntary
organization which has a steady enough income that it can reliably
provide this service. For instance, voters should be informed for a
democracy to function, so the government provides voter information
pamphlets, but the League of Women Voters seems to do a good job of
this.
Disadvantages are:
1. If the government provides it, there is bound to be a lot of
paperwork, and it may be less efficient and more impersonal than
private groups providing the same service.
2. The service is more distant from direct control by the people it
serves.
3. It imposes the same priorities on everyone.
4. I think that it may be easier for voluntary charitable
organizations to encourage a sense of dignity and self-reliance in the
people they serve.
5. If the government provides a service like public education, there
is no way it can do so without promoting some set of values, and
people will be forever arguing about whose values to impose on
everyone. Education should certainly be available to all children,
but if the government is going to be in the business of providing it
it seems better to me for it to provide vouchers for parents to use at
the school of their choice than to provide public schools.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 86 00:08:31 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Good English
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
... such statements are often
used to argue "blacks are inherently inferior to whites", when in
fact it's just the crummy environment they grew up in that hasn't
provided the with a decent education.
I don't believe in inferior races. But I certainly do believe in
inferior cultures, subcultures, ways of thought, ways of speaking,
etc.
We do blacks no favors by telling them that jive talk is just as
good as english and dealing drugs is just as good as working in an
office.
Now government cannot draw such conclusions. They should treat
everyone equally. As far as government is concerned, dealing drugs is
just as good as office work. Only individuals are allowed to make
such value judgement, for instance when choosing who to hire or work
for, or who to rent one's house to or what neighborhood to rent an
apartment or house in.
Individuals are free to set up schools that will teach these
alternative lifestyles. I think that such a school is a very bad
idea, and I vehemently object to being made to pay for it, or to
pay for the re-education of its graduates. But if people who choose
to live a slum lifestyle can find employment, perhaps by employing
eachother to the exclusion of outsiders, more power to them.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < DENNETT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 5 Aug 86 10:25:13-PDT
From: Steve Dennett < DENNETT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: TV Censorship/Bias
> There is a terrible view that people will believe whatever
> appears on the screen (most often held by those whose opinion is
> not broadcast in prime-time). You want your views sent out?
> Pay the money. Buy the commercial time. ... - CWM]
I used to believe this too-- that anyone with the cash could put
whatever they wanted on TV. Even LaRouche was able to buy time during
the last election.
What changed my mind was the recent business with W.R. Grace.
Remember him? He chaired a presidential task force that came up with
several hundred places the federal government could save money by
eliminating overlapping and outdated programs.
Anyway, early this year Grace paid to have a commercial produced to
alert Americans to the consequences of our growing federal deficit.
Called "The Deficit Trials of 2010" (or something close) it depicted
children of a future, bankrupt America putting the current generation
on trial for allowing the deficit to destroy the country. It didn't
say anything about what should be done about the deficit, just that if
allowed to continue it could have dire economic consequences.
Grace then asked the three major networks to sell him time to run the
commercial. All three refused, saying basically "Sorry, but we won't
run ads presenting a political viewpoint. Political questions can
only be covered in a 'balanced' manner, by our own public affairs
departments" (if and when they get around to it, of course).
I don't have any objection to the networks being able to choose who
they sell ad time too. But no one should make the mistake of assuming
that TV is an open forum for anyone to express any viewpoint. The
networks have their biases, and these effect even paid advertising.
Unfortunately most Americans don't read, and get their entire
(distorted) view of the world from TV. They may not believe
everything they see, but they also never realize that there are any
alternatives to society as it is now.
Steve Dennett
[ Since I *saw* this commercial on TV several times, I'd say that Mr.
Grace eventually succeeded in getting his message to the public. The
three 'major networks' can't rule the airwaves like they used to. The
success of CNN, TBS, Metromedia, Fox, SNC (until bought out by CNN),
HBO, TMC, MTV, CBN, USA, MSG, Nashville Network and kin show that
cable TV has brought about change in TV viewing. Diversity is the
wave of TV's future. If you don't believe this, check how many albums
Slim Whitman sold advertising on "only" WTBS. I think the result is -
and will continue to increasingly be - a larger range of viewpoints
available to the viewer. - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 5 Aug 86 00:16:55-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: suicide
Many people who want to commit suicide are depressed. Depression is
very treatable. There are a number of anti-depressants which are very
dramatically helpful, and there is also a kind of psychotherapy which
focuses on people's distorted thoughts which has been as effective as
anti-depressants. Depression also generally gets better even without
treatment, though it may recur. So most people who want to kill
themselves will be glad they didn't if they are prevented from killing
themselves. But a few weeks is an unrealistic period of time to give
them to change their minds. Depression is more likely to last for
months. Even anti-depressants take several weeks to have their full
effect, and a week or two to have any noticeable effect. And
sometimes you have to try a few different anti-depressants to find one
that works. If people should be restrained from suicide for a period
of time to be sure they really mean it, then that period of time ought
to be at least several months. I also don't want to be in the
business of evaluating people's reasons, except perhaps for
restricting suicide to people who are terminally ill. If you support
a right to suicide, does that mean that if I find that my brother has
poisoned himself and I rush him to the hospital I am violating his
rights? Or does it just mean that I can't commit him to a mental
hospital for an indefinite period of time because he is suicidal?
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 9 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 46
Today's Topics:
News Media & Arms Race
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MIT-MULTICS.ARPA:DR01@CARNEGIE.Mailnet>
Date: Mon 28 Jul 86 17:43:17-EDT
From: D. M. Rosenblum < DR01@CARNEGIE.Mailnet>
Subject: News Media & Arms Race I
To: ARMS-D%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU@MIT-MULTICS.Mailnet,
A few months ago I sent the following messages off to a bunch of
friends. It occurred to me that people out there in net-land might be
interested in this stuff, so I'm sending it on. There will be a
second message like this immediately following, and future messages as
I get the stuff, unless people object. I'm cross-posting this to both
ARMS-D and POLI-SCI because I think it would be of interest to readers
of both lists (of course, the moderators may or may not choose to
include it in both), so if it is included in both digests and you read
both, forgive the duplication of a long message.
By the way, this material has a copyright ((C) 1986 New York
University) but the copyright notice says nothing about not
reproducing it, so I presume that (a) it's kosher for me to post this
here, and (b) if you in turn reproduce it you should probably include
the copyright information contained in this sentence.
======================================================================
Date: Tue 18 Mar 86 13:25:29-EST
From: D. M. Rosenblum < DR01@TE.CC.CMU.EDU>
Subject: The Press and The Arms Race
New York University has set up a Center for War, Peace, and the News
Media, which publishes a bi-monthly (every other month) journal called
Deadline. I just got the first issue of Deadline, dated March/April
1986.
The first issue of Deadline had the following lead article, that I
think may be of some interest to some of us who have been debating the
worthiness of the American news media. I have borrowed the Scribe
command for italics (@i{italicized text}) to indicate italics in the
original.
======================================================================
`A Range of Opinion As Narrow As Scarlett O'Hara's Waist'
Questions--dozens of them--were the logical response to Mikhail
Gorbachev's surprise offer last January to commence reducing by half
the number of nuclear weapons capable of reaching the other
superpower's territory; eliminate intermediate-range weapons in
Europe; extend the Soviet test ban; and eventually destroy all nuclear
weapons by the year 2000.
Might he be serious? Why would he make such an offer? What does
it tell us about the new Soviet leader and his arms control agenda?
Should both sides even risk the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons? Is there a way the U.S. might respond to test the Soviet
strategy? Is it worth negotiating S.D.I. to pursue the plan? Should
the U.S. join the Soviet moratorium on testing? What might be gained,
or lost? And why did the offer take the Reagan administration so much
by surprise?
Journalists might have chewed over these questions for weeks,
seeking out the views of the arms control community (both left and
right), the allies, the grass roots peace movement, scientists, and
Soviet scholars, as well as the administration. What we were fed,
however, was the administration's view. The range of opinion in the
press was as narrow as Scarlett O'Hara's waist. It started with the
president's "We're very grateful" for the offer, and moved to tougher
assessments that it was utopian, or cynical, or just more propaganda
to befuddle the West.
The plan was first reported by television on Wednesday, Jan. 15.
What analysis there was appeared on the 15th, 16th and 17th. The
Soviets stretched the story through another news cycle on the 18th
with a rare Saturday press conference in Moscow. And by the 19th it
was gone; the waters of the arms control debate barely rippled. The
collective response of the press, with a couple of notable exceptions,
was a yawn. The administration's view, including its continuing
refusal to join in the test ban, was accepted without debate, let
alone challenge. Most of the intriguing questions were never asked.
Below is a brief rundown of how some key newspapers, magazines, and
television programs reported the proposal between the 15th and the
19th of January:
CBS aired the views of Senator Richard Lugar and Soviet specialist
Dimitri Simes, both opponents of the offer. David Martin, the
network's highly-regarded Pentagon and arms control correspondent,
thought so little of the proposal that he continued to work on a
Weinberger profile rather than cover it the day it was announced.
ABC presented only Senator John Warner, who said it was really the
@i{president's} goal to eliminate nuclear weapons.
NBC restricted its coverage to the views of the Reagan inner
circle; other views were filtered through White House correspondent
Chris Wallace.
@i{The New York Times} relied on a battery of often unnamed sources
to present the administration view that the offer's only potential
value was in on-site verification procedures and reducing the numbers
of European-based missiles. In keeping with its editorial position,
the paper paid little attention to the test ban question. In the past
three years the @i{Times} has completely reversed itself on the value
of such a ban, now adopting the Reagan administration position that a
test ban treaty can only come in the context of a much broader arms
control agreement. The @i{Times} did contribute one noteworthy
addition to the debate in the last two paragraphs of a Jan. 17 article
by Leslie Gelb, headlined: "Weighing the Soviet Plan." Gelb pointed
out that the elimination of nuclear weapons would force American
strategic planners to determine how to protect Europe with
conventional forces, rather than with nuclear deterrence. Gelb quoted
an unnamed administration official as saying that this "forces us to
make hard choices that we haven't been willing to make so far."
@i{Washington Post} coverage was not much different from the
@i{Times}, the exception being a valuable piece by Walter Pincus on
the problems of reducing the long-range nuclear arsenals of the
superpowers so as not to leave one of them at a strategic
disadvantage. Pincus also gave voice to outsider William Colby, who
endorsed the Gorbachev proposal as a serious step. He was one of the
very few Americans outside the Reagan inner circle to be quoted with
anything good to say about the proposal.
@i{Newsweek} did not even lead its "International" section with the
offer, tilting instead to the Philippines.
@i{U.S. News & World Report} gave it only three columns. On the
administration's unwillingness to join the moratorium, the magazine
quoted Weinberger as saying that the U.S. will have to keep testing
"because unfortunately there are nuclear weapons in the world"; this
is a state of affairs that would seem to apply to the Soviets, too,
rendering the secretary's logic impenetrable, but @i{U.S. News}
editors let the remark stand unchallenged.
@i{Time} at least took the proposal seriously. The editors
presented an excellent graphic that explained the offer and set forth
the problems it poses for the American side. @i{Time} also published
a useful box on previous diplomatic efforts to rid the world of
nuclear weapons. Like its brethren, however, the magazine did not
quote a single American who questioned the Reagan response.
"Nightline," which pounces on every major story as if it were a
hostage crisis, ignored this one entirely. Of greater urgency were
shows on premature infants and a boy and his gorilla. Similarly, all
three Sunday morning network news interview shows on the 19th found
other subjects more worthy.
"The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" provided somewhat more breadth in
presenting interviews with Soviet expert Marshall Shulman of the
Harriman Institute at Columbia University and David Aaron, former
deputy national security advisor.
@i{The Boston Globe} was the most open to debate. Reporter Richard
Higgins presented the views of Dr. Bernard Lown, a co-founder of
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, winner of
the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Lown urged that the proposal not be
written off as propaganda, particularly the test ban moratorium.
Reporter Fred Kaplan provided a blunt analysis of why the U.S. has
refused to join in the test ban moratorium. "[T]he Reagan
administration wants to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons,"
Kaplan wrote. He then attacked the administration's stated reasons
for rejecting the moratorium and described the specific weapons the
U.S. is testing.
The Gorbachev proposal is now, presumably, being discussed in
Geneva, beyond the reach of public debate. Doubtless the
administration will eventually call in the press to tell us what we
need to know when we need to know it.
--@i{David M. Rubin}
======================================================================
There were other articles that might also be of interest, but there's
only so much that I have time to type.
-- Dan Rosenblum
Date: Tue 18 Mar 86 17:03:02-EST
From: D. M. Rosenblum < DR01@TE.CC.CMU.EDU>
Subject: The Press and The Arms Race
PS: Message of Tue 18 Mar 86 13:25:29-EST
More from Deadline, the full name of which, as I forgot to mention in
my previous message, is Deadline: The Press and The Arms Race. At the
end of an article by Tony Kaye entitled "Playing Musical Chairs on the
Network News Interview Shows," about the lack of breadth in these
shows, appeared the following paragraph:
During the Carter era, when the administration was under attack
from both the left and right, a broad range of views--from
opponents of the MX to advocates of American nuclear superiority--
participated vocally in the nuclear debate. And they found a
place on the news interview shows. During the Reagan era,
however, the whole spectrum has moved so far to the right that
Robert McNamara now represents the left wing of the nuclear debate
in official circles and on the news talk shows. To be sure,
McNamara is extremely articulate and knowledgeable, but he's also
the man who brought flexible response to American nuclear policy.
======================================================================
I got Deadline, by the way, as an insert in the latest issue of
Nuclear Times, which was sent to me for free as a sample to encourage
me to subscribe. That issue of Nuclear Times included, in the "Early
Warnings" department, the following piece on ABC's Amerika program.
AN AMERIKAN TRAGEDY: Marc Cooper has seen the future, and it does not
work. Cooper, a writer and radio journalist in Los Angeles, recently
was given the entire script to the on-again ABC television miniseries
@i{Amerika}. His source, he says, was "a weak link in the production
chain." The 12-hour film, written and directed by Donald Wrye and
scheduled for airing in 1987, portrays a Soviet takeover of the United
States.
After digesting all 1200 pages of the script, Cooper told us: "I
wasn't prepared for this at all. The sensibility is conservative
fringe, and it's quite pernicious. The real enemies in the story are
not the Soviets, who are portrayed as rather skillful, attractive
individuals--sort of like the aliens in @i{V}--but liberals who give
the country away. People who favor such things as rent control,
abortion and other liberal causes form something called the New
American Progressive Party, which eagerly collaborates with the
Russians. In dramatic classroom scenes, teachers who have been
totally compromised by the Soviets denounce the nuclear arms race,
sweatshops and the military- industrial complex. This discredits
legitimate liberal sentiments by associating them with Soviet
propaganda.
"And when courageous American patriots rebel, guess who is called
on to crush them? Not the Red Army. @i{United Nations} troops. Old
Glory has been torn down and in its place stands--and I quote now from
page 16 of the script--`a new and strange flag, frightening because it
seems so benign. Against a blue background are crossed Soviet and
American flags. Suspended in the crux is the white globe and olive
branch, symbol of the United Nations.'
"I also found interesting that ABC has stated that the Soviet
takeover in @i{Amerika} does not involve nuclear war. Well, it's
true, there's no @i{war}. The Soviets simply explode four nuclear
bombs 250 miles above the U.S., throwing our communication systems out
of whack. But all in all, @i{Amerika} is pretty much of a soap opera.
It's set in the mid-1990s in Milford, Kansas, a fictional town.
Devlin Milford, scion of the original landowners of the town, is sent
to a re-education camp. When he gets out he joins the armed
resistance, and delivers several sermons extolling fundamentalist
Americanism. He's the hero, naturally. Then there's Marion, a
soulless bureaucrat who sleeps with Russian generals and sends her
teenage son to re-education camp; and Peter, a well-meaning liberal
who fruitlessly tries to reform the system from within. The show
closes with KGB troops machine-gunning the puppet U.S. Congress and
dynamiting the Capitol. But all is not lost. Devlin Milford's
underground militia swears vengeance--a spin-off series, perhaps.
"This all sounds pretty awful to me. But, you know, when word got
around that I had the script I got a call from one of the leading
agents in Hollywood. `You've @i{got} to let me see that script,' he
said, `All my clients are @i{dying} to be in it.'"
======================================================================
Daniel M. Rosenblum, Ph.D. candidate,
School of Urban and Public Affairs (SUPA), Carnegie-Mellon University
CCnet (DECnet): DR01@CMCCTE or DR01@TE.CC.CMU.EDU
or DR01@CMCCTE.#DECnet
CMSPVX::SPPHDR01 (VAX DECNET only)
ARPAnet (Internet): DR01@TE.CC.CMU.EDU
CSnet: DR01%TE.CC.CMU.EDU@CSNET-RELAY
Mailnet: DR01%TE.CC.CMU.EDU@CARNEGIE.MAILNET
BITnet: DR01%TE.CC.CMU.EDU@CU20B or DR01%TE.CC.CMU.EDU@CU20B.CCNET or
DR01@CMCCTE or DR01@CMCCTE.CCNET or DR01%TE.CC.CMU.EDU@WISCVM.
/seismo \ /"DR01@TE.CC.CMU.EDU"\
uucp: ...!< harvard > !< >
\ucbvax / \ TE.CC.CMU.EDU!DR01 /
PaperNet: School of Urban and Public Affairs /
Carnegie-Mellon University /
Schenley Park / Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
SoundNet: (412)-268-2185
[ Daniel asks that you cc him on any discussion of this, as he is not
on the poli-sci list. -CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 10 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 47
Today's Topics:
Welfare (2 msgs) &
"The Nation" &
Taxes &
Radiation and Health Hazards &
Legalizing Drugs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 5 Aug 86 17:26:51-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: welfare
No, I don't know of any government that follows the five criteria I
listed.
Well, ideally I would not completely compel people to pay taxes for
social programs, even though I think that there is some level of
support for the needy which should be provided. Rather, I would say
that the government should tax people, but allow people to
conscientiously object to paying the taxes. I myself am compelled to
pay taxes to support a military establishment which I am
conscientiously opposed to, but which others consider to be a public
good. I could refuse these taxes only by lying to prevent their being
withheld from my paycheck (which also goes against my conscience) as
well as risking being imprisoned. I would like the opportunity to
object to paying these taxes on grounds of conscience, so I can take
the money and give it to groups which promote nonviolent resolution of
conflicts, or which help to build a juster world. If the government
will grant me that right, I am happy to grant other people the right
to refuse other taxes on grounds of conscience (with no restriction on
what beliefs they have to hold to qualify to refuse). People would be
required to pay the tax or explicitly say that they objected to paying
them. Having the government send statistics on where the money goes
with tax forms would also be good. But as long as the government
takes large amounts of money from me against my will to spend on
things I don't believe in, I will be sure to argue for some of it to
be spent on things I do believe in. And I don't object to being
called a liberal, since those places where I want my money which has
been taken from me spent are generally those which liberals support.
Which needy people should the government help? Well, it should not
help where its help is not likely to do any good or where voluntary
organizations are already doing a better job than the government
would. Since I have said that the government isn't to try to make us
more moral people, but to prevent the worse kinds of harm, then I
guess that would have to be the only reason for which it should take
money from us for any service, including welfare. I am not sure how
far that would limit welfare. I don't think it is possible or
desirable for the government to compel everyone to live according to
my moral standards about giving to people who are needy, but I am not
willing to be libertarian because of a belief in an absolute right to
dispose of my property as I please, since I don't in fact hold that
belief.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 6 August 1986 11:52:22 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: hidden costs
The list of hidden costs left off an important one: supporting
survivors. If you're an orphan and a single parent with two little
kids, and die of a drug overdose, guess who gets to support the kids?
Taxpayers do.
------------------------------
Return-path: < myers@unix.macc.wisc.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 86 11:22:35 cdt
From: Jeff Myers < myers@unix.macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: article for mod.politics
From postnews Wed Aug 6 11:20:05 1986
Subject: Re: Press Censorship - West : the subtle heavy-hand
Newsgroups: mod.politics
References: < 12228294627.23.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
> > His name is Alexander Cockburn, and he is one of the most trenchant
> > commentators on the political scene today.
>
> The very same Mr. Cockburn who is fond of decrying the influence of
> the evil capitalist system on journalism was fired from his post at
> the Village Voice a while back. It seems that Mr. Trenchant
> concealed the fact that he was under hire by a pro-Arab organization
> for "research" that was to end in publication.
You must believe, Sam, that anti-capitalists should just starve rather
than make money? Or is it that being pro-Arab is a sin? When you
indicated by mail to me this assertion, I asked you to provide
references ... consider me to be asking for them again.
The local weekly *The Isthmus* just started carrying Cockburn, to rave
reviews.
> > The Nation is a must-read,
> > not only for Cockburn's wonderful biweekly column, entitled "Beat
> > the Devil", but for the best investigative and political reporting
> > I've ever seen on either end of the political spectrum. Don't miss
> > it!
>
> Yes, the Nation is a must read, if you go in for chic anti-semitism.
> Gore Vidal's blatantly anti-semitic piece in the recent anniversary
> edition of the Nation was, without a doubt, the most vitriolic piece
> of Jew-hatred to appear in the "legitimate" press in the past
> decade.
You obviously didn't read the equally vitrolic debate in *The
Nation's* letter columns for the next two months. No doubt you do not
read the magazine and only read about Vidal's article in the *New
Republic*. A truly anti-Semitic magazine wouldn't print such scathing
rebuttals in such numbers.
> It's no surprise that such a stellar journalist find a home at such
> an august journal... And it is similarly unremarkable that folks
> who believe in an oxymoronic and non-existent "subtle heavy-hand" of
> press censorship (in a country in which plans for the hydrogen bomb
> have been published!) enjoy such rubbish.
Go back and read *The Nation's* reporting of the *Progressive's*
attempts [finally successful] to print the H-bomb stuff, or the report
on the FBI investigations of *The Nation* over the years [based on
info released to them recently via the FOIA].
--
Jeff Myers The views above may or may not
University of Wisconsin-Madison reflect the views of any other
Madison Academic Computing Center person or group at UW-Madison.
ARPA: myers@unix.macc.wisc.edu
UUCP: ..!{harvard,ucbvax,allegra,topaz,akgua,ihnp4,seismo}!
uwvax!uwmacc!myers
BitNet: MYERS at WISCMACC
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 5 Aug 86 18:15:36-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: taxes
More specifically, the way conscientious objection to taxes could work
would be as follows. All taxes would be collected together. The
government would send out with the tax forms some sort of chart of
where your taxes were going (or at least it would be available at
standard places along with the conscientious objection forms). People
could refuse any category, and calculate the percentage of their taxes
that that would be. Then they could enter that amount as a tax
credit. The government could take people's word that they
conscientiously object, since it really is no judge of people's
consciences. Alternatively, it could ask a certain randomly selected
group to justify their claim, as it now audits some returns. That
puts the government in a position of judging people's consciences, but
it is better than the current system, where you can't object no matter
how objectionable any government expenditure is to you. For the most
part, people would probably still pay their taxes, and the government
could make up the difference by increasing users' fees to cover some
services or by cutting back expenditures which nobody believed in.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 86 17:06:55 pdt
From: pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V6 #130
To: pyramid!topaz!poli-sci@rutgers.ARPA,
To: voder!nsc!ihnp4!abnji!politics
> Arms-Discussion Digest Thursday, July 31, 1986 6:55PM
> Volume 6, Issue 130
> Date: 31-Jul-86 15:03-EST
> From: sam mccracken < oth104%BOSTONU.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
> Subject: Re: Radiation and Health (long)
>
> -----
> !n 1980 or thereabouts, the chinese published a massive study of two
> areas, in one of which the background radiation was twice as high as
> the other.
> most of the families had lived in the areas for ten generations.
> they did careful epidemiological studies for cancer, chromosome
> damage and genetic disease. result: a slightly (but
> insignificantly) _lower_ incidence in the _high_ radiation area,
> where for generations people absorbed hi for tmi. the director of
> the study found it persuasive, but not compelling, evidence for the
> existence of a threshhold below which there is no health impact from
> radiation.
>
Several years ago I read (I believe in an Encyclopedia Brittanica
article on radiation hazards) that people receiving 5 REM exposure at
Hiroshima had a LOWER fatality rate than the unexposed population.
There was apparently some dispute whether this was a statistical fluke
or not. If not a statistical fluke, I would not find this surprising,
since we have evolved in a sea of background radiation.
Glasstone's _The_Effects_Of_Nuclear_Weapons_ (3rd ed.) mentions that
low exposures of mammals (how low, unfortunately, I don't remember)
seemed to create long-term damage to female eggs, but that male sperm
cells damage seemed to self-correct after about 40 days. Again, not
surprising considering the background radiation levels at which we
have evolved.
I'm not sure what the truth is, but it seems at times that the loudest
braying about NO SAFE EXPOSURE comes from people with political
agendas. It does seem unlikely to me that the response of our bodies
to a naturally occurring hazard would be linear all the way down to
our limits of measurement.
Clayton E. Cramer
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hibbert.pa@Xerox.COM>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 86 10:46:02 PDT
From: Hibbert.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: re: a 'bad batch' of cigarettes
To: Charles McGrew < Poli-Sci@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Charles--
In reply to a V6 #37 article by Kieth Lynch, you inserted the
following.
[[...
Lastly, waving your hands and saying, "well, cigarettes are bad too"
is not an answer. Personally, I would much rather see a 12 year old
smoking a cigarette than shooting heroin (the best thing, of course,
is to see a 12 year old doing neither). Same goes for a 19 year old.
Smoking cigarettes is dumb, yes, but you won't get hepatitis from a
dirty cigarette, and you can't get a 'bad batch' of cigarettes. I
rather doubt that most minors are aware of the dangers of even
'recreational' drug use. - CWM]]
I agree that both these practices are stupid. I object, to your
categorization of heroin usage as worse because of the incidence of
"bad batches". I attribute that almost entirely to the fact that
since Heroin is illegal, almost no one puts a brand name on their
baggies. The cigarette companies (whatever you think of their
product) have an enormous investment in their reputations for quality.
If people started finding random greenery mixed in with their tobacco,
or occasional cigarettes that looked underfilled, they would quite
quickly switch to a different brand. If producers of other
recreational drugs were not going to be prosecuted for identifying
themselves with their products, and were allowed to sue competitors
who infringed on their brand names, they would similarly invest in
maintaining quality.
Making clean heroin, or cleaning marijuana and "giving fair weight" is
not a difficult proposition. But since customers have no rights and
information about producers is very scarce, there's no incentive to
invest in putting out a good product.
Hepatitis, likewise is easy to prevent--the problem is that syringes
and needles are hard to come by.
If drugs and paraphenelia are legalized, most of the quality and
dosage problmes would be easy to control. Likewise, prices would drop
substantially. The only arguments left are that people should be
protected from the consequences of doing stupid things to themselves.
I don't believe that, and I don't think you (Charles) do either.
There are a lot of others who do, and allowing them to argue that
drugs should be illegal because the consequences if illegality show
that drug use is bad is ceding them the use of a dangerously circular
argument. Let's get them to defend the view that stupidity should be
illegal instead.
Chris
[ Well, I think children should be protected against doing stupid
things to themselves. In general, I find myself agreeing with your
objections. Some comments:
I wonder just how much a cure-all (if you'll pardon the expression)
legalized drugs are. Having drugs regulated (presumably by the
government) doesn't stop illegal activities (e.g. cigarettes, in
which there is a multi-million dollar activity to illegally move
cigarettes without paying taxes on them - and no mistake, if currently
illegal drugs are legalized they will be taxed). It would be nice to
think that the big G would keep its nose out, but I doubt it.
Amphetimines and depressants, which are regulated by doctors (the
government allows them to give the stuff out pretty much as they
please) are a megabuck illegal business. I agree that in general
people should be free to make the wrong choice, but I don't know any
right choices for drugs like heroin or cocaine.
Clearly, making such drugs legalized would lower the prices and
raise quality, but would the increased availability (I think it likely
that if prices go down, people will simply buy more of it) damage us
as a society more than the value of the removal of the criminal
element? Unfortunately, I don't have any good answers for that.
- CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 10 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 48
Today's Topics:
Taxes &
"Conflicting" Rights &
Libertarianism &
The Swiss and Guns &
Mental Illness
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Tue 5 Aug 86 18:21:09-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: more taxes
Addition to my previous message: people would also be able to make
voluntary donations to any category, in the same way that they now
can make voluntary donations to reduce the national debt. Probably
more people would make such donations than now donate to reduce the
national debt, since it would be going toward the things they believed
in, rather than subsidizing all government spending, including what
they don't approve of.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hibbert.pa@Xerox.COM>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 86 21:25:01 PDT
From: Hibbert.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: "conflicting" rights
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA
Cc: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Joe Testa said:
"The reason that most of law is complicated (probably more complicated
than it needs to be, of course) is that there are conflicts between
laws, and conflicts between rights. Personal rights are not mutually
exclusive. I have the right to use a gun. I have the right to not be
shot by someone else."
I do not agree that rights can conflict. According to my
understanding of the term, a right is something that a person can
claim absolutely. In this particular case, you have a right to own a
gun, and you have the right to use it safely. You have another right,
which is the right not to be aggressed against. These rights do not
conflict. There isn't a case where you have to decide which one is
more important than the other. You can do whatever you like with your
gun that doesn't involve aggression.
(I hope you understand the distinction I draw between natural or
inalienable rights, and legal rights. I speak here of the former. If
you intended the latter, then you can take this as only pointing out
that a distinction is meaningful and useful.)
The reason this question is a hot topic for me, is that I see the
concept of rights being watered-down by the invention of new rights
that do conflict with the rights that I believe in. The right to a
job, or the right to a decent education are two examples of "invented"
rights that conflict with the right to own and control property, and
the right not be aggressed against. In order for some to claim a
right to a job, someone else has to be forced to pay them. Any time
people suggest they have a right to something, the correct question to
ask is "at who's expense?" Real rights don't come at someone else's
expense. Ersatz rights require that something be coerced from someone
for their fulfillment.
Chris
------------------------------
Return-path: < Hibbert.pa@Xerox.COM>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 86 23:39:17 PDT
From: Hibbert.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: reply to Steve Walton on Libertarianism
To: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
{Steve Walton's excerpts will be shown in quotes.}
"I just had an interesting discussion with ... a libertarian
[who] admits that he sees no practical way to move the US to a
libertarian society at present."
I also see no practical way to move TO a libertarian society. That
doesn't keep me from working to move it TOWARD such a system. The
most important part of that is convincing people that it would be a
better system both morally and in its effects on people's way of life.
"The classic example of a public good is national defense.
Everyone who lives in the US benefits from its existence, even
if they contribute nothing to it. Thus, every individual
would decide to contribute nothing to national defense,
because he gets its benefits whether he does or not."
I don't see how it follows that absolutely no one would contribute.
I'll argue with that conclusion if you'll show the line of deduction
in more detail. The usual argument is that some people wouldn't
contribute and would unfairly benefit. My response is that you have
no right to fair treatment at the expense of forcing someone else to
provide it for you. Many libertarians are strong on defense issues,
and they seem perfectly willing to try to convince the rest of us that
the danger is as pressing as they say. They are quite hopefull that
people (or corporations in search of good press) would voluntarily
contribute to support an armed force which wouldn't need to be more
than a fraction the size of our current Department of War.
"Do libertarians deny the existence of public goods? If yes,
they had better have some damn good ideas about how to defend
us from Soviet ICBM's in the absence of mandatory taxes for
national defense."
I don't deny that there are actions that benefit people who haven't
contributed to providing them. I argue that the fact that you benefit
from someone's actions gives the performer no claim on you. The claim
that some beneficial effect wouldn't arise unless you are allowed to
coerce some people is also unconvincing.
("mandatory taxes" seems redundant. "voluntary taxes", mentioned by
other contributors to the discussion, seems self-contradictory. Why
would you refer to something voluntary as a "tax"?)
"Capitalism can only function in a given
market if all of the following conditions hold:
(1) Free (as in no-cost) entry and exit from the
market.
(2) Multiple competitors
(3) The market price of a good accurately reflects its
cost.
(4) Buyers have all the information they need to
assess the value of a good.
What you are thinking of is called "perfect competition". The
assumptions about perfect competition are useful in economics in the
same way that ideal points and lines are useful in low-level study of
math, and perfect springs and frictionless surfaces are usefull in
introductory Physics. Modern economists have much more sophisticated
models available to them, which they use to reason about what happens
when the ideal (simplifying) conditions don't hold. The speed with
which a market responds to changes decreases with increases in cost of
entry and exit. When information is scarce, people pay money for it,
and reason about how much it is worth to find out more.
Your third point is as someone else pointed out, a result in perfect
competition. It is not expected to hold in more complicated models.
The reason for this is that perfect competition assumes that markets
will "stabilize." In more realistic models it is admitted that
conditions constantly change, and that markets never reach the stable
point. The function of an entrepeneur in these models is to find the
places where the market hasn't stabilized and exploit them to generate
profits, at the same time moving the market closer toward some
market-clearing point.
"There exist natural monopolies, such as electric power, where
the largest producer is always the most efficient and can thus
drive all competitors out of business."
This claim has been made many times. Please show why you believe it.
The fact that the government has forbidden competition in some fields
is not proof that it must be done. Some early simple models of
competition showed that what you describe might be possible. More
sophisticated models show that it is very unlikely. Few modern
economists continue to believe in natural monopolies. I'd be
interested if you could find support for this without using some gross
simplifying assumptions. I suspect you'll find only unsubstantiated
claims similar to yours.
"Government intervenes with such things as product testing, to
ensure that buyers know that a manufacturer's claims are
correct; such claims are often difficult to verify without
access to a large, well-equipped laboratory. Do libertarians
have a solution to these very real problems? "
Yes, organizations like Consumer Reports and Underwriter's Labs will
be formed when consumers want more information. Some consumers will
decide that the information isn't worth its price and will do without.
No one will be forced to pay for information they didn't want. Some
people will regret their choices. I am willing to argue further about
how the integrity of these private firms should compare to that of
government agencies.
"Can you lay out a plan for the conversion of the United
States into a libertarian society?"
As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, I don't see such a
plan as a necessary first step. Untill more people become convinced
that that conversion is right, it won't be possible to implement it.
As more people agree that it is, they will work to come up with such a
plan. (As one wag put it, "even if I could change the world to be
just the way I want it tomorrow morning, they'd change it all back by
Wednesday.") For an example of one plan for doing away with the
Social Security system without putting people who depended on its
claims out in the cold, see Peter J. Ferrara's book "Social Security:
Averting the Crisis." It's available from the Cato Institute, which
is headquartered in Washington D.C. They probably have some shorter
discussions of the ideas available. Write and tell them you're
interested in Ferrara's ideas about phasing out Social Security.
Chris
------------------------------
Return-path: < harvard!wanginst!wanginst!davis@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 86 13:48:38 edt
From: Franklin Davis < harvard!wanginst!davis@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Re: Welfare, unions and the mareketplace III
Reply-to: harvard!wanginst!davis (Franklin Davis)
Keith writes:
> In Switzerland, every adult owns a gun. The murder rate is very low
> there, much lower that in the US. There are few burglaries and few
> other crimes. And the Nazis didn't even THINK of invading
> Switzerland, despite having invaded or being allied with every
> bordering country.
The truth: In Switzerland, most _males_ own an army rifle. But to
argue that the crime rate is low for that reason in incorrect, in my
view.
The Swiss culture is deeply centered around local communities. No one
can "misbehave" without his/her family, relatives, neighbors, town,
state, and finally the federation getting involved to help things,
generally in that order.
I use the term "misbehave" very generally -- in also includes personal
troubles, etc.
I believe that it is the close-knit nature of Swiss society, and the
incredible emphasis on following rules and behaving properly that
results in such a safe, well-ordered society. And I would argue that
the reason the Swiss are safe from all those guns at home is their
(well-founded) trust in each other, not the other way around.
I just lived in Switzerland for two years, and worked with Swiss
people who are in the army, and with Swiss who are not. Very few
women are in the military, and they aren't trained to shoot. Some
percentage of men perform alternative service, or go to jail, or are
medically excused from service.
A good friend who is turning 50 soon, and thus will have completed his
military service, is _very_ happy that he can get the &*%@#! gun out
of his house. The guns are there because they are _required_ to be
there if you are in the military. My friends who don't serve don't
have guns. Most of my friends who do serve dislike shooting very
much.
No one can just buy a gun for private use, except for target practice.
Handguns are virtually unheard of, and I think illegal for private
use.
Switzerland is _so_ tiny and controlled compared to the US, that most
comparisons are invalid. We simply don't have a society where most
people know the town where their great-great-great grandparents lived,
and the majority still live there. And Switzerland is much more
economically uniform (i.e. wealthy).
--
___
... Roll away ... the dew... wanginst!davis (uucp)
franklin a. davis (fad) davis@wanginst.Csnet (Csnet)
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Thursday, 7 August 1986 22:22:36 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: mental illness
I used to agree with a lot of what Libertarians espouse, but what
really turned me off to them was their position on mental illness.
Their attitude, as Keith expressed on August 5, is that we shouldn't
judge what is normal or abnormal behavior, and hence shouldn't
restrain mentally ill people until they have or are in the process of
committing a crime. This is utter nonsense. People who hold this
position don't know what they are talking about. They have obviously
never had the experience of a close friend or relative with a mental
illness, attempt to commit suicide, etc. Otherwise they would change
their tune instantly.
I'm not talking about people feeling a little down, or having troubles
interacting with others, I'm talking real mental illness, like
psychosis or schizophrenia, the kind that can only be treated with
drugs, not "talking therapy." People suffering from these illnesses
lose all responsibility. The correct way to view them is as children.
Would you let your children do whatever they wanted until they
committed a crime? Hardly. Suppose your child was sick but didn't
want to go to the doctor? Would you say "Okay Johnny, you don't have
to go for those rabies shots if you don't want to." Fat chance.
You'd drag the kid to the doctor no matter how much kicking and
screaming. The same goes for the mentally ill. They can often be
successfully treated, but only against their will. The fact that they
are physically an adult is irrelevant. Mentally they are a child, and
should be treated as such.
With successful treatment, they can lead a life with some semblence of
normalcy, but only if you force them to go for the initial treatments.
Once they start feeling better, they have a powerful urge to say "Oh,
I'm all better. I don't need this medicine anymore." This is true
for all chronic diseases, not just mental illnesses. Therefore you
have to keep watching them even after they are out of the hospital.
Lest you doubt this, consider how many schizophrenic adults are still
living with their parents.
Anyone who wants to know how living with the mentally ill really feels
should read the My Turn column that appeared in Newsweek some months
ago by a woman describing her mother's illness, the breakup of her
parent's marriage, and finally her mother's suicide.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 10 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 49
Today's Topics:
Press Censorship &
Wealth and Power (2 msgs) &
Language
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 86 22:46:42 EDT
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: Press Censorship - West : the subtle heavy-hand
cramer@SUN.COM writes:
> In article campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.harvard.edu writes:
>
> > His name is Alexander Cockburn, and he is one of the most trenchant
> > commentators on the political scene today.
>
> The very same Mr. Cockburn who is fond of decrying the influence of
> the evil capitalist system on journalism was fired from his post at
> the Village Voice a while back. It seems that Mr. Trenchant
> concealed the fact that he was under hire by a pro-Arab organization
> for "research" that was to end in publication.
What a bizarre paragraph! What does "the influence of the evil
capitalist system" (or decrying same) have to do with being hired by
an Arab cultural organization for research? And while we're at it,
let's just straighten the record a bit about the Village Voice
incident.
Cockburn did not "conceal" this fact. He did omit to mention it to
his editor, as he did not think it relevant. He was not a fulltime
employee of the Voice, but a columnist, who also wrote (and writes)
for many other publications. It was none of the Voice's business that
he had accepted a grant from an Arab cultural organization to do some
research and writing on their behalf.
This whole thing was blown out of all proportion by the odious Alan
Lupo, a right-wing Zionist crank who wrote at one time for the local
weekly yuppie rag, The Boston Phoenix. (He may still write for it --
I don't know, I no longer read it.) Cockburn never denied the
existence of the grant, nor took any overt action to conceal it. I
suspect that the Lupo smear was just an excuse, and that the real
reason Cockburn was fired was that his politics grated too harshly on
the ears of the Voice's owner, Rupert Murdoch.
Alexander Cockburn's pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist views are not
new, nor are they secrets. It is ludicrous to believe that he could
have been influenced in this respect by a $10,000 grant from the side
with which he's already known to sympathize. It is as if to accuse
William Buckley of irresponsible journalism for accepting a grant
from, say, the Heritage Foundation, and failing to inform his readers.
I think most would react with incredulity to suggestions that such a
grant might sway Buckley even further to the right than he already is;
the same applies, in a mirror-image sense, to Cockburn. He's a
flaming leftist and pro-Palestinian -- no secrets to his readers,
these -- and he's also an excellent writer. I often disagree with his
politics (I am no Marxist, for instance) but I thoroughly enjoy his
vitriolic attacks on the mainstream media. They deserve it.
> > The Nation is a must-read,
> > not only for Cockburn's wonderful biweekly column, entitled "Beat
> > the Devil", but for the best investigative and political reporting
> > I've ever seen on either end of the political spectrum. Don't miss
> > it!
>
> Yes, the Nation is a must read, if you go in for chic anti-semitism.
> Gore Vidal's blatantly anti-semitic piece in the recent anniversary
> edition of the Nation was, without a doubt, the most vitriolic piece
> of Jew-hatred to appear in the "legitimate" press in the past decade.
Here we have yet another case of the inability of so many people to
distinguish Jews from Zionists. Yes, Gore Vidal (and Alexander
Cockburn, and I, if you care) disdain Zionism. But Zionism is not the
same as Judaism. Cramer, like so many Zionists, figuratively waves
the red flag of the holocaust at anyone who dares to question Zionism,
or the policies of the Israeli government. Fortunately, there are
writers like Vidal and Cockburn who don't instantly fall
apologetically to the ground every time this well-worn bit of innuendo
is trotted out.
> It's no surprise that such a stellar journalist find a home at such
> an august journal... And it is similarly unremarkable that folks who
> believe in an oxymoronic and non-existent "subtle heavy-hand" of
> press censorship (in a country in which plans for the hydrogen bomb
> have been published!) enjoy such rubbish.
I'm impressed; Cramer's article contains more idiocies per paragraph
than the average Bernard Kalb briefing. I presume you're referring to
the Howard Morland article in The Progressive in 1979. It is obvious
that anyone who refers to this article as "plans for the hydrogen
bomb" has never actually read the article.
Morland's article was simply meant to demonstrate that much of the
obsessive secrecy with which the government cloaks nuclear weapons
research has nothing to do with protecting real secrets, and
everything to do with intimidating and coercing the press and the
public. Everything that Morland wrote was available in the open
literature at the time. The whole brouhaha arose because the
government wished (and still wishes) to preserve the aura of mystery,
secrecy, and power surrounding the nuclear priesthood (and by osmosis,
the military). It is noteworthy that the government's unprecedented
application of prior restraint, the only such application ever
attempted in peacetime, was overturned conclusively by a Federal court
a few months later. The Progressive's defense cost them several
hundred thousand dollars, an expense for which they're still in debt
today. Fortunately for the First Amendment and the public, they chose
to fight, they won, and despite the best efforts of the government
they are still publishing today. More power to them.
-- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 00:43:09 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Power
To: ucsbcsl!uncle@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
... money is simply indirect-addressing of power,
money stands for a power over objects and services.
You are confusing power over PEOPLE with power over objects and
services. Certainly money is power over objects and services, but not
over people. No amount of money can buy the power to make a person do
something he doesn't want to do, give up something he doesn't want to
give up, accept something he doesn't want to accept, etc.
Furthermore, money is not identical with freedom; there is
money in the soviet union AND in south africa!
I never said that it was. I did say that where money is taken away
one is not free. How can I be free to freely trade with others when
much of what I give and take is stolen from me? I am free to grow
potatoes, and I am free to trade potatoes for my neighbor's carrots if
he agrees to the trade. But I am not free if a bully extorts some of
the potatoes and some of the carrots.
Neither am I free if I cannot spend my money to have my views
published. Neither am I free if there are special laws that apply
to me because of my race.
I continue to maintain what, i believe, is a consistent
position in opposition to ALL abuses of power; ...
It is easy to see how a government can abuse its power. I cannot
see how a wealthy person can abuse the power of his wealth, except by
using it to hire criminals (which is already illegal, of course).
I would not consider it a damper on my pecuniary initiative if
there should be a maximum-assests law limiting the
amount of wealth i could accumulate to, say
(100 * US-per-capita-GNP); ...
I would.
Note that the average per-capita-GNP is partly due to people with
more than 100 times that average. Such a law would REDUCE the
average, and thus bring even more people under its influence.
Once you allow such a law, with the excess wealth presumably going
to fund various government programs, how soon before that magic number
100 gets reduced? If it is moral for government to take all wealth in
excess of 100 times the average GNP, surely it isn't immoral to change
it to 90. And if 90 is ok, why not 80, if it's for a good cause? Or
10, or 2? Or 1? Each of these decreases would decrease the average
itself, and thus bring more and more people into the 'evil rich'
category.
If inflation is ten percent and after-tax return on investment is
five percent, a twenty year retirement at GNP levels would require
considerably more than 100 times GNP as a starting point.
Britain tried a wealth tax like this. The effects were predictable.
The most wealthy and most creative people left the country. Many went
to considerable effort to hide their wealth. And of course there was
much less motivation to create new wealth. The most creative and
productive people are precisely those who it's best for everyone if
they continue to produce. But why should they if they will get
nothing for it? Punishing productivity and rewarding sloth is not the
way to make the world a better place. It would make more sense to
provide matching funds for anyone sufficiently wealthy. Not that I am
advocating that, but it would make more sense than your proposal.
... i also do not consider the twenty-second ammendment to be a
damper upon political initiative in this country; ...
It is true that Reagan is only the second person to be affected by
it. But it is a poor sort of law for which the only defense is that
it hasn't done much harm. The people should have the right to elect
whoever they please. Even if the candidate is under 35, has lived
overseas, has been convicted of crimes, or even (horrors!) has been
president for eight years.
Justice in society is the ultimate issue, not political rhetoric
of any variety masquerading as a spokesman for Justice when it is
really serving as a mercenary of excessive, abusive privilege.
Who decides how much wealth is excessive and abusive? The
government? And is their far greater power not more to be feared? I
sympathize with even the wealthiest person against the immense might
of the intractible State.
What right does anyone have to say how wealthy someone can become?
If I have more than 1000 potatoes (exact number to be decided by the
government's whim) does the government have the right to raid my
pantry and steal the excess? Because they fear excess power from me?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 86 22:40:24 pdt
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: k.l.'s latest rejoinder: "i dont see how thw wealthy
Subject: can abuse money"
Keith, the infinite digressions and regressions and unending
recursions which you are making seem to indicate an obseesion for
justifying to yourself that which is logically inconsistent (please
note my earlier notes re: ratiocination etc...) . You agree now that
money IS power, but to maintain your previous distinctions, you insist
that money is only power over things, not people and you assert that
you cannot imagine how wealthy people could abuse their wealth!!!!
Keith, please! i'm not ttrying to put one over on you; i most surely
have few ANSWERS; however, i still most say that i think you are
putting one over on yourself. We've got to limit excesses of power
without stifling the individual; we've got to foster the individual
AND the community. the old paradigms, the legacy of the succession of
mediterranean- monotheisms:
egyptian-monotheism,judaism,zorastrianism,christianity,
islam,communism (communism is just the latest in a long line of
mediterranean monotheisms), is a legacy of exploitation, war and
oppression. as i have said before, i am not arguing for any of those
OR for an absolute 'tabula-rasa', i'm just saying, if we try to be
careful, fair, thoughtful in our judgements we can get to some kind of
just consensus on human coexistence!!!!!!!
------------------------------
Return-path: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 86 21:14:30 pdt
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: agreement with testa's remarks re: language
i am in agreement with testa's remarks re: language; his note reminded
me of past years when wilhelm bunkley on his own show or john simon on
dick cavett's show used to launch into tirades against 'black
english'; in fact the average, certified by nancy reagan white is not
only in a state of complette confusion about the meaning and function
of inflection, but also and more seriously in complete confusion about
logical quantification'sexpression in natural language!!! even self
styled airheadocrats like bunkley and simon fall prey to this annoying
linguistic phenomenon: e.g.: A asserts: 'all republicans are
airheads'; B answers:
'ALL republicans aren't airheads'; what B MEANS is : ' NOT ALL
republicans are airheads'.
so much for the arogant, unfounded pretentions of the likes of
bunkley, simon et al. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[ My goodness, 45 exclamation points. It MUST be true! :-) - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 10 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 50
Today's Topics:
Fraud &
Property Rights and Freedom of Speech &
Welfare, Crime, Business, Unions, and Freedom &
TV and Libertarianism (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 00:54:49 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Fraud
[ Well, 'informed consent' depends on the point of view. Surely a
con-man gives a stilted picture of reality to the mark, but the
target considers him/herself to be well informed ...
All advertisers give a slanted view. Whether it is fraud depends on
just how slanted it is. If it is totally false, then it is fraud.
False advertising lawsuits must be applied with extreme care. Ten
years ago one product advertised that it 'kills flu viruses on
environmental surfaces'. This was true, but the government stopped
the advertisements on the grounds that it was misleading, that flu
viruses are spread through the air not via surfaces. Since then,
however, it has been discovered that flu viruses are in fact mostly
spread via surfaces!
Many advertisers are treading a thin line between fact and fiction.
Every week I get letters disguised as official government documents or
as telegrams, telling me that a fantastic prize has been awarded to me
and that I can pick it up at a convenient location in outer Appalachia
while listening to a sales pitch for worthless land. This is legit,
even if the 'solid gold ingot' listed as one of the possible awards
weighs 0.02 milligrams. Still, I think they would do better if they
came on straight.
I think the current fraud laws are mostly fair. It is interesting
to note that tobacco companies are using the mandatory warning labels
as a defense when they are sued for causing various vile diseases and
death. I think they would be wise to put similar labels on chewing
tobacco whether or not it is legally required. Thus no tobacco user
can claim he was uninformed as to the pros and cons of the product.
...Keith
[ Your anecdote about flu virus germs shows that the government did
the right thing, based on information available at the time. It seems
to me to be dirty pool to make fun of people based on hindsight.
- CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < fagin%ji@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 86 23:29:02 PDT
From: fagin%ji@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: Property Rights and Freedom of Speech
Hank Walker writes:
> I think property ownership is similar to freedom of speech.
I agree. Both ought to be vigorously and zealously defended.
> One don't [sic] have an absolute right to freedom of speech, because
> that may interfere with the rights of others ("fire" in the
> theater).
Bad example. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is a violation
of the property rights of those present: they paid to see a movie
undisturbed by people yelling "fire". No need to deal with the free
speech issue here; it's better understood in terms of what people
paid for.
> Similarly, I think one doesn't have
> an absolute right to do what one wants with property because that
> may interfere with the rights of others.
I agree, but if it *doesn't* interfere than you ought to be
allowed to do it.
> ... On the other hand, if you let your house look like a trash
> heap, then this will bring down my property value. Now it is also
> the case that if you develop some piece of forest next to my house,
> my property values will fall. Therefore the situation is one of
> trading off your rights to modify your property and my rights to be
> protected from property-damaging effects of those modifications.
> There's no black and white.
Seems pretty clear to me. If an action I perform will damage your
property then I shouldn't be allowed to do it, otherwise I should.
Your problem is that your confusing a drop in your property value
with actual damage. One is a violation of your rights,
while the other is the result of other people's voluntary choices.
If the person next door lets his house look like a trash heap, you
point out that other people will not be willing to pay as much for
your home. Does it follow from this that your neighbor *must* keep
his home in reasonable shape? If A's failing to perform a certain
action will reduce the amount of dollars B is willing to pay for
something C owns, does C have sufficient grounds to force A to perform
the action? You would seem to think yes, at least in the case of the
next door neighbor and his trashy house. I disagree, thinking instead
that the beneficial consequences of a person performing an action are
not sufficient grounds for compelling them. There is no moral right
to be protected from your property decreasing in value. You have no
right to prevent the amount of money people are willing to pay for
something you own from going down, any more than they have the right
to prevent it from going up.
> Property owners naturally want to be protected from property-
> damaging effects.
How true. Businesses naturally want to be protected from competition,
(a very serious "property damaging effect"), unions want to be
protected from market wages, the nuclear power industry wants to be
protected from bearing full responsibility in the event of an
accident, and so on. That doesn't mean that such protection should be
granted.
--Barry
------------------------------
Return-path: < EYAL%WISDOM.BITNET@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
From: Eyal mozes < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 20:15:49 -0200
Subject: Re: welfare, crime, business, unions, and freedom
Cc: ametek!walton
I'm not sure whether this article made it through the first time I
sent it (there were some problem on the BITNET line to the USA), so
I'm sending it again.
> Business and employees: The relationship between an *individual*
> employer and employee is not symmetrical. Employers ... paid
> workers a barely adequate living wage, which meant they couldn't
> afford to strike, or put money aside and quit, in order to protest
> low wages, or unsafe working conditions.
The wages an employer pays don't depend on the arbitrary decision of
either him or his workers; they depend on the productivity of labor,
which depends mostly on the technology used. An increase in labor
productivity always causes an increase in real wages, and it is the
ONLY way to bring about such an increase for all workers. An employer
can't arbitrarily decide to pay his workers less than their
productivity justifies (the obvious example is Henry Ford, who
introduced methods which increased the productivity of labor, and then
paid his workers $5 a day - about twice the prevailing wages at the
time; you can bet he wasn't moved by kindness or generosity), and he
also can't arbitrarily decide to pay them more without going out of
business. When technological conditions were such that labor
productivity was low, then wages necessarily had to be barely adequate
by today's standards (though compared to the earnings of agricultural
workers, or of workers in Europe, during the same period, they were
quite high); working conditions had to be unsafe, since the expense of
making them safer would have lowered wages even further; the only
alternative was to give better wages and conditions to SOME of the
workers, while firing the others, forcing them to either seek work in
other industries at even worse conditions or become unemployed - and
that's the ONLY result unions ever achieved.
The two best books about unions, examining both history and economic
theory, are Emerson P. Schmidt's "Union Power and the Public Interest"
and Morgan O. Reynold's "Power and Privilege".
> In the book I recommended in my last posting, William Manchester's
> "The Glory and the Dream," he offers another explanation for the
> Great Depression. ... those who were manufacturing
> the cars and refrigerators couldn't afford to buy them. They bought
> them anyway, on credit terms which they couldn't meet. ...
> When it turned out that most people couldn't afford
> the payments on their debts, the banks and then the economy
> collapsed. Note that NONE of this was the result of government
> action or inaction.
The only way a large number of people can get more credit than they
can meet is if credit is made artificially easy by the government;
that's exactly what happened in the 20's. For an excellent economic
history of this period, I recommend Benjamin Anderson's "Economics and
the Public Welfare".
> In fact, the top income tax rate was dropped from 65% to
> 25% in 1925, which today's economic thinking says should have
> generated an enormous boom.
Not if accompanied by irresponsible manipulation of money and credit.
> We, as a society, have made the value judgement that such people
> should not have to sell their homes and cars (which are usually old
> VW's not new BMW's) and live in abject poverty until such time as
> employment can be found again.
First of all, the only cause of prolonged, general unemployment is
those labor unions you're so much in favor of - so you're using one
problem caused by government intervention to justify more
intervention. Second, when you say "we, as a society, have made the
value judgment", what you really mean is that some people made it at
other people's expense.
> Rather, we have decided that tax
> revenues (which are largely voluntary--it is laughably easy to cheat
> the IRS)
Oh, come on! When you take someone's money at the threat of
imprisonment, then it is not voluntary, no matter how easy you claim
it is to "cheat".
> should be used to prevent such poverty. You disagree with
> this value judgement; I agree with it, and I don't think that either
> of us can change the other's mind.
Which boils down to: you don't have any reasons for this "value
judgment", it's just a capricious whim, but you want it enforced on
everybody.
Eyal Mozes
BITNET: eyal@wisdom
CSNET and ARPA: eyal%wisdom.bitnet@wiscvm.ARPA
UUCP: ...!ihnp4!talcott!WISDOM!eyal
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 01:12:14 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... I don't look for TV to give me political reality, just movies
and an occasional political viewpoint I am free to discard ...
A lot of people, however, get most of their political reality from
TV. This is unfortunate, since TV seems to have an inherent liberal
bias. It is much easier to show one poor or unemployed person or a
ruined farm or business than it is to show the much more diluted but
equally real effect of tax increases or zoning laws.
There is a terrible view that people will believe whatever appears
on the screen (most often held by those whose opinion is not
broadcast in prime-time).
A lot of people do. If they don't, why do advertisers pay so much
for a few seconds of air time?
You want your views sent out? Pay the money. Buy the commercial
time.
It is hard to get libertarian philosophy across in any kind of
coherent way in 30 second spots. Especially on a medium that is much
much better at showing the state of a candidate's teeth than the state
of the union.
... if everyone were to own a gun, and since a very small minority
have any real notion of how to use one (and the judgement to know
when to use one), things could get a little flakey.
Well, I don't agree with L. Neil Smith that every six year old
should be given a powerful gun and ammunition. But this idea of not
letting adult people use something because they might abuse it has to
go. Perhaps gun use should be taught in high school?
Shotguns don't do well against a B-52 strike (i.e. our government
will always have bigger guns).
Tell that to the Vietnamese.
Smoking cigarettes is dumb, yes, but you won't get
hepatitis from a dirty cigarette, and you can't get a 'bad batch'
of cigarettes.
This is because cigarettes are an accepted product, produced by
people whose careers it is to produce them, in companies which have a
lot to lose by any quality screwups. The same would be true of drugs
if they were legalized.
During prohibition, bad batches of alcoholic drinks were very
common. Many people went blind or died. But not before prohibition
and not since.
I rather doubt that most minors are aware of the dangers of even
'recreational' drug use. - CWM]
Well, such dangers were certainly pointed out to Junior High School
students when I was one, 15 years ago. Whether most students ignore
the warnings, I don't know. It didn't help that they claimed things
about marijuana that many students knew to be false. This really hurt
their credibility with regard to the hard drugs.
I do not favor allowing minors to use hard drugs. Only adults.
Same with tobacco and alcohol, which are different from the other
drugs only in that they happen to be legal already.
...Keith
------------------------------
Date: 10 Aug 86 22:28:22 EDT
From: Charles < MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
[ Since my reply to Keith is fairly long, I'm going to include it as a
separate entry - CWM]
Keith writes:
This is unfortunate, since TV seems to have an inherent
liberal bias.
... well, there isn't much to be said about that, except to say that
its in fact the PEOPLE who work in TV who might seem to have a liberal
bias - one also hears this same complaint about print. What
conclusion are we to draw from this? I'm biased about this; my dad is
a career newspaper man, so watch what you say! :-)
There is a terrible view that people will believe
whatever appears on the screen (most often held by
those whose opinion is not broadcast in prime-time).
A lot of people do. If they don't, why do advertisers pay so
much for a few seconds of air time?
... because of the reach of the medium. TV gets to a lot more people
than billboards or print ads, so there's more advertising bang for the
buck. My understanding of advertising is that the main thrust of TV
product advertising is to get the viewer to remember (favorably) the
product when they are in the store. I don't think any ad-man really
believes they can impell a viewer to buy a product. That's about the
sum of why TV advertisers pay the big bucks.
You want your views sent out? Pay the money. Buy
the commercial time.
It is hard to get libertarian philosophy across in any kind
of coherent way in 30 second spots. Especially on a medium
that is much much better at showing the state of a candidate's
teeth than the state of the union.
... well, then I'd say that you'd better pick another medium. If you
complain that TV doesn't show your ideas in a favorable way, then say
it *can't* show it in a favorable way, I think you're out of luck. If
other political groups can make better use of the medium, that's the
way it goes...
Perhaps gun use should be taught in high school?
Perhaps; but what about all those adults who are all ready out of high
school - its they who will have the guns!
Shotguns don't do well against a B-52 strike (i.e.
our government will always have bigger guns).
Tell that to the Vietnamese.
... well, there's over a million of them I can't tell that to, they're
dead. Why don't we ask the dead of Dresden, or Hamburg, or Tokyo, or
Nagasaki? And please don't trot out those US Strategic Bombing Survey
statistics, they don't help. In the event of a real civil uprising in
the United States, unless the entire population were to rise up (which
is doubtful) a million casualties amongst the rebels should be quite
enough to end it.
Charles
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 13 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 51
Today's Topics:
Libertarianism &
Society &
Party Politics &
SDI Funding and the Economy &
Mental Competence &
The Queen's English (2 msgs) &
Middle Ages
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < EYAL%WISDOM.BITNET@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
From: Eyal mozes < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 86 10:52:07 -0200
Subject: Re: libertarianism
> I am not sure how to argue with libertarianism, because my difference
> with libertarians seems to me to be not so much a matter of facts as
> a matter of different values. I think Keith's position is reasonably
> consistent if you accept his moral premises, but I don't consider his
> position moral, and I don't think he would consider mine moral.
Yes, that's definitely a big problem with libertarianism.
Libertarians take as a basic assumption that government intervention
is evil. They can't (and don't want to) use reason and morality to
support this assumption, since that would require advocating absolute
truth and absolute values, and that's anathema to libertarianism; so,
instead, they try to present "freedom" as compatible with (or even as
a pre-requisite for) ANY values. The result is that they have no
answer to those who say "I don't regard your position as moral".
Libertarianism really has a lot in common with socialism - in their
fundamental approach of making basic assumptions about politics or
morality without trying to defend them rationally, and also,
ironically, in the concrete conclusions they lead to; if you read, for
example, Murray Rothbard, who is widely regarded as the intellectual
leader of libertarianism, you can see that most of the views he holds
on concrete issues - such as his praise for the PLO, his sympathetic
evaluation of soviet foreign policy, and his view of the USA as the
world's "main danger to peace and freedom" - are totally incompatible
with genuine advocacy of individual rights, and identical with the
views of most socialists.
The correct approach to political theory is the one diametrically
opposed to libertarianism's; political theory must be based on a sound
and detailed theory of morality, and a sound theory of morality must
be defended by rational arguments and based on reality - on correct
observation and identification of the facts of reality and of man's
nature. If you recognize that morality is an objective necessity for
man, and that arbitrary whims are not a proper standard of morality,
then this is the only correct approach, and then saying "I don't
regard your position as moral" will not be a valid answer without
presenting rational counter-arguments. Ayn Rand was the only one to
fully and consistently take such an approach, and, as a result, she
gave the only full, consistent rational and moral defense of
individual rights; her writings (particularly "Atlas Shrugged", "The
Virtue of Selfishness" and "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal") are the
only antidote both to libertarianism and to socialism, and are a must
read for anyone seriously interested in political theory.
Eyal Mozes
BITNET: eyal@wisdom
CSNET and ARPA: eyal%wisdom.bitnet@wiscvm.ARPA
UUCP: ...!ihnp4!talcott!WISDOM!eyal
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 01:21:10 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Society
To: TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA
From: Terry C. Savage < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
While I agree with many of his positions, Keith Lynch's
contention that Society does not exist is a pedantic Libertarian
fiction. ...
Ok, ok. What I MEANT to say was that people should stop talking
about society without defining what they mean by it. People were
saying stuff that sounds like:
Society provides the individual with food, clothing, money, and
shelter, and it is only fair that the individual give a percent
of the money to society in return.
which is so bogus I hardly know where to begin picking it apart. When
people change definitions in the middle of a sentence, trying to
untangle their illogic is about as futile as trying to repair a rotten
egg.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 21:52:03 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Party politics
To: TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA
From: Terry C. Savage < TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
The [Libertarian] party would do a great deal better if candidates
would adopt specific policy positions closer to the mainstream,but
in the "proper" direction.
I don't know. The Democrats have tried the invisible plank aproach
and it doesn't seem to get many votes.
Trouble is, these positions aren't "ideologically pure", and we
(Libertarians) can be as fanatic/unreasonable about the details of
our ideology as anybody else.
Well, it is one thing to claim that taxes are immoral, and quite
another to claim that the current tax RATE is immoral and should be
a few percent less. The latter claim just sounds silly. Once you
concede the necessity of involuntary taxation, it is just a matter
of deciding what the tax rate should be and what deductions should
be allowed. Nobody has the moral high ground.
Thomas Jefferson made the same sort of compromise. He knew that he
would just sound 'weird' if he were to completely oppose slavery. So
he advocated abolition of the overseas slave trade, laws against
cruelty to slaves, etc. This may have been the only reasonable
compromise at the time. Quite likely he would never have been a major
political figure had he come out for total abolition of slavery.
Unfortunately, many people today tend to look down on him and
disregard his writings based on his pro-slavery stance.
Well, if I were running for president I would perhaps tone down my
stance. But I am not. I have to call them as I see them. And as I
see it taxation, zoning laws, and victimless crime laws are as totally
wrong as slavery was. I only hope the change to a libertarian society
can be made without the bloodshed associated with the abolition of
slavery.
Realistically, Libertarians have little chance of winning major
elections in the near term. The best thing we can do at this point is
to expose our viewpoint to as many people as possible. While a
compromise position may be useful at winning elections, it is not
useful in explaining one's true position.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 15:20:38 pdt
From: pyramid!kontron!cramer@topaz.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: SDI Funding & The Deficit
From the August 1986 _Defense_Electronics_, p. 24:
However, not everyone shares such an optimistic view of SDI's
potential for generating commercial business. At a recent
Washington press conference staged by organizers of an academic
boycott of SDI, a scientist connected with the Electromagnetic
Systems Lab at M.I.T. was quoted as saying, "SDI has no civil
applications," and "SDI caused the deficit; as SDI spending
increases, so too will the deficit. All of the funding for SDI
comes out of the deficit."
Is this quote accurate? Does anyone know who said this? If so, I
would be curious to know who. This would seem to be someone with
little knowledge of the SDI budget or the Federal Government's deficit
problems. To say "SDI caused the deficit" is rather like saying "Farm
price supports caused the deficit". In part, yes. Everything that
costs money contributes to the deficit. But only a part. Is there
someone with Electromagnetic Systems Lab who actually thinks that SDI
is a major part of the deficit? It's $3x10^9, out of a budget deficit
in the $2 x 10^11 area. You could make as strong a case for pure
research and educational subsidies "causing" the deficit.
It's statements like the ones above that are why the "technical
arguments" against SDI sound shaky -- it seems clear that political
reasons are the principal ones for the moral indignation expressed by
some scientists against SDI.
Clayton E. Cramer
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 22:02:11 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Competence
From: Michael C. Berch < mcb%lll-tis-b.ARPA@lll-tis-gw.arpa>
I'm with you most of the way, but I'm wondering about the sort of
cases where:
1. X is dangerously crazy, presents a clear and immediate danger
of committing a violent crime, but has not yet committed the
crime.
If he doesn't commit a crime then he shouldn't be locked up. If he
is acting bizarre enough, the police may want to keep a close eye on
him. But locking people up just for acting strange opens a Pandora's
box. That is what they do to dissidents in the Soviet Union.
2. X commits a crime while insane, pleads "guilty but insane" (or
whatever), and after his statutory period of incompetence is still
dangerously crazy. Should he be let out?
Yes. Aren't 'regular' criminals let out when their time is done,
even if they are still dangerous criminals? Perhaps more severe
sentences should be given for serious crimes. But I don't see why
a nutty person should be more severely punished for his wrongdoings
than a coldly calculating person.
I worry less about the civil impediments of incompetence (lack of
capacity to contract, consent to risks, etc.) than about
dangerously crazy people wandering around since the state has no
right to protect them "from themselves."
I worry far more about the power of the state than about the power
of individuals. When the state can find someone incompetent simply
because they made an unsecured loan to an unpopular political party
(LaRouche's) I really worry.
Of course the state seems to find all of us at least partly
incompetent. Otherwise why the plethora of laws against sale and
ownership of guns, pornography, drugs, etc? Why the law about maximum
allowed donations to political candidates?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri 8 Aug 86 23:47:21-EDT
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #43
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Good English
Or is it a collection of slang and gutter talk, only able to
coherently convey thoughts of sex, gambling, violence, crime, and
drugs?
This is as ridiculous as:
"Or is the libertarian philosophy a collection of anti-establishment
sentiments and regurgitated ideas (from fiction books and other
publications), consistently seeking to protect the rights of an
individual or group of consenting individuals to engage in activities
involving sex, gambling, violence, and drugs?" :-)
Gee, I guess kids and parents in the inner city will just have to use
sign language when communicating with each other. :-)
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < T3B%PSUVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 86 16:27 EDT
From: < T3B%PSUVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA> (Tom Benson 814-238-5277)
Subject: goodbye
I've been reading the Poli-Sci digest with growing disappointment.
The impulse to be free people seems constricted into a narrow
selfishness by so-called libertarianism. A recent (3 August) note
by Keith Lynch about "Good English," arguing that minority dialects
are good for gutter talk seems to reveal quite adequately the
racism that's part of the value system here. I'm going to send in
a request to be removed from the mailing list. Grow up, kids.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 22:07:17 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Middle Ages
[ I take issue with your statement on people in the middle ages.
Middle ages man was in many ways as energetic and intelligent as
20th century man.
Certainly. That was my point. People weren't retards back then,
any more than they are now. People weren't satanically evil in Nazi
Germany any more than they are here and now. What happens depends as
much on the system people live under as on the people themselves.
Indeed, the Reformation, Norman Conquest, Crusades, rise
of Venice and Genoa, the "Renaissance", and a host of other events
were due entirely to people NOT obeying the local bishop (or one
of the up to 3 local popes). - CWM]
The Reformation, the Renaissance, and the rise of Venice and Genoa
were after the middle ages. I don't think the Crusades or the Norman
Conquest were particularly admirable, and they certainly WERE done by
people obeying the local bishops.
...Keith
[ I would say that there were a few satanically evil people in Nazi
Germany; I'd say the political climate allowed them to come to
positions of power such that they could do enormous damage.
I am one of those crazy historians who maintain that there was no
"Renaissance", no sudden "rebirth" of civilization. What some call
the renaissance is no more than a culmination of the normal
development of what is called the "middle ages". My books say that
Venice was strong enough to extract tax breaks from the Byzantines in
992 and Genoa rivaling Venice a major power at the end of the 12th
Century. What do your books say?
As to the Crusades, go look again. Have a look at who went on the
"Peasant's Crusade", what happened to them; look at what happened to
the crusades after the conqest of Jerusalem in 1099 (hint: the
conquests weren't turned over to the church like the church wanted).
Read up on the 4th crusade: the crusade that was turned by Venice
against the (christian) Byzantines as a way to eliminate a business
rival. Aren't we sort of straying? -CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 13 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 52
Today's Topics:
The Media and Political Opinions (2 msgs) &
Libertarianism (2 msgs) &
Big G Gone Mad &
First Amendment Ruling &
Technology, Research and the Free Market
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 22:16:29 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: TV Censorship/Bias
To: DENNETT@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Steve Dennett < DENNETT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
... All three [TV networks] refused, saying basically "Sorry, but
we won't run ads presenting a political viewpoint. Political
questions can only be covered in a 'balanced' manner, by our own
public affairs departments" (if and when they get around to it, of
course).
[ ... The three 'major networks' can't rule the airwaves like they
used to. ... CNN, TBS, Metromedia, Fox, ... HBO, TMC, MTV, CBN,
USA, MSG, ... - CWM]
This isn't a conspiracy amongst the three major TV networks. It is
the notorious 'fairness doctrine' that the unelected FCC commisioners
have required all radio, TV, satellite, and cable stations and
networks to kowtow to or lose their license. The First Amendment does
not apply to broadcast media.
The fact that this advertisement was finally broadcast is no more a
defense of this system than releasing Sakharov would be a proof that
the Soviet political system is acceptable.
...Keith
[ I take it that no amount of anecdotal proof will make you reconsider
the principal, eh? -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Sunday, 10 August 1986 11:39:23 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
To: DR01@te.cc.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: narrow opinions
I think that one of the reasons that the selected newspapers and news
magazines had a range of opinion as narrow as Scarlett O'Hara's waist
is because the selection had a range as narrow as Scarlett O'Hara's
waist. All of the articles originated in the Northeast. There was
not a single quote from west of the Mississippi, despite the fact that
a majority of Americans live in that region. Nothing from the West
Coast, nothing from the South, or the Midwest. I would wager that in
general these regions hold opinions generally more conservative than
those expressed in the selected papers. Consequently the selection
really covers the left half of the spectrum, and not the far right.
The range of published opinion is probably the same as it used to be,
just shifted to the right, as noted.
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 9 Aug 86 21:18:55-EDT
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Community of Nations
If we move up one level of abstraction, we can discuss the pros and
cons of the libertarian ideology with respect to the community
(i.e.society, group...whatever term you wished to use to describe such
a set) of nations that we now have on earth. Such a society has a
free market economic system and no effective government (the U.N.
doesn't make and can't enforce laws). Nations have sovereign rights.
Nations "own" land. But there is no effective judicial system to
resolve conflicts between nations. This leads to nations resolving
conflicts by force, coercion or negotiation. There are nations that
are rich, poor, powerful, weak, religious, secular, etc. Charity is
voluntary. There is no taxation.
Question: Will the libertarian system of government work for such a
society?
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 10 Aug 86 18:19:46-EDT
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Transition to libertarianism
It seems to me that advocates of libertarianism make implicit
assumptions about society e.g. there would be enough voluntary
contributions to take care of social problems so that these problems
would not threaten the existence and stability of the libertarian
system. As an aid to understanding what assumptions are made and how
reasonable these assumptions are, would someone describe how the
following countries can be transformed to stable libertarian
societies:
Grenada, Haiti, Namibia, the Philippines, and South Africa.
All these countries are in some form of transition and thus seem to be
just ripe for installing a libertarian form of government.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 22:27:52 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Government run amock
Once you allow government to do some things that it has no business
doing but that seem reasonable and fair, for instance involuntarily
taxing everyone one percent of their income to prevent people from
starving or freezing to death, the door is wide open for more and
more.
There is a story in the September 1983 _Analog_ by Hayford Peirce
called _The Reluctant Torturer_ in which the government starts
torturing people. This is initially done to get someone to confess to
where a a bomb has been placed, so as to save thousands of innocent
lives. The author made the argument so well that at first I thought
he believed it himself. Well, torture is gradually used for more and
more crimes, until it is routine even for minor traffic violations.
The moral I draw from this story is that if something is wrong, be
it torture, slavery, or involuntary taxation, then even a little of it
is wrong, even if it is for a good cause.
Speaking of worthy government programs, I read in today's Washington
Post (8/8/86) about the Dairy Termination Program. In order to reduce
the milk surplus (which was caused by government subsidies at taxpayer
expense) the government is paying farmers to stop producing milk. The
Post interviews several farmers, some of whom said they were planning
to go out of the milk business this year anyway. The article mentions
that more than 100 farmers will be getting MORE THAN A MILLION DOLLARS
*EACH*! And the whole program will cost the taxpayers well over a
BILLION dollars! If this doesn't represent a good example of
government run amock, I don't know what does, or what ever could. The
average worker works 4 months each year just to pay his taxes. And
this tax money is being used to create millionaires. To create
millionaires by paying people not to work, not to produce.
I eagerly await a defense of this program and of similar government
boondoggles.
...Keith
[ Just who are you expecting to defend this? (Besides a milk farmer
who contributes heavily to various political endevors to keep the milk
commision in business). Get serious. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 86 22:49:38 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: First Amendment, RIP
To: Poli-Sci@RED.RUTGERS.EDU
Hustler Magazine has been found liable for $200,000 for publishing a
fake interview with Jerry Falwell. The magazine pointed out that the
interview was obviously fake and that nobody had been misled by it.
The court and Falwell conceded that this was a sufficient defense
against libel. So how Falwell win his case? Hustler Magazine has
been found liable for 'inflicting emotional distress' on Falwell.
This is an amazing doctrine! A whole new exception to the First
Amendment! Think of the doors it opens. Perhaps the administration
can silence critical journalists because they are causing emotional
distress to the President. Perhaps some of the liberals on this list
will sue me because my arguments cause them emotional distress. Can
you think of ANY writing that does not cause SOMEONE emotional
distress?
This is typical of the current case-by-case mentality. There was no
good excuse for what Hustler did. Falwell is very popular in this
country. Hustler Magazine is very unpopular. So why not rule against
them? This is very insidious. Once you allow certain exceptions, on
a case-by-case basis, to fundamental constitutional protections, where
can one draw the line? Is the First Amendment worth anything if it
only guarantees freedom of popular speech, of goverment (or majority)
santioned speech?
My favorite example of a real test is the current debate on banning
tobacco advertisements. I am very allergic to tobacco smoke. Smoking
has no redeeming social value. It has no pro side at all. On the con
side is at least 350,000 deaths per year, many of which are innocent
non-smokers caught in the nauseating stench, tens of billions of
dollars of additional health costs every year, tens of billions of
dollars of lost productivity every year, widespread polarization
between smokers and nonsmokers that has led to millions of lost jobs,
tens of thousands of assaults, and more than a few murders. Not to
mention the enormous toll of lost life, health, and property caused by
fires caused by careless smokers. Tobacco is one of the most
addictive substances known. Most people who try at least three
cigarettes will continue to smoke until they die.
There is no question that tobacco advertisements encourage and
increase use of tobacco. Especially the advertisements that are
obvioulsy targeted to women and young non-smokers. These
advertisements have no purpose whatsoever, except to addict millions
of people to a deadly, poisionous, and expensive substance with no
legitimate use.
So any rational person should oppose tobacco advertisements, right?
Well, I do. I do not buy magazines or books that advertise
cigarettes. If any radio or TV stations advertised cigarettes I
wouldn't watch them. I make it a point to buy magazines that make it
a point NOT to accept revenues from tobacco companies.
So, do I support the proposed ban on such advertisements? I do not.
The advertisements are not libelous nor are they false. The tobacco
companies may be misusing the First Amendment in my view, but they are
protected by it nonetheless.
If the government does not support the right of unpopular people to
say unpopular things, then in what sense does the First Amendment
really apply? Only to popular speech and writings? Only to speech
and writings which most people agree have a useful purpose? Is this
what it says in the Constitution?
...Keith
[ Has this Hustler case made it to the Supreme Court? If it is, then
this is very bad, if not, then its still bad, but it may be
correctable. -CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Saturday, 9 August 1986 17:30:51 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: bus service in LA
The RTD (Rapid Transit District) in LA is very large, but does not
serve a large fraction of the population. The fundamental reason for
this is that LA is a rather amorphous place, and people tend to live
and work in random places. Consequently it is very difficult to plan
reasonable bus routes, and you can't go anywhere without several
transfers. My experience was probably typical.
There is a bus that stops on Hawthorne Blvd. about a half mile from my
parents' house in Rancho Palos Verdes. This bus runs down Pacific
Coast Highway to Sepulveda, and stops around Lincoln. Unfortunately I
worked several miles farther on at Hughes Culver City. I could walk
about a mile to enter Culver City and take a bus to the front gate of
the plant. It's then another half mile walk to the office. Overall
this is about a two mile walk and hour bus ride, so probably two hours
minimum commuting each way ignoring queueing time. All other bus
routes require lots of transfering. In contrast, I could drive and
get from front door to office in an hour during rush hour, and as
little as a half hour with no traffic (speeding of course).
Carpooling doesn't catch on very well when you work random hours. My
roommates and I all have offices within 100 feet of each other, but we
go to school separately since who knows when we'll go home. Similarly
my dad always found carpooling difficult (he did it for a while).
Hourly workers or strict eight-to-fivers would have a much better time
of it.
The only transit system that will really succeed in LA is one that
goes as faster or faster than a car including queueing time, works at
all hours, and goes from anywhere to anywhere. Possible solutions
include jet packs, teleportation, and personal rapid transit.
Unfortunately none of these exist or they cost too much.
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 15 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 53
Today's Topics:
Who Pays for the Good Stuff? &
Harmful Products and the Free Market (2 msgs) &
Libertarian Viewpoints &
Voluntary 'taxes' &
Armed Societies
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 00:46:38 EDT
From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU
Subject: Re: Who pays?
Reply-to: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU (Larry Campbell)
kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu writes:
> From: campbell%maynard.UUCP@harvisr.HARVARD.EDU
>
> Universal, inexpensive communications yield substantial benefits
> both economically, and politically.
>
> Those who receive the benefits should be the ones to pay for them.
It is often the case that everyone, or nearly everyone, benefits, and
that it is impossible to quantify the individual benefit received by
any one person. The communications (telephone, telegraph, post) and
transportation (roads, trains, airline industry) infrastructure are
the best-known and most illustrative examples of this.
> the single biggest reason for the wealth of the U.S. is not our
> economic system, but our agricultural and mineral wealth, tapped
> by rural pioneers.
>
> Another fine myth.
> Tell that to Mexico. Or does the agricultural and mineral wealth
> of the continent stop abruptly at the Mexican border?
I failed to place enough emphasis on the agricultural part of our
wealth, which is NOT shared by Mexico (they have nothing like the
corn belt), and which is probably more important to us than our
mineral wealth. Note also that Mexico's climate makes it extremely
difficult (hence more costly and less efficient) to labor outdoors.
On mechanized farms that doesn't matter a lot, but farms haven't been
mechanized for very long.
> Is Japan's recent success due to its adoption of free enterprise?
> Or is agricultural and mineral wealth responsible there too? Strange
> how no communist countries seem to have any.
Japan's economy is at least as regulated as ours. They also have the
substantial and peculiar advantage of having been forced by a
conqueror to have only a token military establishment, while ours
threatens to devour our entire GNP.
> ... when telephones first started, there WAS competition, and it
> DID NOT WORK. Businesses often had to have three, four, or five
> phones on each desk, because the private phone companies didn't
> interconnect.
>
> You think this might have a little bit to do with the low level of
> 19th century electronic technology?
So what? Does that make my political argument invalid?
> Recall also that with the technology of the 19th century it was
> impractical to allow more than one phone company to place wires
> on telephone poles in most areas.
>
> I won't argue the point. But do you think we would be restricted
> to such technology today?
Gotcha! I was NOT trying to argue that a particular industry
(telephone) should necessarily continue to be a regulated monopoly. I
was arguing, and I think you've conceded my point, that there can be
perfectly sound reasons for certain industries to be composed of
regulated monopolies. Electric power utilities are an example that is
still valid today.
> Telephones did not become successful, and never would have, until
> a regulated monopoly was established with the charter of
> providing universal service.
>
> Various countries have telephone systems with various degrees of
> regulation. Without exception, the less regulation, the more
> succesful the phone service. Who can say how much more successful
> ours would have been had it been as unregulated as, say, the computer
> industry?
I don't think you can substantiate this statement. Until the early
1970s, Ma Bell was just as regulated as any European PTT. The only
difference was in ownership, not regulation. Yes, until the early
1970s the U.S. had the best phone system in the world. But it is
not at all clear why this was. I think a strong case could be made
for the argument that this was due simply to the sheer size of the
Bell System -- it could afford to fund enormously more research and
development than could all the European PTTs combined -- and to the
comparative wealth of the customer base (the U.S. public) compared
to other countries.
> Now, many objectivists and libertarians like to moan and groan
> about how society has no right to "pick my pocket", or "force me
> to do something".
>
> See, here you are doing it. What you are talking about is called
> 'government'. Why not use the word? It isn't all THAT loathsome.
Government is an integral part of society. Either word would have
been valid in my sentence.
> ... if you expect to be able to participate in the advantages
> that society provides -- culture, economic activity, safety,
> medicine--
>
> Presto! Now society has a new meaning. It doesn't mean government
> in this paragraph. Government supplies none of those except possibly
> safety. You can have so much fun when you change the meaning of
> words in the middle of an argument.
Baloney. Government provides or insures most of your physical safety
(police and defense). Government provides economic activity, or at
least the tools and framework within which economic activity occur.
Government creates money (no flames on this please! I'm making a
point about the definitions of society and government, not the gold
standard...). Government funds an enormous amount of medical and
scientific research. Government obviously doesn't provide *all* of
the benefits of society, but it does provide a substantial fraction of
them. Most importantly, government provides most of the rules of the
game.
> No, I have to voluntarily trade what I can produce for these
> things. What does government have to do with that?
How do you voluntarily trade what you can produce for police
protection? Or defense? Or environmental protection?
--
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA
UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Fri 8 Aug 86 01:41:25-EDT
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Harmful products & the free market
Cc: kfl@mx.lcs.mit.edu%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
> From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
>
> And manufacturers have a vested interest in hiding harmful
> side-effects of products they sell.
>
> And their competitors have a vested interest in revealing these
> effects.
>
Not necessarily. To take advantage of revealing what other companies
are doing, a company would have to spend a lot of money in
advertising. It might find it more profitable to produce their
product even more cheaply, increasing the chance that it will also
have harmful side effects to hide. Without some form of monitoring by
an agency not concerned with making a profit, and with the *authority*
to require safe products to be produced, the completely free market
can evolve into a very dangerous place.
-j.t.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:00:46 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Harmful products & the free market
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
> And their competitors have a vested interest in revealing these
> effects.
Not necessarily. To take advantage of revealing what other
companies are doing, a company would have to spend a lot of money
in advertising.
Not at all. One can simply tell the news media about the worms in
your competitor's hamburger, and let them do all the work.
It might find it more profitable to produce their product even
more cheaply, increasing the chance that it will also have harmful
side effects to hide.
It might. And some THIRD competitor might expose BOTH of them, and
take their shares of the market.
There are also organizations such as Consumer's Union.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 01:49:37 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Libertarian viewpoints
To: eyal%wisdom.bitnet@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
From: Eyal mozes < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Libertarians take as a basic assumption that government
intervention is evil. They can't (and don't want to) use reason
and morality to support this assumption, since that would require
advocating absolute truth and absolute values, and that's anathema
to libertarianism; ...
I strongly disagree. Libertarians do use reason and morality.
Heck, our magazine is called _Reason_. Who says there are no absolute
values? Slavery, robbery, torture, and murder are evil. Those are
absolute values. One can argue that they aren't, that they are
sometimes justified. If one does, I have no argument. I just want no
part of the system founded on the notion that slavery, etc, are ok.
The result is that they have no answer to those who say "I don't
regard your position as moral".
I have lots of answers. Many kilbytes of them so far. As do
several other contributors to this list.
... if you read, for example, Murray Rothbard, who is widely
regarded as the intellectual leader of libertarianism,
Not by me.
you can see that most of the views he holds on concrete issues -
such as his praise for the PLO, his sympathetic evaluation of
soviet foreign policy, and his view of the USA as the world's
"main danger to peace and freedom" - are totally incompatible with
genuine advocacy of individual rights, and identical with the
views of most socialists.
I've never heard of the guy. These are not my positions, and I
doubt they are the positions of any other libertarian on this list.
Ayn Rand was the only one to fully and consistently take such an
approach, and, as a result, she gave the only full, consistent
rational and moral defense of individual rights;
I was going to suggest that you read her works, except you seem to
be already familiar with them.
her writings (particularly "Atlas Shrugged", "The Virtue of
Selfishness" and "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal") are the only
antidote both to libertarianism and to socialism,
Huh? She never uses the word, but it is clear that she IS a
libertarian.
and are a must read for anyone seriously interested in political
theory.
I agree with you there!
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:20:52 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Voluntary 'taxes'
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Addition to my previous message: people would also be able to make
voluntary donations to any category, in the same way that they now
can make voluntary donations to reduce the national debt.
Probably more people would make such donations than now donate to
reduce the national debt, since it would be going toward the
things they believed in, rather than subsidizing all government
spending, including what they don't approve of.
People already can. A few years ago there was the 'Viking fund', a
voluntary fund to pay for continued operation of the Viking landers on
Mars, which were still operating but which were going to be shut down
because there was no money left to pay for their continued operation.
The fund was a success, and the probes were operated until they
finally wore out.
A few years earlier, the instrument packages left on the Moon by
the Apollo astronauts had been shut down due to lack of funds, even
though they were still sending back useful data.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:24:01 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Guns in Switzerland
To: harvard!wanginst!davis@TOPAZ.RUTGERS.EDU
My point was not that Switzerland is an ideal society, but that
plentiful and available guns and ammunition do not automatically
result in a high crime rate.
Some of the anti-gun nuts would have you believe that the mere
presense of weapons turns people into crazed killers, and that the
mere absense of weapons will cause people to live harmoniously.
Any example of people living together peacefully in the presense
of weapons, and any example of people at eachother's throats in the
absense of weapons, is evidence against that simplistic world view.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 15 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 54
Today's Topics:
Duels &
Taxes (2 msgs) &
Mental illness (2 msgs) &
Disposition of Property
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 11 Aug 86 21:07:28-EDT
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Duels
From the discussion on libertarianism, it seems that duels are legal
since they are formal combats between consenting individuals in the
presence of witnesses who also act as judges.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:58:48 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Taxes
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
... People could refuse any [government spending] category, and
calculate the percentage of their taxes that that would be. Then
they could enter that amount as a tax credit. The government
could take people's word that they conscientiously object, since
it really is no judge of people's consciences.
Wouldn't a lot of people just object to everything and pay no taxes?
Does a legitimate objection have to be to the use of the money, or
can it be simply to the fact that it is MY money? For instance am I
allowed to object to government programs that give my money, directly
as cash, to people wealthier than me? I do not think there is
anything intrinsically evil about people wealthier than me getting
even more money. What I DO conscientiously object to is that the
money is being taken from me against my will.
Does this apply to state income tax, to local property tax, and to
Social Security tax? It could get a little unwieldly with sales
taxes, especially if there are several people waiting behind you in
the cashier line while you decide which programs your ten cents should
go to.
Don't you think it is a great invasion of privacy for the government
to know which of its programs you object to? Why should people who
prefer to keep that information secret, like their ballot, be
penalized on April 15th?
A similar idea is for everyone to pay the same amount of tax as now,
but be free to decide which programs their money should go to. I see
many problems with this approach as well as yours, but both are
interesting alternatives to the present system.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Mon 11 Aug 86 21:57:20-PDT
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Taxes
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
I can't think of any reason that state and local governments have a
greater right to take money from me than the federal government, so I
can't see why they wouldn't be included. Social Security is also
included. Sales tax and phone tax would be eliminated; it would be
unwieldy to use this method of taxation on them, and I can't think of
any reason for their existence except to hide the amount of taxes the
government is demanding.
Certainly some people would refuse to pay any taxes. They would get a
free ride. But there would be enough people paying taxes to cover
them, just as enough people pay taxes now to cover those who cheat.
And it is better for them to get a free ride than for people to be
compelled to pay for something which violates their conscience. The
advantage of this system over only relying on donations is that people
wouldn't not pay because they had been too lazy to get around to it or
because they had underestimated their share, but because they didn't
believe they should be paying. They could object to the use of the
money either because it is intrinsically bad or because it is not
appropriate for the *government* to use the money in that way (I
shouldn't have to object to people spending money to teach children
"secular humanism" to object to the government spending taxes in this
way).
I don't see why it is an invasion of privacy for the government to
know which of its programs I object to. How else can it not put my
money there? Unless the government collects no money at all (in which
case it can't exist) or takes money from everyone, whether they like
it or not (which is an even greater invasion of privacy), it will be
able to know to which of its programs I have given money and to which
I haven't. People who don't want the government to know that
information will just be stuck with a choice between refusing all
their taxes and paying all their taxes.
I suppose if we instead had the other plan you mentioned, where people
pay the same tax as now but allocate it as they choose, then it would
be possible to separate the allocations from a person's name by having
the person just list income and how to allocate the money on a
separate form from the income tax form. But then there would be no
way to know which people are lying about their income on the
allocation form.
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:40:16 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Mental illness
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
I used to agree with a lot of what Libertarians espouse, but what
really turned me off to them was their position on mental illness.
So? Can't you agree with us on some things and disgree on one or
two? Not all libertarians agree with my position on competency.
[The position is] we shouldn't judge what is normal or abnormal
behavior,
Government shouldn't. Individuals are free to judge, but not to
restrain people who seem nutty.
and hence shouldn't restrain mentally ill people until they have
or are in the process of committing a crime.
That's right. Who gets to decide what is normal or abnormal? Are
some political beliefs abnormal? Some religions? None, you say?
Well, what about people who practice human sacrifice, surely they
should be restrained. Yes, but only because human sacrifice is a
CRIME, not because it is crazy or abnormal.
I'm not talking about people feeling a little down, or having
troubles interacting with others, I'm talking real mental illness,
like psychosis or schizophrenia, ...
Or paranoia?
the kind that can only be treated with drugs, not "talking
therapy."
You won't find three psychiatrists who will agree on who, if anyone,
can be cured by talking therapy, and who requires drugs, and what
drugs, and in what amount.
Many psychiatrists even doubt the very existance of mental illness.
Read Thomas Szasz's _The Myth of Mental Illness_. Heck of a science
where some of its practitioners doubt the existance of the subject
matter!
There is hardly a trial in which a credentialed psychiatrist
testifies that someone is sane or insane in which another equally
credentialed psychiatrist doesn't testify the opposite.
Yet you think that people should be imprisoned and drugged against
their will, possibly for life, based on one such psychiatrist's
opinion? Even if they have hurt nobody and comitted no crime?
The correct way to view them is as children.
Would you let your children do whatever they wanted until they
committed a crime? Hardly.
Our discussions on this list are about the correct political system
for ADULTS. Which adults should be treated like children? Those for
which a psychiatrist can be found to testify they are deranged? You
want to make any bets what percent of the population that would be?
Anyone who wants to know how living with the mentally ill really
feels should read the My Turn column that appeared in Newsweek
some months ago by a woman describing her mother's illness, the
breakup of her parent's marriage, and finally her mother's
suicide.
What about those whose parents drink or smoke? Those habits also
destroy lives. Far more lives than mental illness destroys. Should
they too be locked away? Many psychiatrists have said that drinking
is a mental illness. Some say the same about smoking. Some say the
same about computer usage.
It is pretty widely believed that Abraham Lincoln and Winston
Churchill suffered from clinical depression. Should they have been
put away?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@unh.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Monday, 11 August 1986 15:08:26 EDT
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Mental illness and Authoritarianism
When I say "mental illness" I am talking about behavior that is
obviously insane to all those around the person, not what some
psychiatrists say. One thing I've learned is that psychiatry and
psychoanalysis have not yet become sciences. Essentially all progress
has been through the discovery of a few drugs. How these drugs work
is not yet understood, and a patient's reactions to the drugs is
unpredictable at that. Smoking and drinking may be stupid, and may be
addictions, but they are not insanity.
The real issue here is one of authoritarianism, and whether it should
exist in society at all. Whenever I hear people saying "don't judge
or try to restrict their behavior, it's not hurting anyone besides
themselves" I am reminded of the type of parenting that can best be
defined as "let them find their own space." The result of that kind
of parenting is an ill-mannered savage. Similarly if we allow people
to do things that the VAST majority thinks is insanely foolish, or
just plain insane, the result is a large number of people leading
miserable lives who don't have the ability to improve their lot. The
life expectancy of a mentally ill person on the street is a few years
at most. Visit a laundromat late on a winter night. My reference to
suicide in my last message was no accident. The mentally ill have a
very high suicide rate. Even if they are not on the street, they are
undergoing constant mental torture. They often know that something is
terribly wrong, but can't do anything about it. Those who lack the
constant support of friends and family live in a solitary hell.
Libertarians would say "Oh leave them be, so what if they die." I'm
with Ed Koch who says "Fuck that, I'm dragging them in off the street
before they freeze to death." When something is obviously right
(obvious to nearly everybody), you don't let some abstract political
philosophy stand in your way.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:44:10 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Property
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
... I am not willing to be libertarian because of a belief in an
absolute right to dispose of my property as I please, since I
don't in fact hold that belief.
You don't have to. You are free to dispose of your property as you
please, and that right includes the right to waive that right.
The issue is the right of THE REST OF US to dispose of OUR property
as WE please. Just because you are willing to give up that right for
yourself does not mean everyone else should be penalized, anymore than
someone being willing to work as a slave justifies slavery for those
of us who object to working without compensation.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 15 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 55
Today's Topics:
Hidden Costs in Society &
Government and Private Enterprise &
What is "Society" &
Legalized Drugs &
The Cost of Justice &
Government Doing the Right Thing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 02:50:47 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hidden costs
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
The list of hidden costs left off an important one: supporting
survivors. If you're an orphan and a single parent with two
little kids, and die of a drug overdose, guess who gets to support
the kids?
You are right, I forgot that one. Let me remedy the lack:
The same argument could be used against alcohol and tobacco, each of
which kill more people than all illegal drugs put together.
Does this mean you agree that drugs should be legalized for those
with no children? (Or perhaps that having children should be illegal
for those with drug addictions?)
It is not fair to penalize all taxpayers for the negligence of a few
drug users. Nor is it fair to penalize all drug users for the actions
of those who drop dead and leave children. Nor is it fair, or
possible, to punish people who drop dead. These children are screwed
over by their parents, and nothing will change that. People do use
these drugs even though they are illegal. The drugs are much deadlier
than they would be if they were legal. Also more expensive, leaving
less money for the children even when the parents are still alive.
Bad drugs are a problem. Making them illegal does not solve the
problem, but makes it worse in several ways.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: 11 August 86 15:48-PST
From: SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #42
In reading the discussions about government and private enterprise I
am reminded that I used to see signs in stores which said:
"Thank you for your patronage, please come again"
this can be contrasted to what (i have heard about, but not seen)
existed in WWII Germany and also to some degree in any totalitarian
state:
"Thank the Fuehrer for giving this to you"
Perhaps the reason I don't see the former sign very much any more
is because we are moving towards a system of government domination
more characteristic of WWII Germany?
John R. Smith
------------------------------
Return-path: < SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: 11 August 86 16:25-PST
From: SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #44
Terry C. Savage (TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA) says that we can "define society to
be some group of people". What is "some group of people"? Society?
Why don't we all start a "dictionary" so that ambiguities can be
refered to and resolved. It may be very benificial to build up such a
dictionary since it would apply some discipline to our political
thought. It would be interesting to include Savage's definition of
Society into set theory. Since we would not want to be circular we
would have something like:
Society is the set of some group of people, which do not include
Society as a subset (needed, otherwise too circular for definition).
This looks like the type of definition headed for a contradiction.
Can someone give us a definition of Society which we can all agree
upon (to the extent we can agree at all)?
John R. Smith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 86 03:09:20 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Legalized drugs
[ Well, I think children should be protected against doing stupid
things to themselves.
I thought we were discussing adults.
... Having drugs regulated (presumably by the government) doesn't
stop illegal activities (e.g. cigarettes, in which there is a
multi-million dollar activity to illegally move cigarettes without
paying taxes on them
If taxes were eliminated, this form of crime would go away.
It is true that this is still a crime, but it does not result in
making crooks out of millions of smokers, and it does not result in
bad batches of cigarettes, and it does not result in prices for
cigarettes so high that smokers have to commit crimes to get cigarette
money (in fact this crime REDUCES the cost of cigarettes) - and make
no mistake, cigarettes are addictive enough that many smokers would
turn to a life of crime rather than quit smoking.
... I agree that in general people should be free to make the
wrong choice, but I don't know any right choices for drugs like
heroin or cocaine.
I don't know any right choice for tobacco.
Government has spent billions of dollars and hundreds of policemen's
lives trying to stamp out illegal drug usage. IT ISN'T WORKING.
Legalizing drugs won't make them go away either. What we CAN do by
legalizing the drugs is:
1) Make the cost of the drugs small enough that users don't have to
mug people and shoot 7-11 cashiers to get the money for drugs.
2) Cause the quality to go way up. No more hepatitis, no more drug
related AIDS, a lot fewer overdose deatch, no more strychnine
poisonings.
3) Eliminate organized crime.
4) Reduce the crowding in the prisons, the cost of maintaing those
people in prison, the cost of the trials, the cost of the drug
police, etc.
5) Decrease the forbidden-fruit factor. A lot of teenagers are
attracted to drugs simply because they are illegal.
6) Decrease the stigma. Many addicts are not willing to seek
treatment because they don't want to be branded as criminals. If
drugs were legal, this problem would go away.
...Keith
[ Firstly, you cannot simply whisk away the issue of drugs and
children. I am not satisfied with just ignoring the problem.
..."in fact this crime REDUCES the cost of cigarettes" - I take it
then that you approve of any criminal act that lowers prices, or just
those that make government the victim?
Reducing the price of drugs will 1) increase the number of overdoses -
if there's more (and better) of it people will take more; 2) increase
the usage in normally non-use situations: remove the stigma, and you
reduce the level of peer-pressure to not use (say on the job or in
school - and consider how many teenagers smoke legal, cheap
cigarettes); 3) increase the number of addicts. Why should anyone
want to receive help to kick the habit of a drug which is legal,
cheap, and stigma-free? If you really think that kids will not take
drugs because its no longer a crime, think again. If you really think
organized crime will just 'dissappear', I'm sorry but the cure-all
won't cure this one. They'll just move on to other things - they said
that about organized crime and the repeal of Prohibition too. - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Tue 12 Aug 86 13:08:35-EDT
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Cost of Justice
To: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
> From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
>
> Say the cost of conducting a murder case (salaries of attorneys
> and judges, cost for maintaining a courtroom, etc.) is $XXXXX.
> Now say a defendant is found guilty and so is liable for these
> expenses. What if he/she has nowhere near this amount of money?
>
> There is no requirement that the fine be restricted to the cost of
> the trial. The fine can be made sufficient to subsidize
> unsuccessful and indigent trials.
What? Are you saying that some criminals should be forced to
subsidize the trials of other criminals? How is this different from
non-criminals being forced to subsidize the local phone rates of other
non-criminals, which you have already objected to?
> Trials can also be paid for by voluntary
> individual contributions, by the victims,
I can't imagine many people being victimized by someone also
volunteering to pick up their trial tab.
> ... does it mean that the convicted person will somehow have to
> "work-off" the debt? I thought we got rid of debtor's prisons a
> long time ago.
>
> We are speaking of people who have been convicted of a crime, not
> of people who have simply gone into debt. So why not? You think
> that prisons DON'T make convicts work? If so, you are wrong.
> For first time and nonviolent crimes, electronically supervised
> probation is a promising and inexpensive alternative to imprisonment.
> The probationer can work normally while under such supervision.
Yes, i am aware that convicts have to work. BUT, are the lengths of
their sentences dependent on their ability to pay for something?
Should a rich rapist get a shorter sentence than a poor one simply
because he has a smaller monetary debt to pay off? I think that the
sentence should be determined strictly by the crime committed. (I
realize that this is not strictly the case even now.)
> Like anything else government pays for, the cost of trials has gone
> up enormously. I think it can be reduced a lot without interfering
> with anyone's rights.
Agreed.
> And it is in the interests of the defendant, if
> he thinks he is likely to be found guilty, to waive expensive
> features of the trial.
Here we go again. A person with lots of money can go ahead with the
trial and take full advantage of the legal process; even if it is not
likely that he or she will win, staying out of prison is worth the
gamble. However, someone without as much money, who may NEED the
"expensive" features of a trial for the chance to show that he or she
is innocent, will not get that chance. This is equal justice?
> No matter who you are, or how much money you have, you have a
> right to a trial by your peers.
>
> Right. This is important and should not be changed.
Unless you can't afford the expensive parts?
> Besides, there are all of those other expenses -- electricity for
> the court room, for example -- who volunteers to pay for them??
>
> Be real. If the courtroom is lit by ten flourescent 40 watt bulbs,
> and the trial lasts 10 hours, at $0.07 per kilowatt hour that would
> cost less than thirty cents. If this is the best that opponents of
> libertarian philosophy can come up with, we must be doing pretty
> well.
OK, the first example (EXAMPLE) off the top of my head was a bit
trivial. I can think of more -- the cost of constructing/renting and
maintaining the court building; the cost of the record-keeping
systems; and the aforementioned salaries of court employees. I'm sure
that you can think of more, too.
> If the only reasonable way to guarantee equal access to the
> justice system is by taxation, then that is the way we are forced
> to do it.
>
> And if the only way to guarantee equal access to the justice system
> was by slavery, would you support that? There is no evidence for
> either assertion.
Well, there is evidence (not proof) for the former -- are you aware of
any system which has ever existed and WORKED to provide equal access
to a judicial system without taxation? I'm not saying that it CAN'T
be done, just that it has never been proven that it can. I won't even
bother with your comparison to slavery.
-joe testa
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 86 01:26:23 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Government doing the right thing
To: Poli-Sci@RED.RUTGERS.EDU
[ Your anecdote about flu virus germs shows that the government
did the right thing, based on information available at the time.
It seems to me to be dirty pool to make fun of people based on
hindsight. - CWM]
Not at all. My point is that it isn't really government's business
to get involved. The government should not take sides except when it
is extremely obvious what's what. For instance sales of a drug
containing deadly amounts cyanide should be halted, but not drugs
whose only problem is that nobody has proven them safe.
There is at least some evidence that people who drink moderately are
slightly healthier than people who don't drink at all. But this
doesn't stop government from ruling that adults under 21 are not
allowed to drink. Marijuana is said to be good for glaucoma. Tough.
Some psychiatrists think that LSD may be useful for treating
(consenting) psychiatric patients. Too bad. The big G knows what's
best for everyone.
...Keith
[ So no one should test drugs for carcinogenic properties? Long term
effects? Just test it out on the public? I guess it depends on who
defines 'extremely obvious'... - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 16 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 56
Today's Topics:
Power of Wealth (2 msgs) &
Question for Libertarians &
Property values &
Drug Testing &
TV bias and Gun control
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 86 02:18:14 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Power of wealth, Communtheism
To: ucsbcsl!uncle@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Keith, the infinite digressions and regressions and unending
recursions which you are making ...
The feeling is mutual.
You agree now that money IS power, but to maintain your previous
distinctions, you insist that money is only power over things, not
people
Exactly. This is an enormous distinction. A rich man has the power
of life and death over his Rolls Royce, his mansion, and his many
electronic toys. He has the power to buy and sell these things for
whatever he and another person can agree is a fair price. He is even
free to destroy his wealth.
A government has similar power, but over PEOPLE. Governments have
tortured, robbed, and killed people all through history.
Unless you assert that people have no more rights than inanimate
objects, you must agree that there is a great difference between these
forms of power.
and you assert that you cannot imagine how wealthy people could
abuse their wealth!!!!
Not exactly. I agree that there are many ways to use wealth to
commit crimes. One can bribe a congressman, hire a killer, keep
slaves, etc, etc. All such ways are ALREADY illegal, and it isn't
the WEALTH that is at fault. One might as well say water should be
illegal since people can be drowned with it.
People on this list have fulminated against folks with the nerve
to accumulate 100 times the per capita US GNP. This is symptomatic
of fuzzy thinking. I guess we are supposed to imagine the wealth of
the world as being a fixed quantity, and when some people take more
that their fair share, that is what causes others to be poor.
Well, that's a bunch of crap. Excepting wealthy people who did get
their money through crime or government handouts, a person with a lot
of wealth has it because he CREATED it, or because he created
something that someone else freely agreed was worth more than what he
got for it.
I see nothing evil in that. I see nothing evil in any noncriminal
use of the wealth. In fact the poor and the middle income people of
the world owe a lot of gratitude to those who have created most of the
wealth of the world. Much of the poverty existing today is a direct
result of these very productive people being penalized and villified
for their productivity. As can be seen by noting the correlation
between individual liberties and standard of living throughout the
whole world. And by noting that the ways in which the socialist
countries are slowly increasing their meager standard of living is by
use of technologies and methods invented by free men.
... we've got to foster the individual AND the community.
The only legitimate community is the interactions of free
individuals. There is no community seperate from that, whose
priorities can be contrasted with those of each individual
within it. I am reminded of the communist countries, where
any degree of opression of individuals can be justified by
the need to serve 'the people'.
... communism is just the latest in a long line of mediterranean
monotheisms ...
Not a monotheism exactly, but it IS a religion. I was wondering if
anyone else noticed this. Communism is not a political position at
all. It has all the characteristics of a religion:
1) Repudiation of all competing religions and their gods.
2) Explanation of history as man's progression toward a paradise.
3) A purpose for life, to which all else must be subservient.
4) One or more infallible holy prophets.
5) An elite priesthood.
6) Evil and threatening infidels.
I wonder if this means the Communist party in the US should be tax
exempt? :-)
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 86 10:13:04 pdt
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: end of digressions/contributions from this user on this
Subject: account
well since i will not be using this account anymore, my
few exchanges with KFL re: money-IS-power etc etc must end; as KFL
has mentioned, i dont think we got too far on this particular
digression; however we did agree that money IS in fact, power,
. KFL ,however, does not agree that this implies power over
people; he maintains that the very organization which HE 'vilifies',
viz. guvmint, has made the abuses of wealth illegal, therfore
they wont occur, or they are susceptible of remedy through the
legal system etc etc... that line of reasoning is just more
byzantium to me! I just can't help but leave this exchange with
the feeling that KFL's position is not consistent (and i am
sure he feels the same about my position) Oh well...
...to maintain that the power of the state should be limited,
but that the power of wealth should not, is to invite plutocracy,
not freedom. .....AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT....
......did he ever return? no he never returned and his fate is
still unlearned, he may ride for ever 'neath the streets of boston,
he's the man who never returned!...................................EOX
------------------------------
Return-path: < foy@aerospace.ARPA>
Subject: Question for Libertarians
Date: 12 Aug 86 12:45:03 PDT (Tue)
From: foy@aerospace.ARPA
It is hard for me to understand some of the Libertarian attitudes
about rights. Some seem to say that people have a right to do anything
they want economically, but also have a right to be free from
phyusical agression. They seem to imply that these are natural
rights.
I would like to understand where they think these rights come from. It
seems to me that these "rights" are arbitrary sets of rules defined by
arbitrary methods, by arbitrarily selected groups of people.
To illustrate my concern with a little story: Suppose;
I am not very well endowed with mental equipment. I have inherited a
small farm on which I grow potatoes and shoot a few rabbits for my
sustenence. I am good at growing potatoes and shooting rabbits because
my father was patient with me and trained me well. I make a few $ by
selling some of my potatoes to the city folks.
One day an intelligent, well educated Libertarian (perhaps not as
ethical as most Libertarians) comes along and tells mae that he will
sell me a rototiller which will make it easy for me to grow lots more
potatoes. He tells me that I only have to give him a few dollars every
month for this rototiller. That should be easy to do because I will be
able to grow and sell so many more potatoes. It sure sounds like a
good deal. He asks me to sign a piece oaf paper which he says is an
agreement that I will pay him the amount he says I need to pay for the
rototiller. It has lots of big words that I don't understand like
deeds and mortgage and interest and so on. I don't understand what
those words mean. He is a nice guy and I sure want to grow more
potatoes so maybe sometime I can buy one of those new fangled picture
boxes so I sign the paper and I get my roto tiller and I start growing
more potatoes and I make a few more $; not as much as my fried from
the city told me I would. Sometimes I can't make the monthly payment
like I was supposed. I knew that was OK because my friend had sais it
would be when he gave me the rototiller.
One day a man in a Uniform comes and shows me the piece of paper I
signed and some other papers and tells me I have to move off my farm
tomorrow. I get angry. We have an argument. The next day when he
comes I tell him to leave my land. He says I have to leave. I shoot
him like I would a rabbit.
End of Story.
Why do the Libertarians think that one of these individuals has a
natural right to do what he did and that the other individual does
not?
Richard Foy, Redondo Beach, CA
The opinions I have expressed are the result of many years in the
school of hard knocks. Thus they are my own.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 86 01:29:13 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Property values
To: fagin@JIMI.AI.MIT.EDU
From: fagin%ji@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Your problem is that your confusing a drop in your property value
with actual damage. One is a violation of your rights,
while the other is the result of other people's voluntary choices.
Exactly. Some say that having blacks move in next door lowers
property values. If so, should a person have the right to prevent his
neighbor from selling or renting his house to blacks?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcgurrin@mitre.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 86 09:11:31 edt
From: mcgurrin@mitre.ARPA (Michael Mcgurrin)
Subject: drug testing
I am not on this mailing list, so I don't know what discussion may
have proceeded this, but I am concerned about the current move to
require mandatory, universal drug tests of gov't employees and defense
contractor employees. I feel that this is a violation of basic rights
on several grounds. I am interested in hearing from others who feel
this way (or even from those who disagree). I am attempting to
organize a letter writing and petition drive on this issue. The text
of the petition reads,
We, the undersigned, oppose mandatory drug tests, whether in
government or private industry. We agree with the proponents of drug
testing that drug use has no place in the work place, but this
worthwhile goal does not justify violating basic rights of privacy or
basic constitutional rights. We are opposed to testin of any persons
where no justifiable suspicion or evidence of drug use exists. We
urge state and federal legislators to enact legislation barring
mandatory drug tests as a condition of employment.
I would especially like to hear from anyone wishing to sign and/or
help distribute the petition. Please reply directly to me via ARPANET
or voice phone (703)-883-5581 (days). Thanks for your time.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 86 01:48:07 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: TV bias, Gun control
To: MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU
From: Charles < MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
... well, there isn't much to be said about that, except to say
that its in fact the PEOPLE who work in TV who might seem to have
a liberal bias -
No, I meant that the medium itself often tends to have a liberal
bias, by its very nature. It is much easier to show on TV things that
liberals decry than it is to show on TV things that conservatives and
libertarians decry.
one also hears this same complaint about print.
Not that I have noticed. There is enormous diversity in the print
media. There is very little diversity amongst radio and TV stations.
Consider the difference between _The Nation_ and _Reason_. There is
no difference remotely that great between any two TV stations that I
know of.
Perhaps gun use should be taught in high school?
Perhaps; but what about all those adults who are all ready out of
high school - its they who will have the guns!
What can I say? We have managed just fine with an armed citizenry
for over two centuries. I don't think civilization will collapse if
draconian gun control laws are not quickly passed.
Shotguns don't do well against a B-52 strike
(i.e. our government will always have bigger
guns).
Tell that to the Vietnamese.
... well, there's over a million of them I can't tell that to,
they're dead.
They won. Had they not been armed, they would have lost.
In the event of a real civil uprising in
the United States, unless the entire population were to rise up
(which is doubtful) a million casualties should be quite enough to
end it.
The idea is not to foment a revolution, but to protect the people,
as individuals, against all levels of aggression, from robbers to
terrorists to revolutionaries to foreign invaders. The weapons are
primarily a deterrent, of course. Millions of people being armed
should be a powerful force to prevent any unpopular small movement
from turning to violence to achieve its ends. And should put a quick
stop to any such movement that IS foolish enough to declare war on the
populace.
...Keith
[ Well, I have noticed that people think print is biased, I've seen
the letters. I guess you don't read the same newspapers I do. As to
an 'inherent' liberalness of TV, I don't buy it. Its still people who
decide what goes on and what doesn't. You really think CBS would be
the same if Ted Turner were in charge? Jerry Falwell? Jimmy
Swaggart? While you're at it, consider the difference between "60
Minutes" and "Firing Line". If you're going to argue audience size,
go back and look at how many people read "Reason".
The original point was that giving guns to everyone would be
dangerous for a lot of reasons - one of which is that most people
don't know how or when to use them. We don't have an "armed
citizenry", now - you were saying we need looser (or no) gun laws to
move back to that. You argument doesn't really bear on that. (Sorry,
I won't be digressed further! :-)
Lastly, I don't buy at all your trying to use Vietnam to prove your
point. Go back and look at the Philippine uprising of the early
1900's - against the US. Conditions were surprisingly similar, but we
won that one. Know how? We didn't pull any punches. There are a lot
incredibly complex of reasons we lost in Vietnam. That the Cong and
the NVA had guns was the reason there was a war at all, not the reason
we lost. In general, guns in the hands of the people will not deter a
government - look at the steps Lincoln took at the opening of the
Civil War with northerners (and later, too). Dozens of governments
are currently fighting wars with internal dissenters. Does the fact
that the anti-government forces have guns stop the governments? Don't
be silly. A government will use any measures at hand if pressed
enough. - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 18 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 57
Today's Topics:
Libertarian Viewpoints &
Federal Employees &
Property Taxes &
Mental Illness and Authoritarianism
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < EYAL%WISDOM.BITNET@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
From: Eyal mozes < eyal%wisdom.bitnet@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 86 17:39:22 -0200
To: kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Libertarian viewpoints
> Who says there are no absolute
> values? Slavery, robbery, torture, and murder are evil. Those are
> absolute values. One can argue that they aren't, that they are
> sometimes justified. If one does, I have no argument. I just want
> no part of the system founded on the notion that slavery, etc, are
> ok.
That's just my point. Libertarians make a basic assumption about
politics - "initiation of force is evil" - and have no argument to
defend it; this is the exact opposite of the proper approach to
political theory. To defend a political principle by reason and
morality - as Ayn Rand did - you have to accept that politics is not a
primary, that it requires a base in metaphysics, epistemology and
ethics; that's what I meant by absolute truth and absolute values, and
that's what libertarians wouldn't accept.
> The result is that they have no answer to those who say "I don't
> regard your position as moral".
>
> I have lots of answers. Many kilbytes of them so far. As do
> several other contributors to this list.
I haven't been reading this list for very long; but the few messages
by you that I saw contained some economic and historical arguments,
and some repetition of the libertarian "axiom" about the evil of
initiating force, but no moral or rational defense of your basic
position.
I know that some genuine advocates of individual rights and
laissez-faire capitalism make the mistake of calling themselves
libertarians. Maybe, if I'd read the list for a longer time, I'd find
that you, or some other contributors, belong to this category; but in
that case you'd better realize that the cause of individual rights has
nothing to gain, and a lot to lose, from association with
libertarianism.
> you can see that most of the views he holds on concrete issues -
> such as his praise for the PLO, his sympathetic evaluation of
> soviet foreign policy, and his view of the USA as the world's
> "main danger to peace and freedom" - are totally incompatible
> with genuine advocacy of individual rights, and identical with
> the views of most socialists.
>
> I've never heard of the guy. These are not my positions, and I
> doubt they are the positions of any other libertarian on this list.
That's probably correct; but the conclusions a view leads to are not
determined by majority vote. Rothbard's views are a logical result of
the essence of libertarianism - of taking "initiation of force is
evil" as an out-of-context basic assumption with no concern for its
justification.
> her writings (particularly "Atlas Shrugged", "The Virtue of
> Selfishness" and "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal") are the only
> antidote both to libertarianism and to socialism,
>
> Huh? She never uses the word, but it is clear that she IS a
> libertarian.
Her principled rational and moral defense of capitalism, and her
insistence that this is the only proper way to defend it, make it very
clear that she is profoundly opposed to libertarianism. And while she
never uses the word in the three books mentioned above, she does use
it in several other places; for example: "groups or movements
proclaiming some vaguely generalized, undefined (and, usually,
contradictory) political goals (e.g., ... the 'libertarian' hippies,
who subordinate reason to whims, and substitute anarchism for
capitalism)" ("Philosophy: Who Needs It", paperback edition, pp.
202-203).
Libertarians are guilty of gross dishonesty in their attempt to
associate themselves with Ayn Rand, thus gaining the following and the
intellectual respectability that they could never earn on their own
merits.
I strongly recommend, to anyone interested in defending individual
rights, the pamphlet "Libertarianism: the Perversion of Liberty" by
Peter Schwartz. Peter Schwartz is editor and publisher of the
pro-laissez-faire political newsletter The Intellectual Activist, and
chairman of the board of advisors of the Ayn Rand Institute, an
educational institution devoted to spreading Ayn Rand's philosophy.
This 64-page pamphlet is a thorough, well-documented and devastating
analysis of libertarianism, which conclusively shatters the myth that
libertarianism is an ally in fighting for individual rights.
[For more information, please contact Eyal directly. - CWM]
Eyal Mozes
BITNET: eyal@wisdom
CSNET and ARPA: eyal%wisdom.bitnet@wiscvm.ARPA
UUCP: ...!ihnp4!talcott!WISDOM!eyal
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 86 02:52:07 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Federal employees
To: Poli-Sci@RED.RUTGERS.EDU
A column in today's Washington Post lists the number of federal
government empoyees in various categories.
Among others, the government employs 46 funeral directors, 529
civilian chaplains, 55 clothing designers, 51 anthropologists, 133
optometrists, 147 podiatrists, 2082 veterinarians, 543 astronomers,
109 cemetery managers, 160 dry-cleaning/laundry plant managers, 7
cobblers, 7 mattress makers, 2723 broom makers, brush makers, and
leather workers, 388 coin and currency checkers, 222 stevedores, 69
floor covering installers, 3330 blacksmiths, 9 bakers, 7 medal makers,
9 glass blowers, 15 paperhangers, 405 locksmiths, 22 bowling equipment
repairers, 945 pest controllers, 66 tree trimmers, 998 shipwrights,
5039 air conditioning mechanics, 65 wind tunnel mechanics, 466 sewing
machine operators, 39 sewing machine repairers, 21 drawbridge
operators, 30 barbers, 6 beauticians, and 16 butchers.
Why is money being taken from people against their will to pay for
these people? Why, for instance, should you be forced to pay for 22
bowling equipment repairers and for 6 beauticians?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 86 15:48:18 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI < wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA>
Subject: Re: taxes
> From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
> Subject: taxes
> ... All taxes would be collected together. The
> government would send out with the tax forms some sort of chart of
> where your taxes were going ...
This leads me to mention a desire I have had for several decades (ever
since I began paying property [real estate] taxes). At least around
here, and I would assume in many other localities, the real estate tax
bill does contain a breakdown somewhat similar to the above -- it
shows the taxing rate for each category and the amount you are being
charged for it, and then a sum total which is what you owe. This shows
clearly that you are paying x dollars for the public school system, y
for the library, z for the zoo-museum district, and so on.
I have never objected to paying this sum total amount which I have
been billed. What I DO object to is paying for some of the
sub-categories. For example, I simply do not believe in public
education, which is what well over half of the total tax bill goes to.
I believe that I should have the right to specify, when I pay the
total amount, that my tax money is to NOT go to that category. If the
sum total is, say, $500, and $300 of that is for public schools while
$15 is for the library system, I should be able to pay my $500 but
specify that the library gets $315 and the public schools $0, or any
other modification of the default breakout I choose.
When I do this, it is important that the amounts really get debited
from the "losing" categories and credited to the "gaining" ones. For
example, suppose that the yearly budget for the library system is
$20,000,000 (derived from applying their tax rate against the total
amount of taxable property). Because I assigned that $300 on my tax
bill to them, they actually get $20,000,300 and the school system gets
$300 less than they would have gotten.
Now, of course, everybody else is doing this too, and I'm sure there
are those out there who love public education, and assign all their
tax money to it, while there are others who cut off the library and
put it all into "interest on outstanding bonds" because they own a
bunch of municipal bonds, and so forth. However, as is universally
true, the vast majority will do absolutely nothing and let the default
amounts get applied to each sub-category just like the bill shows. So
maybe the public schools would lose or maybe they would gain. Maybe
the library would get a windfall or maybe they would barely eke by.
The point is that it allows people to vote with their dollars in a
very real and effective manner. And, since everyone is still liable
for owing that full sum-total amount, it's not a matter of just
cutting parts off to save yourself money -- you still pay the same
amount regardless of what breakout you ascribe to it. So this is
"ideologically pure" -- you are not able to reduce what you owe by
doing this, just specify where YOUR dollars are going.
This would not have been possible before the advent of computerized
accounting, since the manual processing of thousands of variant
assignments would have been impossible, but an automated
implementation should be relatively simple.
A few other touches could be added, such as late payments lose the
option of making such reassignments, and the like. It would introduce
an element of chaos into municipal government, but I think this would
be a good thing -- it would force elements of this system to become
more responsive to the actual needs of individuals, as opposed to
vague committments to the "public good", because action by individuals
could actually affect the funding those elements receive. Looking at
the theoretical versus actual budgets after the first of the year,
when all these tax bills have come due and any of these reassignments
are applied to the funding available for the next fiscal period, will
be a clear indication of what segments of the municipal government
people value and what they dislike or want to reduce.
I have no expectations that this could ever become reality, of course.
Will Martin
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 86 02:38:12 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Mental illness and Authoritarianism
To: Hank.Walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@unh.cs.cmu.edu
When I say "mental illness" I am talking about behavior that is
obviously insane to all those around the person, not what some
psychiatrists say.
Does support for LaRouche fall into this category?
Whenever I hear people saying "don't judge or try to restrict
their behavior, it's not hurting anyone besides themselves" I am
reminded of the type of parenting that can best be defined as "let
them find their own space."
We are talking about adults.
Similarly if we allow people to do things that the VAST majority
thinks is insanely foolish, or just plain insane, the result is a
large number of people leading miserable lives ...
How vast a majority?
Don't the things that the vast majority think are insanely foolish
change considerably with time? And don't they vary with place? By
your standards, the USSR is justified in locking up dissidents for
the insanity of opposing the Soviet system. The vast majority of
Soviet citizens would agree that opposing the Soviet system is insane.
I firmly believe that people have the right to live their own lives.
That includes the right to be miserable. Would you advocate that
people who flunk a happiness test can be denied their civil rights and
imprisoned in horrible conditions for life? If the 'insane' are
trying to avoid such a fate, it is likely that they would lie on such
a test? Perhaps the government should spy on them and attempt to
judge their degree of happiness? Someone who is borderline on this
test might go over the line because of their dismay at the present
administration. This would essentially mean that they are being
imprisoned for being unhappy with the authorities. Even if they don't
speak of it. Even if they try to keep it secret. The Thought Police
will find them out and haul them away.
I know it doesn't have to be like this. But giving government the
unlimited power to deny someone his rights based on his non-criminal
behavior or even his private thoughts is so dangerous that I would do
anything in my power to prevent it.
who don't have the ability to improve their lot.
Everyone has this ability. It is you who would have government take
it away.
[The mentally ill] are undergoing constant mental torture. They
often know that something is terribly wrong, but can't do anything
about it.
Why can't they voluntarily submit to treatment?
When something is obviously right (obvious to nearly everybody),
you don't let some abstract political philosophy stand in your
way.
It is not obviously right to me, or to a lot of people. My
political philosophy is not just abstract, it is very concrete.
How about this for a compromise. Have a document, similar to those
organ donor cards, on which a person can sign his assent to
involuntary psychiatric treatment if he is ever judged to be insane by
three impartial psychiatrists and by three relatives, coworkers, or
neighbors. Presumably you would agree to sign it. If "nearly
everybody" agrees with you, then so would they. This would take care
of most of the problem if most people agree with you. Those who
refuse to sign the card deserve what they get if they end up
undergoing constant mental torture and refusing treatment.
Personally, I'd as soon call up the Godfather and have a contract
taken out on myself as sign such a card.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 19 Aug 1986 Volume 6 : Issue 58
Today's Topics:
TV Bias - left or right? &
Voluntary taxes &
Libertarianism &
The Cost of Justice
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 86 16:21:22 CDT
From: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI < wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA>
Subject: The "Amerika" TV show evaluation
Reference Poli-Sci V6 #46, the item from Nuclear Times on the upcoming
ABC-TV "Amerika" program.
Just out of curiosity, why is it so "pernicious" that this particular
series is written with a biased viewpoint from the "conservative
fringe" point of view? Sure, people who disagree with that view will
dislike it, but so what? Why not have TV programs (entertainment, not
just news, public affairs, or "opinion" shows) espousing all sorts of
viewpoints? After all, have we not seen a lot of TV programs written
from the standpoint of and supporting views normally characterized as
"liberal"?
(For example, have there not been many more "entertainment" programs,
such as episodes of drama series or made-for-TV movies, that could be
interpreted as being supportive of gun control than there have been
similar programs supporting the opposite viewpoint? I can think of
quite a few of the former, just off the top of my head, but few, if
any, of the latter.)
But if it is "pernicious" to write and produce an entertainment-type
show from a right-wing position, would it not be just as "pernicious"
to do the same from the left-wing? All of Norman Lear's sitcoms ("All
In The Family", "Maude", etc.), M*A*S*H, and many other series and TV
movies could be so characterized. This doesn't mean that they cannot
be entertaining, or should be censored. Yet I read that evaluation of
"Amerika" as calling for the censorship of that program -- that it was
in some way sneakily spreading an evil ideology. Are not the
"liberals" sure enough of the rightness of their position that they
cannot tolerate even the expression of a different view? That sure
sounds like a fundamental insecurity, not much courage of
conviction....
The "liberalness" of TV has always been a strange beast. Everybody
sees TV as being in the enemy camp. The leftists view it as the
mouthpiece of the evil capitalist imperialists, helping enforce the
status quo and keeping the poor and oppressed downtrodden and "in
their place". The conservatives see it as the voice of red revolution,
dedicated to destroying all they hold dear and sacred, defaming the
nation's leaders and spreading the cancer of hedonism. Both sides
complain that they cannot buy time to espouse their views, or that the
other side's views get more time than theirs.
Guess what? I cannot give you the answer. I don't know it. But I
suspect that there is less here than meets the eye...
Regards,
Will Martin
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 86 02:49:57 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Voluntary taxes
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
The advantage of this system over only relying on donations is
that people wouldn't not pay because they had been too lazy to get
around to it or because they had underestimated their share, but
because they didn't believe they should be paying.
Sounds good to me, except for the privacy issue. I don't think
there is much chance people will just forget. As for how much they
'owe', suggested tax tables could be published.
I don't see why it is an invasion of privacy for the government to
know which of its programs I object to. How else can it not put
my money there?
Donations could be anonymous.
... But then there would be no way to know which people are lying
about their income on the allocation form.
Why should government know my income? If taxes were voluntary, they
wouldn't need to.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < power.Wbst@Xerox.COM>
Date: 14 Aug 86 13:14:22 EDT (Thursday)
From: power.Wbst@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #51
Tom Bensons' note to this DL professing his disappointment with the
tendency towards endless speeches about libertarianism, and his
perception of this philosophy as basically racist, prompted me to post
this reply. Three things:
One - In defense of this DL, the libertarianism faction is actually
very small, but quite vocal. And this small faction is in fact
totally dominated by one person.
Two - I don't seperate people's talk from their actions, or rather I
feel that what people say is only meaningful when one also knows how
they act. The few libertarians I know are racist, although they talk
a good non-racist argument. The basic tone of the libertarian
philosophy has strong elements of social darwinism in it, long used as
a scientific veneer for racist thinking. (I'm perfectly willing to
defend this assesment of social darwinism if anyone wants to debate
it.)
Three - I find libertarianism fascinating, but I'm not sure why. To
me it has a very fundamental flaw in its premise; the same flaw as in
true Marxism, true Monarchy, true Socialism, among others. It's a
very simple flaw: they base their premises on false pictures of human
beings. In libertarianism the false picture is to deny the existance
of society as a sum greater than the whole of its parts (people). I'm
not saying that humans beings are mere ants in the ant colony of
society. (It was a popular notion earlier this century that the
'animal' was the ant colony as a whole, and that the ants were merely
the equivalent of the cells in the human body. I'm not sure why this
fell out of favor.) Rather I'm saying that to evaluate all 'rights'
as belonging only to individuals and never to society goes to the
other extreme. The answer lies somewhere in the middle, but I'm not
sure where.
I contend that the concept of 'rights' are a conveniant tool, a useful
fiction that serves the survival of our species. They are an
abstraction, and to give all rights to the second abstraction called
'indivdual' (libertarianism) is as anti-survival as giving all rights
to another abstraction called 'society' (Socialist communism?). But
more important than being anti-survival, such a designation is
impossible, BECAUSE HUMAN BEINGS DON'T WORK THAT WAY. They never
have.
-Jim
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 86 03:39:58 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Cost of Justice
To: TESTA-J%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
What? Are you saying that some criminals should be forced to
subsidize the trials of other criminals?
Yes.
How is this different from non-criminals being forced to subsidize
the local phone rates of other non-criminals, which you have
already objected to?
Because the latter aren't criminals, of course! Do you really see
no difference?
It is ok to violate the rights of a convicted criminal, to the
extent necessary to prevent crime from violating other people's rights
to a greater extent. The simplest example of this is that it is ok to
shoot someone if he is shooting at you. And it is ok to coerce money
from a person if he coerced the same amount of money from you.
My messages have been about the rights of noncriminals and of the
accused.
Read the 13th Amendment. We all know it abolishes slavery. To me
it seems that it also abolishes the draft and taxation, since those
are forms of involuntary servitude. There is, however, an exemption
in the amendment. Read it.
> Trials can also be paid for by voluntary individual
> contributions, by the victims,
I can't imagine many people being victimized by someone also
volunteering to pick up their trial tab.
They pay the cost of CIVIL trials, nobody finds anything strange
about that. So why not the cost of CRIMINAL trials as well?
In fact, an argument can be made that there should be no distintion
between civil and criminal trials.
Yes, i am aware that convicts have to work. BUT, are the lengths
of their sentences dependent on their ability to pay for
something?
Perhaps they should be to some extent. The idea convict should make
things right again if possible. Someone who steals a thousand dollars
should get a more severe sentence than someone who steals a hundred
dollars. "Thirty days or thirty dollars" is a common misdemeanor
sentence. Do you think it is unreasonable to imprison only those who
don't have thirty dollars?
Should a rich rapist get a shorter sentence than a poor one simply
because he has a smaller monetary debt to pay off?
No. You can't put a monetary value on rape (unless the victim was a
prostitute). I am speaking of paying off the court costs, not of
victim restitution which is a different concept. Many things, such as
murder, can't be put right or compensated for with any amount of
money. Such crimes should have severe sentences which include both
imprisonment and court costs and imprisonment costs and victim
restitution to the extent possible, for instance replacing the murder
victim's earnings.
If the convict can't afford this, well, he can't. Maybe later he
can. Meanwhile, fine other convicts proportionately more.
Note that it is NOT government's responsibility to compensate
victims of crime. It is the convict's responsibility to do so.
Government's responsibilities include holding fair trials, punishing
convicted criminals, and collecting court costs from the convict. The
victim may bring civil suit for restitution, or restitution may have
been mandated during the original trial as part of the punishment.
I think that the sentence should be determined strictly by the
crime committed.
I agree that the punishment should not depend at all on the wealth
of the convict, if that is what you mean. I am not convinced that the
punishment should depend only on the crime. For instance I think it
should be more severe if the convict has a long criminal record.
> And it is in the interests of the defendant, if
> he thinks he is likely to be found guilty, to waive expensive
> features of the trial.
Here we go again. A person with lots of money can go ahead with
the trial and take full advantage of the legal process; even if it
is not likely that he or she will win, staying out of prison is
worth the gamble. However, someone without as much money, who may
NEED the "expensive" features of a trial for the chance to show
that he or she is innocent, will not get that chance. This is
equal justice?
Perhaps not, but it is what we have now. Not all defense attorneys
are created equal, and you are not going to get F. Lee Bailey if you
declare indigency. Neither will you get a whole parade of expert
witnesses. How would you recommend changing it? Allow multimillion
dollar defenses at taxpayer expense for anyone who asks for one?
Forbid such a defense from one who can pay for it, on the grounds of
fairness? Strange kind of fairness that would be, making the chances
that a that a jury will falsely convict a rich man as high as the
chances that they will falsely convict a poor man! Please explain.
> No matter who you are, or how much money you have, you have a
> right to a trial by your peers.
>
> Right. This is important and should not be changed.
Unless you can't afford the expensive parts?
You have a right to a jury trial. You don't have a right to dozens
of expert witnesses and psychiatrists and high priced attorneys unless
you can pay for them yourself or talk someone else into voluntarily
paying for them.
I can think of more -- the cost of constructing/renting and
maintaining the court building; the cost of the record-keeping
systems; and the aforementioned salaries of court employees.
These are the court costs convicted criminals would pay for. I
never said I thought it would be free.
> And if the only way to guarantee equal access to the justice
> system was by slavery, would you support that? There is no
> evidence for either assertion.
Well, there is evidence (not proof) for the former -- are you
aware of any system which has ever existed and WORKED to provide
equal access to a judicial system without taxation?
As I pointed out in a recent message, not so many decades ago a
person could find no examples of a major civilization without slavery.
This did not justify slavery or prove that its lack would cause the
collapse of civilization.
Since no judicial system prior to ours has been even close to fair,
I don't really have a whole lot of instances to search through.
Saying that it probably can't be done any other way because this one
happens to to be done this way reminds me of an old joke. "All
Indians walk single file - at least the one I saw did."
...Keith
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End of Poli-Sci Digest
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