Poli-Sci Digest Volume 7, Part 1
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 1 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 1
Today's Topics:
Education &
South Africa
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Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 86 02:04:31 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Education
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... Who is to bear the cost of educating the people on
libertarianism? ...
Rather you should ask, who is to bear the cost of educating people.
Period. I don't see any distinction between political education and
technical education. Except, of course, that most schools today are
(or were until fairly recently) good at the latter and very poor at
the former.
Government provided schools are naturally going to teach what the
government wants people to believe. This includes private schools and
colleges which are supported largely by government money, or whose
student tuition is largely paid for by the government. Every school
is dependant on the government for accreditation. Many schools are
also at the mercy of special tax exemptions, which they know the
government can withdraw at any time for any reason.
The individual, or his parents, should bear the cost of education.
This is the only way to ensure that education is primarily for the
student's benefit, rather than the government's. Remember, who pays
the piper always calls the tune.
But what about the people who can't afford an education, you ask?
Well, if an education increases one's earning capacity, individuals
and organizations should be willing to loan people money for the
purpose. I'm sure they would now, except that government loans for
higher education have captured the market via an unrealistically low
interest rate, at the taxpayer's expense.
In any case, someone's need for an education is NOT a claim on OTHER
people's money. Nobody has any RIGHT to an education, if by that is
meant the right to force someone to provide an education. ESPECIALLY
since not all taxpayers have even GONE to school. By what right does
government coerce money from a high school graduate to pay for someone
else's college education? Should anyone be compelled to subsidize
their own competitors?
True education is an individual thing, and requires only books,
communication with fellow students, and a great deal of study and
thought. Education means knowledge of the human condition and of how
to think effectively, reason rationally, and find out what you need to
know. It is distinct from job training, which neither public schools
nor most colleges are much good at either.
There is no such as a thing as a libertarian education, as distinct
from any other quality education.
What IS important is IDEAS. Nobody could realistically oppose
slavery until they got the idea that slavery was neither good nor
inevitable. There was no chance for freedom from tyrants until
people got the idea that monarchy is not a logical necessity. If
libertarians were able to magically change the world, the rest of
mankind would change it back by next Tuesday after lunch.
It is not necessary for the majority to agree. Most people are
intellectual ballast, following whatever trends are floating through
the air. They have no effect one way or another, by their own choice.
What is necessary is for a sizable minority to recognize a libertarian
system as being both possible and desirable. Then and only then would
it make sense to work on implementing it. That is what I meant by the
necessity of education.
... How can you ensure that the school system will provide a good
enough education for individuals to be good citizens of a
libertarian nation?
There won't be a "school system", there will be many independant
schools and chains of schools, small and large. By the operation of
the free market mechanisms, schools that teach people how to act in
their rational self interest will flourish, and schools that teach
people to be theives or beggars, or that they are doomed sinners, will
not.
Where do you draw the line between education and indoctrination?
When people are taught to use their mind, to reason out what the
truth is, that an idea is not necessarily true (or necessarily false)
just because it's very old, or because it's very new, or because it
was seen in print, or on TV, or because almost everyone believes it,
or because almost nobody believes it, or because some famous or well
respected person says so, or because your parents or your teachers or
your president or your priest says so, or because the world would be a
better place if it is true and a worse place if it is false, but that
every fact, every idea, every concept, must be rooted in verifiable
physical reality or things deduced from it by logic, that is
education.
When you are told obedience is the greatest virtue, that self-
interest is evil and self-sacrifice is wonderful, that some individual
or group has a monopoly on truth, that the mind is evil, that feelings
are more important than thoughts, that thinking should be left to the
professionals, that the individual is nothing and the collective
(state, church, unwashed-masses-of-the-world, etc) is everything, that
producing wealth is no virtue, but redistribution wealth (even someone
else's wealth) to the needy IS a virtue, that you are guilty because
of the actions of others, that questioning anything (or even just some
one thing) is evil, that is indoctrination.
In a free market, the schools that educate will proliferate, and the
schools that indoctrinate will not. And if anyone does deliberately
decide to be indoctrinated rather than educated, it will probably
happen in a good school, so while he will hold his ideas for the wrong
reason, at least they will be correct ideas. And if anyone DOES
deliberately choose to become indoctrinated in self-destructive ideas,
at least he is only hurting himself. He doesn't have any voice in how
some public "education" system will indoctrinate ALL of us.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 16 Dec 86 02:47:33-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
And the ANC supports NO individual rights for ANYONE.
I would be interested in any documented evidence that leads you to
this conclusion.
Both are evil.
You are assuming that the ANC is the only alternative. It might not
be. The ANC is being used by the Afrikaaners to unite their tribe.
The ANC has been following rather than leading the unrest in the
townships.
I wonder, though, why there is little outcry at the far worse
policies in the Soviet Union and its slave states.
Ask the gung-ho redbusters why there are no private groups sending
arms to the "Contras" in the SU. Where were they at the height of the
Solidarity protests? I do know of a number of plausible explanations
though:
1) It is a lot easier (i.e. takes a lot less resources on our part)
to change SA than the SU.
2) Having a truely democratic SA makes things more difficult for the
SU to expand its empire in Southern Africa. Apartheid gives them
enough of a psychological edge to mask out the abhorrent features
of their commie form of government. Fortunately the failures of
socialism in much of Africa and Vietnam is making it clear to most
South Africans that socialism is not a viable alternative. But
the longer it takes to establish a truely democratic SA and the
more we are perceived as to be on the side of apartheid, the more
will psycological advantage shift to the SU. If we don't move
fast enough in democratizing SA, the SU can win over apartheid by
simply being the lesser of two evils. The SU don't have a chance
if the choice is between a truely democratic SA and communism.
3) It seems possible that enough people in the SU love their
government that we don't have sufficient indigenous support inside
the SU to form effective freedom fighting groups like those in
Afghanistan. Perhaps an intensive effort in phsycological
warfare might help in getting enough SU citizens to rebel.
Without indigenous support, freedom fighters would not be able to
survive long in the SU.
4) With a truely democratic and properous SA, we (the free world) can
show the not so free world what a big lose communism is. There
are already doubts about communism. See the developments in
China, Hungary, Vietnam (they are rethinking their economic
plans), Zambia (which recently was brave enough to raise food
prices to be closer to market levels), Zimbabwe (which didn't
become a hardline Marxist state), Mozambique (which is thinking
about courting Western investments), etc.
Without indigeous support, any attempt by us to change the SU on our
own would be futile.
But blacks in South Africa have MORE rights than people of ANY race
have behind the iron curtain.
If the people behind the iron curtain don't complain loud enough or
feel strongly enough to rebel against their totalitarian form of
government, we can't help them. They have to be willing to fight and
die for their freedom before any outsiders can help them. Freedom has
to be earned, appreciated and continually nurtured. In SA and
Afghanistan the people want freedom. There are enough people there
who (1) are willing to fight (either with guns or through non-violent
means) against the government, (2) feed, shelter and protect the
freedom fighters, (3) help in the smuggling of arms and other
materials, (4) act as look-outs for the freedom fighters, (5) act as
messengers for the freedom fighters, etc. This network of resistance
is vital for any revolution. To build this network in the SU would
involve alienating enough SU citizens from their government. That
means psychological warfare.
Remember that apartheid is a politics of exclusion---if you are not in
the right tribe, it is impossible to be a member of the privileged
tribe even when you totally agree with apartheid and would die for it.
In other systems, you have the option (be it a very difficult one) to
change your religious or political beliefs and work for (and hence get
the privileges of) the system, however evil it might be.
Is it because we see on TV what happens in South Africa, but see
nothing of the USSR except what the Soviet government wants us to
see?
No, the reason is that there is enough indigenous support for the
freedom fighters in SA but not enough in the SU. No government can
shut off the flow of information if there are enough people willing to
risk their lives to get it through. E.g. Afghanistan, increasing SA
and China (the recent protest by college students for more freedom).
(We don't see much of the struggle in Afghanistan or the protests in
China on TV.) Furthermore as the case of Vietnam or SU (and even
Iran) points out, totalitarian governments do have their own internal
disagreements (over the invasion of Cambodia for Vietnam and the
invasion of Afghanistan for SU) and have to respond to the people's
disillusionment with the economic policies of the politburo. In the
SU, there are high government officials who are thinking of the
unthinkable---withdrawal from Afghanistan (i.e. losing the war). If
you are a redbuster you wouldn't want the SU to withdraw from
Afghanistan. You would want the SU to be "bled to death" by a prolong
guerrilla war. Unfortunately there are people in the SU who are smart
enough to see this trap.
I don't know quite what people expect will be gained by sanctions in
any case.
Ask the Reagan administration with regard to sanctions against Poland
(until recently), Cuba, Libya, Nicaragua, and Iran (with regard to the
supposed arms embargo). Also ask SA why it routinely uses economic
sanctions against its neighbors (remember Lesotho?). If sanctions are
effective for SA why wouldn't it be effective for anybody else? If SA
can circumvent our sanctions why can't we help SA's neighbors
circumvent SA's sanctions?
Sanctions do work especially if it is used over the long run like 10
to 20 years (a short period in the life of a nation). Under such
conditions, sanctions will
(1) drive up the cost of supporting apartheid,
(2) make resources scarcer for SA and hence programs for
destabilizing its neighbors would become more and more
expensive for its own economy to support,
(3) mean a development of SA's own economy which means more
economic power to the blacks (plans have already being proposed
for this by SA's government) since that is the only sector that
can grow at a fast enough rate to keep SA's economy alive,
(4) restrict SA military options as it cannot engage in a prolong
war with its neighbors,
(5) enable other African nations to develop economically and a
chance to catch up with if not overtake SA.
Any way you see it, it ain't good news for apartheid.
The best way I can see to fight apartheid is for American companies
in South Africa to demand freedom from racist regulations, so that
they can hire people of all races based solely on merit. If even a
few large companies did this, it would strike a blow against
apartheid, and set an example for the locally owned companies which
are harmed by the racist regulations.
That is not the best way for the following reasons:
(1) US companies don't hire enough black South Africans to make a
difference.
(2) US companies do try to go against the racist laws but have
nothing much to show.
(3) Local companies do try to protest but have not been effective at
all.
(4) Many local companies are owned by Afrikaaners who would lose
more if they are not protected by apartheid. They would want
their government to protect them from their potential
competitors i.e.\ the enterprising blacks. Mediocre individuals
tend to be scared to death of competition especially when it is
from some groups that have been unjustly considered as inferior.
They don't want to find out that there are people who indeed work
a lot harder and are a lot smarter than them. The free market
suffers as a result of the locking out of such enterprising
people.
(5) Black South Africans are trying to use their economic (consumer)
power but the Afrikaaners businesses can always go to their
government as a last resort to enact more laws (like closing down
the businesses of blacks, Asians and liberal English-speaking
whites so that the blacks have no choice but to buy from the
Afrikaaners).
(6) It is naive (same kind as liberals have when they think that the
government can take care of everybody or the conservatives when
they think we can be a global defense force without costing too
much) to assume that we have a free market in SA. The SA
government has always tinkered with the market to ensure its
survival (e.g. regulating job and wage distribution among the
races, prevent the blacks from minimizing their own cost by
making them live far away from their work place, artificially
lowering the cost of living of the Afrikaaners by making manual
labor cheap and housing close to their place of work, imposed a
tax structure that will pay for the costs of propping up
apartheid, etc.).
So in conclusion the argument that we should lean on the SU and not
the SA so that the SU will become democratic is ill conceived. We can
democratize many more countries like SA before we can even make a dent
in the SU. Also the more "conversions" the better it is for us and
the easier will the job be later in democratizing the SU.
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 1 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 2
Today's Topics:
Education &
Employment (2 msgs) &
South Africa (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed 17 Dec 86 00:25:48-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Education
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
But what about the people who can't afford an education, you ask?
Well, if an education increases one's earning capacity,
individuals and organizations should be willing to loan people
money for the purpose.
You are making the assumption here that the system is sufficiently
well developed economically for this to be possible. (By the way I
think one of the prerequisite of a libertarian society is that the
society is rich enough for voluntary contributions to be possible.)
In the case of Haiti, there isn't enough private money available for
this (or conversely there are too many poor people to educate). I am
not aware of any such bootstrapping programs in modern times that is
completely financed and administered by private enterprises.
You also make the assumption that the system can withstand economic
stresses (like depressions) so that private money is always available.
When there are massive bankruptcies and lay-offs, little money is
available for this purpose. Existing privately funded education
programs might have to be scrapped to ensure the survival of the
sponsoring organization/individual. (Here is another prerequisite of
a libertarian society: private contributions are always available. Or
conversely, any interruption or time-lag in the contribution pipeline
will not "endanger" the society. Should the society be so endangered
and there isn't enough time to get the citizens' ok on what to do,
some mechanism must be available to the government to ensure the
survival of the libertarian society. Another mechanism has to be
available to ensure that the emergency powers of the government won't
outlast the emergency.)
Should anyone be compelled to subsidize their own competitors?
No, but there has to be enough competition for the free market to
operate effectively. The competition need not be there all the time
but it must be there initially to allow the market forces to operate.
(There is an interesting article related to this in the last week of
December issue of Businessweek. Its title is "Is deregulation
working?" There is also a short article in that issue on the minimum
wage myth---unemployment among teenagers have not gone down as
expected when the minimum wage is decreased. I think the data used
are from 1982 to now.)
Regarding education, there is an article in the Dec 29 issue of Forbes
on education (title "Are we spending too much on education?").
Liberals beware: there is quite a dose of liberal bashing in that
article. I presume liberals can also write a similarly worded article
pointing out the lack of market discipline in many of our defense
programs.
In summary, I am not convinced that the actual market is sufficiently
free for the forces to work as intended. (There is a weekly series on
how the actual free market operate in the Economist. I think the
series started in October.) Remember that Karl Marx made some
assumptions which many people thought were reasonable. It turned that
the assumptions are unrealistic.
Perhaps the best way to show that the libertarian society work is to
either simulate it on a computer or try it out on a small scale (say
at the town, county or state level) in the real world.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, 16 December 1986 09:31:00 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
To: hao!gaia!jon@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: pre-employment knowledge
I asked the following question once before in the digest without a
response. Suppose you were company chairman and had the choice of
promoting two equally competent people to be president of the company.
Person A was overweight, smoked, drank heavily, and tested positive
for AIDS antibodies. Person B was physically fit, didn't smoke,
drink, use drugs, and was a monogamous heterosexual with a long happy
marriage. Both candidates are perfectly law-abiding. Which person
would you promote? To me the answer is obvious. If you take a poll
of company chairmen, I think the answer will be fairly lopsided. I
read an article where a company president said that if he saw an
up-and-coming manager who smoked, the president would advise the
manager to quit to avoid hurt his promotion chances. Another large
company president, who was quoted by name (I forgot who) said that the
day would come when smokers would not be promoted to senior
management. That tells me that the future health of employees does
matter when making investment (promotion) decisions. Whether they are
people or not, there's a lot of money involved. People are free to do
stupid things, but that doesn't mean they can avoid the consequences,
either directly or indirectly.
------------------------------
Return-path: < CIS655A.TESTA%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Wed 17 Dec 86 14:30:03-EST
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Employment discrimination
To: kfl@mx.lcs.mit.edu%mc.lcs.mit.edu
Cc: TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA
Reply-to: testa-j@osu-20
"Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> writes:
> - she may come back anyway, since no other employer is going to
> give her a larger salary since they are ALSO doing the same
> thing to people coming to them for jobs
>
> This is circular reasoning.
Exactly! Circular reasoning to describe a circular situation! Just
like a recursive proof or program. However, such a program needs a
terminating condition to break out of the recursion, else it will go
on forever; what i have been saying is that non-discrimination
legislation would be the escape condition for the loop of
those-who-are-discriminated-against getting less pay for the same work
just because "we pay those people less".
> Or what would happen if it were forbidden to hire men for more
> than women make?
>
> Does this apply to the exact same job? If so, women ARE being paid
> the same as men. The women's lib contention is that the DIFFERENT
> jobs that most women hold are worth as much as the average (or above
> average) job that is held mostly by men.
> ...
> Who is to decide on "equal worth"? Obviously not the free choices
> of millions of uncoerced individuals, since that is what's being done
> now, and the women's libbers aren't satisfied. I guess it is to be
> some government bureaucracy. The Department of Individual Worth, it
> could be called. They would have little trouble deciding that the
> job of secretary is more valuable than the job of football player.
I was very careful (or so i thought, maybe i'll reread what i wrote
before) to say that i support equal pay for the SAME work, not for
work of "equal value". I completely agree that it would be impossible
to compare fairly and unambiguously two completely different
professions. However, two secretaries with precisely the same duties
and performance capabilities should receive equal treatment
irregardless of the irrelevant factor of their sex.
Is anyone out there up-to-date on how Oregon (i think) is faring with
their "comparable worth" law? No doubt it has been a bureaucratic
bonanza (who decides how the law's administrators are classified? :-))
~joe testa~
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 86 22:03:49 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: South Africa and the Soviet Union
To: ametek!jaguar!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
Cc: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Steve Walton < ametek!jaguar!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
... at least the Soviets CLAIM to have the same ideals of
freedom that we do, having signed the Helsinki accords and having
guarantees in their Constitution similar to the Bill of Rights.
Hitler also made various claims. So?
The Afrikaners make no such pretense;
Perhaps this means they are more honest.
apartheid is a totalitarian system ...
Totalitarian doesn't mean "not nice". It means a system in which
ALL activities and ideas are totally controlled, and in which a very
large percentage of the population is put to death whether or not they
obey the laws. There are no major demonstrations or opposition
parties in a totalitarian state. There is no impartial news coverage
in a totalitarian state.
The only totalitarian states I know of are the Soviet Union, Nazi
Germany, and Pol Pot's Cambodia.
In South Africa there are opposition parties, there are newspapers
with editorials that denounce apartheid, the courts often rule against
the government, there is private property, and there are churches
which often denounce government policies. People are free to leave
the country. Much of the population can vote.
This is not to say that I support South Africa, but it is not
remotely comparable to the USSR. In the USSR no newspapers denounce
government policies, courts never rule against the government, there
is no private property, there is no work except slave labor, there are
few churches and they don't dare denounce the government, people are
not free to leave the country, only a handful of people can vote, and
they can vote only for one of a small range of candidates.
... last time I checked the Soviet people were not in armed
revolt against their government,
How could those who oppose the government organize and spread their
ideas? Even peaceful demonstraters get sent to Siberia, as do people
guilty of such crimes as unauthorized use of a copying machine,
unauthorized posession of a Bible or Koran, unauthorized writing,
unauthorized speaking, attempting to gain permission to leave the
country, unauthorized farming, unauthorized buying and selling, and
of course, cutting in line.
... Their possession of nuclear weapons is a large factor, of
course, since in any action viz a viz the SU we must always ask
ourselves, "Will they nuke us if we do this?"
Sad but true. But this does not mean we have to play mind games
with ourselves, saying "maybe they aren't that bad after all" since
the idea of a totally evil slave empire with such bombs is too
horrible for some people to dare hold in their minds. "Surely they
are reasonable people, just like us" these people say. "Surely if
they act bad, we must have done something to provoke them."
I don't have all the answers. But I do know that evading reality
has worse consequences than facing it, no matter how unpleasant it is.
We must seperate our ideas of what it is practical to do about Russia
from our ideas of what Russia is like. The former should never
dictate the latter in our minds, i.e. beware of the anti-syllogism:
1) We MUST defeat all evil empires.
2) We CAN'T defeat Russia.
3) THEREFORE Russia is NOT an evil empire.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 16 Dec 86 04:07:05-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa and the Soviet Union
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!jaguar!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Hitler also made various claims.
Did Hitler claim the same ideals of freedom that we do? If not what
are the claims (Hitler's) that you are referring to?
Perhaps this means they are more honest.
Honesty in the name of an evil cause is no virtue.
How could those who oppose the government organize and spread
their ideas?
You are underestimating the ingenuity of those individuals who chose
to rebel. Look at Afghanistan, there is a sufficient number of
freedom fighters there to keep the SU bleeding for a long time.
But I do know that evading reality has worse consequences than
facing it, no matter how unpleasant it is.
Reality here could very well be that there are enough Russians who
love their form of government to make an effective totalitarian
system. Given their extensive spy network, there are enough
individuals in the KGB and GRU who have seen the prosperous and free
world to make an intelligent choice as to which system is better. (-:
Defections from their side do indicate the existence of intelligent
lifeform in the KGB. :-) The fact that there is no mass defections
indicate that they have enough dedicated Russians to prevent the
defections or that the risk is so high that freedom is just not worth
it. The fact that they are starting to do something about their
economy also indicates that (1) their disinformation campaigns to
their own people are not effective i.e. in the absence of truths from
the outside world, the Russian individuals are intelligent enough to
doubt the word of the state, (2) the system is leaky when it comes to
preventing news from getting in so that enough Russians know about the
prosperity of the free world to doubt the party line, or (3) the
ruling elite in Moscow are dedicated to improving the lot of the
masses. If you want to look at it from the redbusters point of view,
the empire is not only evil it is also hell of a smart. Which means
that redbusters better get smarter and devise more ingenious and
effective ways of getting rid of the evil empire. (-: Obviously Col.
North is not smart enough. :-)
The bottom line: we are dealing with a very intelligent adversary. If
you want to beat it either be smarter or use their intelligence (or
greed or fear) against them i.e. develop our economy and defense in
such a way that they have to become more open to keep up with us.
They are beginning to bite the bait: making their economy more
efficient means less central planning which means more freedom for the
individuals to make economic decisions. The next stage would be to
have more personal computers and more efficient information flow i.e.
less central control of information (at least economic information).
They are still agonizing over the fact that personal computers are
making our economy even more efficient and they need to allow the use
of personal computers among the masses to catch up with us. If they
have that the next stage would be for us to figure out how to send
propaganda messages to them (-: Yeah, like making Poli-Sci accessible
to them. Or if they are buying computer programs from us, insert
propaganda comments in the code. :-)
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 3 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 3
Today's Topics:
Kipling's *American Notes*
Discrimination &
Employment (2 msgs) &
Road Costs &
Creation Science
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < randolph@Sun.COM>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 86 20:37:34 PST
From: randolph@Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz)
Subject: Kipling's *American Notes*
*American Notes*, Rudyard Kipling, many editions (pirate; there is no
US copyright), the one I read from University of Oklahoma Press,
Norman. Edited & with introduction by Arrell Morgan Gibson.
*American Notes* is an account of Rudyard Kipling's travels in the US
west, written as correspondent to the *Allahabad Pioneer*. According
to the introduction, Kipling had no intention of book publication, but
MJ Ivers of New York produced a pirate edition. Eighteen others
followed.
Literary piracy was US tradition at the time, much as it is now on the
West Pacific. Kipling, on finding American pirate editions in a
Nagasaki bookstore before his arrival in the US, quoted in the
Gibson's introduction:
Because you steal the property of a man's head, which is more his
peculiar property than his pipe, his horse, or his wife, and because
you glory in your theft . . . You shall be cursed with this curse
from Alaska to Florida and back again. Your women shall scream like
peacocks when they talk, and your men neigh like horses when they
laugh. You shall be governed by the Irishman and the German, the
vendor of drinks and the keeper of vile dens, that your streets may
be filthy in your midst and your sewage arrangements filthier. . . .
You shall prostitute and pervert the English language, till an
Englishman has neither power nor desire to understand anymore. You
shall be cursed State by State, Territory by Territory, with a
provincialism beyond the provincialism of an English country
town. . . . Your hearts shall be so blinded that you shall consider
each one the curses foregoing a blessing to you as it comes about,
and finally I myself will curse you more elaborately later on.
This is typical of the book: bigoted, lively, perceptive.
Kipling landed in San Francisco in 1889, traveled north to Vancouver,
then east to Yellowstone National Park, south to Salt Lake City, then
east by way of Denver, Omaha, Chicago. I've the impression that he
also wrote somewhat of the northeast, but the present edition seems to
omit those letters.
The book is fascinating. It contains accounts of: the San Francisco
*Examiner* in Hearst's yellow-press days (Kipling, a newspaperman, was
horrified), a gun-fight in a San Francisco Chinatown gambling hell,
ward heelers in San Francisco, fishing in Oregon, a fourth of July in
Yellowstone (a gang of tourists held ceremonies praising the US), the
Church of Latter-Day Saints, a funeral-parlor (Kipling, raised in
India, was horrified by such things as a suit with no back), and the
Chicago stockyards (account of --literally-- butchery).
What's the political interest? For me, at least, I've found out where
the Moral Majority came from. A nation where little sermons on the
superiority of that nation are part of day-to-day life was foreign to
Kipling. He therefore recorded a great many of these as curiosities.
Likewise, his account of a mostly ungoverned society is worthwhile; he
was raised in intensely authoritarian circumstances (the British Raj)
and so notices anarchy much more than any US citizen then or now.
Finally, he is a consistently perceptive observer of cultural trends.
From the final chapter (please note: I do not apologize for Kipling's
bigotry; this is what *he* wrote, not I):
. . . Twenty years after that America will begin to crowd up, and
there will be some trouble. People will demand manufactured goods
for their reduced-establishment households at the cheapest possible
rates, and the cry that the land is rich enough to afford protection
[against foreign manufacturers] will cease with a great abruptness.
. . . Also the great American nation, which individually never shuts
a door behind its noble self, very seldom attempts to put back
anything that it has taken from Nature's shelves. It grabs all it
can and moves on. [Previous chapters have given examples.] But the
moving-on is nearly finished [1890] and the grabbing must stop, and
then the Federal Government will have to establish a Woods and
Forests Department the like of which was never seen in the world
before. And all the people who have been accustomed to hack,
mangle, and burn timer as they please will object, with shots and
protestations, to this infringement of their rights. The nigger
will breed bounteously, and *he* will have to be reckoned with; and
the manufacturer will have to be contented with smaller profits, and
*he* will have to be reckoned with; and the railways will no longer
rule the countries through which they run, and they will have to be
reckoned with. And nobody will approve of it in the least.
. . .
But the men & women set Us an example in patriotism. They believe
in their land and its future, and its honor, and its glory, and they
are not ashamed to say so. From the largest to the least runs this
same proud, passionate conviction to which I take off my hat and for
which I love them. An averge English householder seems to regard
his country as an abstraction to supply him with policemen and
first-brigades. . . .
--
Randolph Fritz
rfritz@sun.com
sun!rfritz
------------------------------
Return-path: < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Date: Wed 17 Dec 86 16:13:14-PST
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: laws against discrimination
The difference between the statement "women are willing to work for
less," and the statement "women must settle for less pay" is in the
implied cause for women making less money. The image I get from the
first statement is of a woman and a man, equally qualified, applying
for a job, but the woman just doesn't care as much about making a high
salary as the man. The image I get from the second statement is of a
woman and a man, equally qualified and with an equal desire to make
money, applying for a job, but since the woman knows her
qualifications won't be taken as seriously she settles for less (the
man would do the same, but he doesn't have to because he knows other
companies will pay him more). Anti-discrimination laws are as much to
ensure equal pay as equal opportunity for employment. It doesn't make
sense to argue against them by saying that women and minorities can
just work for less pay. As for Keith's argument that requiring equal
pay leads to more unemployment among women, if this is true then why
has employment of women been increasing since the passage of laws
requiring equal pay for equal work?
Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 21 Dec 86 09:17:22-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #120
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
A lot of employers are obviously going to just refrain from hiring
anyone who looks Hispanic. How can he be sure his papers aren't
fake? Why take the risk? There is no risk in NOT hiring him.
It's not like he was BLACK or something.
As I am not familar with the details of the new immigration law and
given that there are lots of illegal immigrants from non-Hispanic
regions too (e.g. Ireland, Southern Europe, South-East Asia, the
Caribbean, and Africa) does the new law apply to them too? If so,
then employers better ask for their green card or naturalization
papers.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 01:45:18 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Employer's rights
To: hao!gaia!jon@SEISMO.CSS.GOV
Cc: Hank.Walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU, hao!gaia!zhahai@SEISMO.CSS.GOV
From: hao!gaia!jon@seismo.CSS.GOV
Hank.Walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU writes:
> If I buy a car, is it okay for me to have a mechanic inspect it
> first? If I buy a house, can a contractor look it over?
This, in my mind, implies that you are treating people the same
way you treat cars and houses -- as property. ... I suppose that
if you regard an employee as another object to be owned, then your
point of view makes a little bit of sense. I don't know about
you, but I am not owned by anybody but me, and the details of what
I do with my body are my own business.
Agreed, but why do you think there should be any limitation on what
people can require of eachother in a voluntary transaction? If you
don't like the proposed requirement, you can insist on it being
removed. If the person or organization you are dealing with refuses
to remove the requirement, deal with someone else instead.
In a free market, if drug use does not interfere with people's work,
employers that required drug tests would do less well than employers
that did not, especially if many people refused to work for employers
which required drug tests. If drug use DOES interfere with people's
work, then why SHOULDN'T an employer make use of a drug test to weed
out poor workers in advance?
Of course I do oppose any government requirement that employers test
people, except when the government is the client, in which case it can
require anything it likes.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < marshall@aerospace.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 86 13:50:03 -0800
From: marshall@aerospace.ARPA
Over the past several years, I have invested thousands of
dollars in the largest investment fund in the world. I
recently learned that this fund has been grossly mismanaged.
The investment fund currently has no assets and all of the
money I've invested is gone. The worst part about this is
that I'm legally commited to continue investing in this fund.
There is every indication that the fund managers will continue
to dispose of my money in a manner which will leave me with
no assets. I feel I'm caught in a horrible situation. I
need some advice and help. Does ANYONE know or have an idea
how I can get out of the social security system.
Thanks in advance.
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Friday, 19 December 1986 08:51:29 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: road cost
Keith and several others have stated that drivers don't directly bear
the full cost of roads. I'd like to see this backed up with some
facts. First, what do you mean by the full cost of roads? Is this
just construction and maintenance? Does it include traffic police?
Street sweepers? I was under the impression that a federal gas tax
paid money into a highway trust fund which completely funded the
interstate highway system. Granted a gas tax didn't pay for its
construction in the first place, but most of that took place long ago.
Similarly, I thought that in most states (like PA and CA), a state gas
tax paid for the roads. I remember when I was a teenager, there was
trouble with a lot of people taking short-cuts through the city on a
non-major road. The city council proposed making the road a
residents-only or toll-road. The problem was that the city would lose
the gas taxes kicked back by the state and would have to pay for
upkeep by itself. In Pittsburgh, there are "State Maintained Road"
signs put up by the city on bad stretches of road maintained by the
state. The signs basically mean "Don't blame the city, we're not
responsible."
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 86 22:38:55 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Creation science"
To: research!alice!ark@SEISMO.CSS.GOV
From: research!alice!ark@seismo.CSS.GOV
Are you really suggesting that school curricula should be decided
purely by majority rule with out reference to truth?
No.
I'll put it another way. Suppose majority of taxpayers in an area
have become convinced that 2+2=5. Should they actually be able to
force schools to stop teaching that 2+2=4?
Yes. It is completely unreasonable to compel someone to pay for the
teaching of something they believe to be false.
This issue isn't likely to arise with the sum of two and two (though
pi has been legislated to three) but does occur every day with such
issues as creationism vs. evolution, sex education, political science,
philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc.
The only answer to this paradox is to eliminate public schools. The
wall between education and state should be as solid as the wall
between church and state, and for the same reason.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 4 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 4
Today's Topics:
The Soviet Union &
South Africa (3 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 02:56:21 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Soviet Union
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!jaguar!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Hitler also made various claims.
Did Hitler claim the same ideals of freedom that we do? If not
what are the claims (Hitler's) that you are referring to?
Hitler claimed that he was not out to start a war or to conquer
Europe or the world.
My point was that claims are worth nothing unless backed up by
facts.
But I do know that evading reality has worse consequences
than facing it, no matter how unpleasant it is.
Reality here could very well be that there are enough Russians who
love their form of government to make an effective totalitarian
system.
Quite possible, especially since they are not allowed to hear of any
alternatives. That doesn't make it right.
... they are starting to do something about their economy ...
Explain, please?
They are beginning to bite the bait: making their economy more
efficient means less central planning which means more freedom for
the individuals to make economic decisions.
Any evidence that they are doing this?
... the next stage would be ... making Poli-Sci accessible to
them.
Yes, I would really enjoy debating an intelligent and devoted
communist (if there is such a creature) online. Too bad their
government would never allow it.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 20 Dec 86 13:21:04-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: South Africa
To: SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
From: SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
In poli-sci V6 #107, Willie Lim talks about:
>One would be curious to see then if the white tribe in SA
>would find the communists in all-white Russia and Eastern
>Europe more preferable to the racially mixed but democratic
>and capitalistic USA.
What? There are many racial groups in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
The USSR is divided racially into 16 "Republics" (i.e.,
homelands).
Note I said *Russia* not the USSR. (Please exercise a little care in
reading my sentence.) Neither did I say that there is no racism,
tribalism nor ethnic rivalry in Russia and Eastern Europe or anywhere
else. All I said is that Russia and Eastern Europe are white
countries, or more precisely, ruled exclusively by whites. (By the
way, I saw on TV the head of the Aryan Nation claiming that their
newsletter is read by people all over the world including those in
communist bloc countries.) I would be interested in any evidence you
have that indicates that Russia and Eastern Europe are not white
countries i.e. not ruled exclusively by whites. (I have also read
reports that the SACP (South African Communist Party) have plans to
recruit more whites in SA.)
I note from the context of Lim's sentence that there is no
attraction to the Soviet style but it is said in a confusing way.
That sentence alone is not meant to say anything good or bad about
those commies. No wonder you are confused. Read the other sentences
in that message or my other contributions to get an indication of what
I think about communism. But don't expect me to express my opinion to
suit your taste. If you have anything (hateful or loving) to say
about the commies, by all means say them in your own words.
So I would like to add that the reason that the communists stress
collectivism is simply because it is a great way to control the
population of profane noninitiates.
A definition of what you meant by communists would help. But in
general I agree with what you said about communism as it is practiced.
I also questioned the infallibility of communism in theory.
As far as the devotion of the communists to ideology just think of
Marx's personal committment to intellectual honesty and debate
when he wrote in the Communist Manifesto "charges against
communism on the basis of religious, philosphical, and generally,
ideological grounds, are not worthy of serious consideration".
I have made charges against communism on economic grounds. (The
charges are based on national economic trends over the last 20 or so
years.) So one would infer that my charges are worthy of serious
consideration.
What actually bothers me about Lim's sentense quoted above is that
if a moderate SA black comes to the USA and speaks for free
enterprise, against sanctions, and against divestment,then there
are huge and mindless demonstrations by our ever
open-minded-and-listen-to-both-sides college students (this just
happened here is SF with Chief Buthelezi).
In that sentence I said nothing about Buthelezi, divestment or
moderates in South Africa. Therefore your statement is illogical. If
you want to bash those students, please send in your own contribution
and please refrain from misquoting me. (-: You don't need me for
moral support. :-)
You made some interesting points about the ANC though. Similar
charges of atrocities were also made against Buthelezi's people and
the SA government. I would be interested in reading anything you got
about these atrocities (i.e. all groups and not just the ANC). By the
way, you have inadvertently ignored the documented killings due to the
SADF and the SA police.
That is the way MODERATE BLACK OPINION is treated by the ANC! How
do you think that looks to the Africaaners or anyone else in SA?
How do you think the government sanctioned killings look to the
Afrikaaners and anyone else in SA? The word "moderate" have different
meanings to different people. Remember P.W. Botha is considered a
moderate by the Afrikaaners. Anyway such labels don't mean much in SA
politics. I am more interested in the facts than the labels.
The South African's know these things as well,...
By "these things" you mean those things that the SA government fed
them. Given that the SA government is not interested in making its
people "open-minded-and-listen-to-both-sides", knowing them (i.e. "the
things") well (i.e. excluding other true facts) is a folly.
they have a great deal of reason to doubt our motives or the motives
of our press for censoring out this type of information.
We have the same doubts about their motives too and we have access
(though not necessarily through the press only) to at least as much
facts as they do. Given that we have more facts and that most of us
are at least as rational as them, we would trust our conclusions more
than theirs.
I agree with them.
Too bad, I don't believe in agreeing with anybody without getting the
facts first. I also doubt their conclusions especially when they
(e.g. Afrikaaners, Russians, Chinese, Koreans, Poles, Libyans,
Iranians, etc.) only have access to restricted information. That
doesn't mean that they are wrong. It just mean that the probability
of their being right is lower than that where they have unrestricted
access to information.
What the hell is wrong with our press?
Whatever is wrong with it, it is still hell of a lot better than the
press in SA. You at least have the freedom to write letters to
newspapers and make your opinions known. You can also send your
sources of information to the editor in the Wall Street Journal and
have him/her use them in his/her editorials (most of which you would
agree with). You can also go make a movie, print and distribute
leaflets, organize a lecture/demostration/debate, etc. If you didn't
do any of these things don't blame the press or anybody else.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 02:46:18 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: South Africa
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
And the ANC supports NO individual rights for ANYONE.
I would be interested in any documented evidence that leads you to
this conclusion.
ANC's leadership includes admitted members of the communist party.
The ANC praises Desmond Tutu, who said that South African blacks would
welcome a Soviet occupation. ANC's leader, Nelson Mandela, said that
under communism "everybody would be living better [since communism]
gives equal opportunity to everybody".
The ANC's weapons are supplied by Russia, its radio broadcasts are
transmitted from socialist Ethiopia, and its newspaper _Sechaba_ is
printed in East Germany.
ANC's guiding "freedom charter" announces: "The People shall share
in the country's wealth. ... The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the
banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the ownership of
the people as a whole; all other industry and trade shall be
controlled to assist the well-being of the people."
You are assuming that the ANC is the only alternative.
It might not be.
It and the government are the two main forces in South Africa.
Anyone who opposes one is presumed to support the other. Blacks who
have publically criticized the ANC have been assassinated.
Ask the gung-ho redbusters why there are no private groups sending
arms to the "Contras" in the SU.
Probably because there are no contras in the Soviet Union. How
would they be able to organize, within a totalitarian state? Read
Orwell's _1984_ for the anatomy of an underground movement in such a
state.
Where were they at the height of the Solidarity protests?
Where were who? Solidarity is a socialist labor union. I don't
know about others, but I don't take sides between socialist labor
unionism and socialist communism.
4) With a truely democratic and properous SA, we (the free world)
can show the not so free world what a big lose communism is.
Anyone who doesn't know that communism is a big lose by now, isn't
likely to ever learn. South Africa is NOT a free country, despite
propaganda claiming that it is.
If the people behind the iron curtain don't complain loud enough
or feel strongly enough to rebel against their totalitarian form
of government, we can't help them.
How can they? How can they get organized, share ideas, or even
learn what capitalism is all about? So few people seem to know it
even here in the US, what hope do people whose only source of
information is the Soviet goverment have of learning the truth? The
only Americans they get to hear are Jane Fonda and her ilk.
Remember that apartheid is a politics of exclusion---if you are
not in the right tribe, it is impossible to be a member of the
privileged tribe even when you totally agree with apartheid and
would die for it. In other systems, you have the option (be it a
very difficult one) to change your religious or political beliefs
and work for (and hence get the privileges of) the system, however
evil it might be.
Both are totally reprehensible. In one system, every individual of
a given race is excluded from having any control over things. In the
other system, every individual in theory has some chance of getting
into the miniscule ruling elite, and controlling things for everyone,
just so long as they mouth the right slogans, turn in their coworkers
for subversive ideas, have friends in the right places, escape being
murdered by other people competing for the same few places of power,
and get very lucky.
In one system, nobody may publically express a political opinion
that is too extreme for the government's taste. In the other system
nobody may publically express ANY opinion on ANY subject without prior
approval from the government.
... totalitarian governments do have their own internal
disagreements (over the invasion of Cambodia for Vietnam and the
invasion of Afghanistan for SU)
Right. These usually result in purges, i.e. death for those leaders
unlucky enough to suddenly find themselves politically incorrect.
and have to respond to the people's disillusionment with the
economic policies of the politburo.
They don't have to respond to the people. Whose gonna make them?
Sanctions do work especially if it is used over the long run ...
And if all other countries join us in these sanctions.
The best way I can see to fight apartheid is for American
companies in South Africa to demand freedom from racist
regulations, so that they can hire people of all races based
solely on merit. If even a few large companies did this, it
would strike a blow against apartheid, and set an example for
the locally owned companies which are harmed by the racist
regulations.
That is not the best way for the following reasons:
US companies don't hire enough black South Africans to make a
difference.
This is because of the racist laws against employers hiring who they
want to hire. Employers should insist on an exemption from such laws,
and refuse to remain in South Africa without such exemptions.
It is naive ... to assume that we have a free market in SA.
The SA government has always tinkered with the market ...
I know South Africa is not a free market economy.
So in conclusion the argument that we should lean on the SU and
not the SA so that the SU will become democratic is ill conceived.
I made no such argument.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 21 Dec 86 15:30:17-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V6 #120
To: hofmann@nrl-css.arpa
From: Jim Hofmann < hofmann@nrl-css.arpa>
As for the Afrikaaners being "drunks", they are the only Army in the
world that equips their food supply trucks with a beer cooler.
Hmmm...
(-: Perhaps they need the beer to forget their painful guilt and to
suppress any tender feelings for a liberted, integrated, just and
prosperous SA. By the way there are draft-dodgers in SA too. Maybe
this is because they can't agree on whether the beer is less filling
or tastes good. :-)
More seriously, many of these draft-dodgers (mostly English speaking
whites and some enlightened Afrikaaners) oppose apartheid and don't
want to be part of an "occupation force" (in the words of one of these
draft-dodgers). They ought to be commended.
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 6 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 5
Today's Topics:
Meritocracy (4 msgs) &
Minium Wages &
The Miracle of Teflon &
Drugs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 16:10:41 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: "Meritocracy"
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
There is a series of articles on Singapore in the November 22
issue of the Economist. The aricles claim that it is a
meritocracy.
"'Meritocracy' is an old anti-concept and one of the most contemptable
package-deals. By means of nothing more than its last five letters,
that word obliterates the difference between mind and force: it
equates the men of ability with POLITICAL rulers, and the power of
their creative achievements with POLITICAL power. There is no
difference, the word suggests, between freedom and tyranny: an
'aristocracy' is tyranny by a politically established elite, a
'democracy' is is tyranny by the majority - and when a government
protects individual rights, the result is tyranny by talent or 'merit'
(and since 'to merit' means 'to deserve,' a free society is ruled by
the tyranny of justice)."
- from Ayn Rand's _Philosophy: Who Needs It_ page 104.
However some conservatives would be aghasted at their social
experiments (like ... the state's control on the number of
children a couple could have.)
That is not a free society. I would hope it is not just
conservatives which are "aghasted".
What do they do to people who have too many children? And what do
they do to their children?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 21 Dec 86 23:39:23-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Meritocracy"
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
"'Meritocracy' is an old anti-concept and one of the most
contemptable package-deals......."
Blind quoting from the book of Rand without first reading the
articles. Please read the articles first and then flame. Singapore
is a democracy i.e. their "meritocrats" are elected to office in free,
open and fair elections. It so happen that Singaporeans keep electing
the same ruling party since its independence. This is not
unusual---look at Massachusetts (heavily Democratic) and New Hampshire
(heavily Republican).
That is not a free society.
In your book, only a libertarian society is a free society. Since
such a society does not exist, we don't have a free society anywhere
on this earth. Also nobody can claim any system works until it has
been tested over time. It has to be able to withstand the stresses
that all societies are subjected to e.g. depressions, race riots,
wars, drought, famine, etc.
Anyway, don't you think libertarianism can "free" them? (-: Look at
it this way, there are only 2 million of them to convince. :-)
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 07:32:56 PST
From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: Singapore
To: wlim@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Willie Lim has been posting articles about Singapore recently,
pointing out how well they're doing economically. I might add
to Willie's postings that Singapore practices *unilateral*
free trade. That is, they have no tariffs on imports, even
though other nations have tariffs on goods imported from
Singapore. Singapore is a terrific demonstration of the
law of comparative advantage; it shows that free trade is
such a powerful tool for economic betterment that it works
even if only one side practices it.
Singapore has a wealth of economic lessons the US can
learn from, but most Americans can't even find it on the
map. Sigh.
--Barry
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 22 Dec 86 11:56:58-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Singapore
To: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Willie Lim has been posting articles about Singapore recently,
pointing out how well they're doing economically. I might add to
Willie's postings that Singapore practices *unilateral* free
trade. That is, they have no tariffs on imports, even though
other nations have tariffs on goods imported from Singapore.
Singapore is a terrific demonstration of the law of comparative
advantage; it shows that free trade is such a powerful tool for
economic betterment that it works even if only one side practices
it.
For a moment I thought I was going to get another "beating" or a
severe disagreement from a libertarian (I presume you are one based on
your contributions---on Buchanan and others). Thanks Barry, for
pointing out the facts. That message is particularly refreshing given
that I have read a quotation by Keith (KFL) from the book of Rand on
meritocracy (about it being "the most contemptable package-deal" etc).
That doesn't mean that I think that Singapore is heaven (it is not);
just that I am interested in learning from the facts.
I might also want to add that it was pointed somewhere (either the
Wall Street Journal or the Economist) that many countries like
Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. are doing better (GNP growth) than
those countries with more restrictive trade policies e.g some
European, South American and African countries (don't remember exactly
who were mentioned---sorry).
By the way, I try to be an objective, compassionate, pragmatic and
fair moderate (i.e. at the center of our (US) political spectrum and
no flames on this, please). It is not an easy thing to do given the
polemic content of many messages and the emotional appeal of many of
the issues (like no more suffering or exploitation, perfectly free
market, freedom for all, a perfect defense, etc). At least I try. I
have no qualms about eating my own words (at least in private) in the
name of truth.
Willie
(P.S. Happy Hannukah (spelling?), Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and
Happy New Year to all. And Charles (CWM), you are doing a good job as
a moderator. Thanks a bunch.)
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Sunday, 21 December 1986 14:20:51 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: sub-minimum wage
I used to believe that the sub-minimum wage would substantially reduce
black teenage unemployment. But inconvenient facts have gotten in the
way. The problem does not appear to be high minimum wages eliminating
jobs. There are three basic problems:
1) Job Location - McDonald's restaurants in the suburbs often pay more
than minimum wage because that is the only way they can attract enough
employees. In more well-to-do areas, the teenagers don't really need
the money, so they aren't going to work if it isn't worth it. These
jobs are far from the unemployed inner-city youth, and they have no
economically means of getting to work.
2) Lack of Work Skills - My experience as a teenager convinced me that
if you managed to get your foot in the door (in my interview at
McDonald's, I was asked to pretend I was Cal Worthington, the famous
car dealer, and I was selling myself), you could advance simply by
showing up on time, working hard, and not talking back to your
manager. It's amazing how many people lack these basic skills due to
a poor upbringing. I still find it incomprehensible when I hear
people say "Oh, I don't feel like going to work. I'll call in sick."
It takes an incredibly patient company to teach the skills that your
parents should have taught you. Unfortunately, a majority of inner
city youths were born to unwed teenage mothers, who often don't
possess these skills either.
3) Expectations - With a very low minimum wage, even inner-city
businesses would be willing to take on more youths, even kids
requiring substantial job skill training. But inner-city youths won't
take jobs at very low wages any more than suburban teenagers will.
They can look around and see easier ways to earn more money. The big
man in the ghetto neighborhood is often the drug dealer. Why break
your butt down at the corner grocery for $2/hour when you can make
$1500 a day running a crack house (the last figure is the current
going rate).
Until these three basic problems are solved, I don't think the minimum
wage level will affect teenage unemployment much.
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 22 Dec 86 00:43:23-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: : Teflon turning to glue
To: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
How about high inflation, high unemployment, and high interest
rates, like in the Carter years?
Being an ex-Carter basher (please no more "give me a break" stuff, I
don't want to be like Sam Donaldson telling everybody that he voted
for Barry Goldwater and still thinks that Goldwater is the better
president), I would advise you to look at the numbers. Quoting from
the 1984 Economic Report of the President (that's the only copy I got
handy), pp. 222-223 & 259 and going back to 1970 (the report goes back
to 40's and 50's)
C=Carter, R=Reagan
Year GNP growth,% Unemployment rate,%
(based on 1972 $) (all workers)
1970 -.2 4.8
1971 3.4 5.8
1972 5.7 5.5
1973 5.8 4.8
1974 -.6 5.5
1975 -1.2 8.3
1976 5.4 7.6
1977 C 5.5 6.9
1978 C 5.0 6.0
1979 C 2.8 5.8
1980 C -.3 7.0
1981 R 2.6 7.5
1982 R -1.9 9.5
1983 R 3.3 9.5
1984 R (please fill in with more recent data)
1985 R "
1986 R "
I agree with the perception of high inflation & interest rates. But I
am not sure about real interest rates (didn't have time to look up the
numbers).
After looking at things with 20/20 hindsight, Carter does not deserve
all that bashing. So my apologies Jimmy!
The economy is in much better shape now, and that's all most people
care about.
The jury is still out on this. We'll have to wait for a few more
years and see how the deficit is handled. Of course by then we would
blame the problem on somebody else. Also Reagan has positioned
himself such that Congress is to blame. But as John Sunnunu, the
Republican governor of New Hampshire (Reagan supporter and MIT grad)
said (about his Democratic opponent) "don't make a promise you can't
keep". So Reagan shouldn't have promised a balanced budget or a
policy of getting tough with terrorists if he can't deliver. This
brings us back to my suggesting the presidential plan---have him make
the promises in writing and then hold him accountable (financially)
for them.
Another reason is attitude. Reagan is identified with "morning
again in America" which people like to hear. Carter was
"malaise", which nobody wanted to hear.
This I agree. Which shows how affection and ideology can mask out the
facts. It looks like the people will let you get away with hurting
them as long as you tell them a happy story.
Conclusion: Access to accurate information and objectivity (of the
people) better be a prerequisite of your libertarian society.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 15:10:21 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Consistency and Consequences
[ I find you position a trifle inconsistant. If a person can put
anything they want into their bodies, shouldn't that person be
responsible for the consequenses?
Of course.
Doesn't that include diseases?
Yep.
Or does your libertarian government decide that it does things
'for the people's own good' too? ... -CWM]
Nope.
I don't understand what incosistency you feel you have caught me in.
Please explain.
...Keith
[ Then why should the government give them free needles? - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 7 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 6
Today's Topics:
The Free Market &
"English Only" referendum &
Education &
Employment Discrimination &
Needles
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 08:02:33 PST
From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: slavery == the free market?
To: cuae2!ihnp4!dual!paul@topaz.rutgers.edu
> > me
> Paul Wilcox-Baker
> > The really ironic thing is that it is the free market that
> > makes the best decisions regarding what should be produced
> > and how much it is worth....
> > It ain't perfect, its just the best system
> > we have, and the only one compatible with human liberty.
> This is typical Libertarian bullshit. The free enterprise system
> created slavery in this and many other countries. I don't consider
> this compatible with human liberty...
We obviously have different definitions of what a free market is.
The free market is concerned with 1) ownership of property, and
2) rules for the exchange thereof. Ownership of property *begins*
with self-ownership: a person owns his or her body and has
absolute self-determination about what goes into it, under what
circumstances it may be touched, and so forth. A person owns
his or her labor as well: no one else may use force against
him to make him expend his labor unwillingly. Thus slavery,
*by definition*, is incompatible with the free market.
If, however, you have problems with my use of the phrase "free
market", permit me to use instead the more cumbersome "economic
system that emerges when the use of force against all participants
is forbidden". Surely this system is incompatible with slavery ...
--Barry
------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 11:06:28 PST
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Subject: California "English Only" referendum
In Poli-Sci Digest V6 #115, Will Martin writes:
Does anyone have any explanation why the national TV coverage of
some of the California referenda was extensive before the election,
but seemed to drop off to zero afterwards, without even publicizing
the results as much as they publicized the existence of the
questions in the first place? [comments that AIDS didn't pass but
the English-only one did, then:]
Maybe those of you with local CA coverage can post some comments on
just how the "English-as-official-language" principle will be
implemented and the actual effects it will have (or has had). The
pre-election coverage speculated on that, but now that it is for
real, there should be more hard data.
There was hard data before the election. The initiative essentially
declares English to be the official language of the state of
California and mandates that no public funds be spent to undercut
this. Net practical effect is expected to be nil, since the two most
obvious items, non-English ballots and non-English classes in the
public schools, are mandated by Federal law and court decisions which
override the proposition.
In Hawaii, where I used to live, ballots were available in English,
Hawaiian, Tagalog ("Samoan"), Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and
probably Portuguese and Spanish as well. All of these groups were
over the 5% level in the local population. Never caused any gross
problems that I could see.
As for the lack of national coverage: I suspect that the media
mainly decided that the loss of Republican control of the Senate was
the only story which was worthy of continued national attention. The
networks did report the outcome of the CA elections during their
election night coverage.
Steve Walton
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 22 Dec 86 22:45:08-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: re: education
To: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
You are making the assumption here that the system is
sufficiently well developed economically for [privately funded
education] to be possible.
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
If it isn't, then publically funded education won't be possible
either. No tax rate will make a group of people wealthier, any
more than one can legislate blood from a stone.
Please take a look at how rapidly industrializing countries like
Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, etc. got their education programs
funded about 20 or so years ago (when most of their GNP's were as low
as, if not lower than, many countries in Africa). Also look at how
poor third world countries finance their economic and education
programs. That is not to say they are always successful but just that
their government have to borrow money from international sources.
You are still thinking that people have the right to all these
government provided services.
I never said that!
If they can be provided voluntarily, that's fine, you reason. But
if the voluntary providers change their minds, government should
pull out the guns and force them to keep providing the services.
Nope, I never said anything about guns and force. (I am beginning to
agree with Charles:
"...And would you PLEASE stop trying to create arguements for me
and get me to defend?...- CWM]"
Well said, Charles.)
I disagree vehemently.
With something I never said? Who are you disagreeing with?
Consider this hypothetical case: A depression happens in your
libertarian society, 10% of the population got hurt (i.e. lost their
jobs, run out of money, etc.). The other 90% started to get worried
about their own survival and the contributions to charity dry up.
"Have-nots" get frustrated, people start to starve. They started
demostrating in the streets. The international community got wind of
that and international confidence in your economy drops, so less
trade, so more people got hurt. The "haves" decided to protect their
interests---join the police/army, contribute to law and order type of
things. Meanwhile outside elements (communists, racists, etc.)
started exploiting the "have-nots" and supply them arms. Many of the
"have-nots" volunteer to join the revolutionary army. More economic
chaos, more "have-nots", larger revolutionary army, less "haves", less
contribution for maintaining law and order. The cycle repeats. Get
the picture?
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 19:48:48 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Employment discrimination
To: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
what ... i have been saying is that non-discrimination legislation
would be the escape condition for the loop of
those-who-are-discriminated-against getting less pay for the same
work just because "we pay thosea people less".
Another escape loop is that employers will not all offer the same
salary. Those that offer more will get the employees, and those that
offer less won't. The only limit on this is when employers are paying
employees as much as their time is worth to the employers. Thus
people will be paid what their time is worth. If they want to be paid
more, they can work harder, work longer hours, work more efficiently,
find a different line of work in which their time is worth more, or
find an employer which makes more efficient use of their time. This
is how the free market system works.
Unfortunately, an easier alternative is to campaign for higher wages
on the grounds of eliminating "sexism" or "racism". While this often
increases the salary of the individuals who do it, at least in the
short term, it reduces the salaries of the group they are in in the
longer term. Some employers come to view women and blacks as trouble-
makers, and may avoid hiring them or paying them as much because it is
always easier to justify in court not hiring them in the first place
or not paying them as much as others, than it is to justify firing
them or reducing their salary later.
Similarly I would avoid shopping at new stores if at all possible if
I was not allowed to later stop shopping there without justifying it
in court, unless its prices were significantly lower than at other
stores selling similar merchandise. This is exactly the situation we
see in the employment market.
Also, employers often have the perception that women will resign
suddenly to get married, or if already married, to have a child or to
move when her husband finds a better job in another city. The more
likely a person is to suddenly resign, the less valuable he or she is
to the company. Laws that say that a woman must be given her old job
back after taking off several months or years to have a child reduce
her perceived value even more so.
THIS is an example of vicious feedback. If women's salaries WERE
mostly the same as men's, women would find it cost effective to take
off only a few weeks to have a baby, since they would find child care
affordable. And they would not quit their jobs to move when their
husband was offered a better job elsewhere, since his new higher
salary plus her now nonexistant or new lower salary would be less than
the sum of what they are making now, unless he was offered a job for
nearly twice what he was making now. And THAT would be just as likely
to happen to the wife as to the husband, so it would reduce the man's
value in the workplace just as much as the woman's.
Some high schools and colleges are careful to give blacks the same
average grades as whites regardless of their performance, either to
avoid trouble or out of a misguided sense of fairness. The result, of
course, given that blacks on the average do worse in school than
whites, is that a high school diploma and a college degree are worth
less in the hands of a black than in the hands of a white. Employers
are aware of this. They know that blacks with a M.A. degree often
know less of the subject matter than whites with a B.A. So which do
you think they hire?
Meanwhile, black leaders tell blacks that they don't have to
personally excell, that not using drugs is the highest attainment to
be expected of them, that white employers and white taxpayers owe them
a permanent subsidy, that somehow lifting up the whole black race is
important and individual black success is unimportant, that if a black
individual does become successful that he is morally bound to invest
or donate all his money into black groups, and that anyone who objects
to any of this is a racist.
Things are improving, slowly. More and more individuals of all
races, nationalities, creeds, and genders are realizing for themselves
that while they cannot save their group singlehandedly, that the only
thing limitting their own personal attainment is how valuable and
productive they can make themselves. Individuals are learning,
somehow, (it isn't taught in public schools) that if they try to gain
and keep jobs by having government threaten employers with jail and
fines, that employers will find a way to get rid of them or to make
their life so miserable that they will quit, and that if they succeed
en masse in compelling employers to pay them more than they are worth,
that their company will be unprofitable and will go out of business
unless it is supported by taxpayer subsidy. They are learning that if
they make themselves sufficiently valuable to their employer, they can
practically name their salary and benefits, they need fear no layoffs,
they needn't regard management as an opponent, their company will do
quite well, and if it doesn't, or if they are laid off for whatever
reason, that they will be able to get a new job in a matter of days.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, one will be a lot happier with if
one is productive.
... I support equal pay for the SAME work, not for work of "equal
value".
That isn't what the "women's rights" groups are campaigning for.
They want government to list the "value to society" of ALL
professions, and have made it quite clear that if government finds the
average value of professions mostly staffed by men to be greater than
the average value of professions mostly staffed by women, that they
will vote against the administration that finds this.
This isn't creeping socialism anymore, it's galloping socialism.
It's at the city gates.
... two secretaries with precisely the same duties and performance
capabilities should receive equal treatment irregardless of the
irrelevant factor of their sex.
I agree, just as I agree that I ought to pay the same amount for
identical products in equally convenient stores, and just as I agree
that I ought to ask the same salary at two equally good potential
jobs. But this does NOT mean I government should check up on me and
punish me if I am behaving irrationally. I am really only hurting
myself. In any case, nobody has any RIGHT to make deals with me, only
to propose deals to me which I am free to refuse. The same with
people of all races, creeds, and colors. Even if they are "guilty" of
being employers or some other kind of tycoon.
If I go on a hunger strike, am I violating grocer's rights?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 87 21:33:37 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Needles
[ Then why should the government give them free needles? - CWM]
The government shouldn't. I have never said otherwise. I have said
that needles, like drugs, should be legal. Not that they should be
provided free by the government.
...Keith
[oops! Here we see the problems of arguing something over a period of
6 months (we started this in *august*)! My apologies; I went back and
looked and you said 'freely available', which sort of got changed over
time (in my head) to 'available free'. Never mind (about needles,
anyway). oops! -CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 10 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 7
Today's Topics:
South Africa and the Soviet Union (4 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 10:49:16 PST
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: cit-vax!KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu
Cc: cit-vax!WLIM@xx.lcs.mit.edu, hal@csvax.caltech.edu
Subject: South Africa and the Soviet Union
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 02:46:18 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
And the ANC supports NO individual rights for ANYONE.
I would be interested in any documented evidence that leads you
to this conclusion.
ANC's leadership includes admitted members of the communist
party. The ANC praises Desmond Tutu, who said that South African
blacks would welcome a Soviet occupation. ANC's leader, Nelson
Mandela, said that under communism "everybody would be living
better [since communism] gives equal opportunity to everybody".
[much more about ANC omitted]
So we all agree that apartheid and communism are reprehensible
systems. (I stand by my earlier statement, that, by Jeanne
Kirkpatrick's definition and as seen by the blacks, SA has a
totalitarian government now. It isn't quite as brutal as the SU's,
but it is one.)
[Willie asks why no one in the US is sending money to contras
in the SU.]
Probably because there are no contras in the Soviet Union. How
would they be able to organize, within a totalitarian state? Read
Orwell's _1984_ for the anatomy of an underground movement in such
a state.
I have. So? In _1984_, the entire world was divided among three
totalitarian empires. The situations are hardly comparable.
Where were they at the height of the Solidarity protests?
Where were who? Solidarity is a socialist labor union. I don't
know about others, but I don't take sides between socialist labor
unionism and socialist communism.
A remarkable statement; I'll be sure to save this letter. The only
effective (at least temporarily) protest against totalitarianism in
Poland in 40 years, and you dismiss it as morally equivalent to the
communist government.
Anyone who doesn't know that communism is a big lose by now,
isn't likely to ever learn. South Africa is NOT a free country,
despite propaganda claiming that it is.
Unfortunately, it really looks as though every country on earth is
going to have to try socialism at least once for themselves in order
to be convinced that it is the system itself, and not its
implementation, which is flawed. Not a hell of a lot we can do about
it, other than to show them by example that capitalism leads to
prosperity.
If the people behind the iron curtain don't complain loud
enough or feel strongly enough to rebel against their
totalitarian form of government, we can't help them.
How can they? How can they get organized, share ideas, or even
learn what capitalism is all about? So few people seem to know it
even here in the US, what hope do people whose only source of
information is the Soviet goverment have of learning the truth?
The only Americans they get to hear are Jane Fonda and her ilk.
So you agree that totalitarianism is such an efficient system that its
eventual victory over free societies is assured? You seem to be
arguing here that there is no way to dislodge a totalitarian
government short of external intervention by another country's
military (which you oppose). See below as well.
It would be nice to keep buzz phrases such as "Jane Fonda and her
ilk" out of this discussion. (buzz phrase, n., American idiom. A
statement devoid of semantic content and used only to evoke a certain
emotional response; e.g. "redbusters," "capitalist lackeys," "the Jane
Fondas of the world," and "the international Jewish conspiracy.")
The best way I can see to fight apartheid is for American
companies in South Africa to demand freedom from racist
regulations,
That is not the best way for the following reasons:
US companies don't hire enough black South Africans to make a
difference.
This is because of the racist laws against employers hiring who
they want to hire. Employers should insist on an exemption from
such laws, and refuse to remain in South Africa without such
exemptions.
Wait a minute, Keith. You seem to argue here that employers should do
something which is morally correct even if it denies them profits, at
least in the short term. Doesn't sound very libertarian to me :->.
US companies are in South Africa precisely because they could make
money within the strictures of the apartheid system, since it
guaranteed them a supply of low-cost labor. Most of them have since
been coerced into leaving. The coercion was evil, but so was the
companies' original behavior. I don't think anyone was right.
I know South Africa is not a free market economy.
I think we all agree here and can drop this line of argument.
Keith, I still have not seen an answer to the larger question.
How is a free society to deal with the problem of non-free societies?
Do we ignore them? Do we trade with them and, by implication, endorse
their form of government? Do we seek by means fair and foul to
overthrow them?
My opinion is that we should treat them as a legitimate
government until such time as their own people are willing to die in
large numbers in order to effect changes. That is a harsh criterion,
but how else are we to decide? I am not so confident as you that
Soviet totalitarianism is all powerful. If one million residents of
Moscow stormed the Kremlin armed with nothing but sharpened
broomsticks, many would die but enough would get inside to do away
with the ruling class. Such a level of discontent would probably also
be shared by their relatives in the army, who would refuse to fire on
them. One officer can only shoot so many of his men before one of
them gets him.
Those with brains in the Soviet Union can also discern the truth
even in the propaganda. In the book about that Russian pilot who flew
his MIG-25 to Japan, it tells how he saw pictures of American ghettos
in his political indoctrination classes and wondered, "If everyone is
so poor there, who do all those cars belong to?"
This does not mean that we should cooperate with their
governments' efforts to hide the truth from their people. One of the
interesting sidelights of the UN's attention to various space programs
is the Soviet efforts to have direct broadcast satellites banned.
These would allow someone with a small (2 feet or so) dish to receive
TV transmissions directly from a satellite. India is already using
one to reach its rural people. I agree that the SU should fear them,
as they fear all truth. I also think the US should proceed with all
due speed to setting up one to transmit to the SU as soon as possible.
Of course, we could agree not to do this if the Soviets disconnect
their current jamming stations. Our only legitimate weapon right now
is information.
Steve
------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!hal@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 11:40:00 PST
From: Hal Finney < ametek!hal@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: cit-vax!KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, walton@csvax.caltech.edu
Subject: Re: South Africa and the Soviet Union
Cc: cit-vax!WLIM@xx.lcs.mit.edu
On the question of a free society's relations with non-free societies:
Your questions are being asked from a non-individualist point of view.
Do 'we' ignore them? Do 'we' trade with them? Do 'we' try to over-
throw them? Who is this 'we', and why assume that the answer is the
same for everyone in the free society.
In a real free society faced with an evil and non-free society, some
people would choose to ignore them, others would trade with them (I
don't agree that this implicitly endorses their system - I may trade
with many people who have views with which I disagree), and others
would support opposition and "contra" movements.
I'm not sure what "evil" coercion you are referring to in making
countries leave SA. If students protest at a UC, putting pressure on
the regents to divest their stock holdings, and that leads to a
company's withdrawal, then this is not coercion, nor is it evil. I
guess the regents' decision might have been made partially out of fear
of violence by the students, and so there may have been an element of
coercion there. But mostly it seems to be a matter of
consciousness-raising by the students, with the decision made on moral
grounds. This is not coercive; the regents, after all, are part
owners of the corporations and thus deserve a voice in their affairs.
I got a catalog a few days ago from the Cato Institute that included a
Russian-language version of "Friedman and Hayek on Freedom" for
Russian emigres and for distribution in the SU through unofficial
channels. There was also an article in Reason last year proposing an
active campaign to stir up trouble among the minority racial groups in
the SU.
------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 14:37:39 PST
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: hal@csvax.caltech.edu
Cc: cit-vax!KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu, cit-vax!WLIM@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: South Africa and the Soviet Union
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 11:40:00 PST
From: Hal Finney < hal>
On the question of a free society's relations with non-free
societies: Your questions are being asked from a non-individualist
point of view. Do 'we' ignore them? Do 'we' trade with them? Do
'we' try to overthrow them? Who is this 'we', and why assume
that the answer is the same for everyone in the free society.
Let me make a straw man argument with which I do not necessarily
agree. The Soviet Union is opposed to all of the freedoms which we
hold dear, and is bent on removing those freedoms by force if need be.
Trade with the SU helps support that government (they wouldn't trade
if they didn't benefit economically), thus strengthening it and
threatening the freedom of other free people. This danger is so large
as to override individuals' rights to trade freely with the SU. In 15
words or less: trade with the SU is morally equivalent to trade with
the enemy during wartime.
I'm not sure what "evil" coercion you are referring to in making
countries leave SA. If students protest at a UC, putting pressure
on the regents to divest their stock holdings, and that leads to a
company's withdrawal, then this is not coercion, nor is it evil.
I was thinking of the recent federal law mandating sanctions, in the
form of forbidding certain types of commerce between individuals in
the US and individuals in SA. You are correct about the UC system's
case; care to tell the Wall Street Journal? I believe they called the
UC regents "cowards" and "comsymps", or words to that effect.
I got a catalog a few days ago from the Cato Institute that
included a Russian-language version of "Friedman and Hayek on
Freedom" for Russian emigres and for distribution in the SU through
unofficial channels.
Interesting, but I'm not sure they have the referents to even
understand such a book. A professor at the UH, where I was a grad
student, is fluent in Russian and has several friends there. He once
tried to speak with an ordinary Soviet citizen about freedom of the
press, and the conversation went something like:
UH Professor: But you don't have freedom of speech.
Soviet citizen: Yes, we do. We have complete freedom to praise the
glorious Soviet system.
UHP: But, what about freedom to criticize the Soviet system?
SC: < Apparently genuine blank stare>
In his book "The Russians," Hedrick Smith describes nostalgia for
Stalin (!) among the less well educated portion of the Soviet
population. Such people probably have very little use for a book by
Milton Friedman.
There was also an article in Reason last year proposing an active
campaign to stir up trouble among the minority racial groups in the
SU.
Such activity by private individuals poses a clear and present danger
to the rest of us, and ought to be banned. Getting information about
the outside world to them is one thing; encouraging them to revolt
when they cannot possibly win and there are no resources to help them
is quite another. Apparently the Hungarian freedom fighters of 1956
were convinced that US troops would intervene on their behalf, partly
because of broadcasts from Radio Free Europe, which I believe was
privately owned at that point. (Correct me if I am wrong here.)
Steve Walton
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 23 Dec 86 10:10:37-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa and the Soviet Union
To: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
Cc: hal@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU, KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
It would be nice to keep buzz phrases such as "Jane Fonda and her
ilk" out of this discussion. (buzz phrase, n., American idiom. A
statement devoid of semantic content and used only to evoke a
certain emotional response; e.g. "redbusters," "capitalist
lackeys," "the Jane Fondas of the world," and "the international
Jewish conspiracy.")
I plead guilty to using such terms (red-busters and commies). Sorry.
After years of anti-communist indoctrination, it is hard to call them
anything else (-: and it also saves 3 characters). It is also hard to
say anything good about them. Thus the quest for objectivity (-: a
way of self-deprogramming :-). I'll refrain from using such terms
again.
If one million residents of Moscow stormed the Kremlin armed with
nothing but sharpened broomsticks, many would die but enough would
get inside to do away with the ruling class. Such a level of
discontent would probably also be shared by their relatives in the
army, who would refuse to fire on them. One officer can only shoot
so many of his men before one of them gets him.
Very true. Most modern revolutions involve mutiny in the army. It is
also very hard for any system to completely isolate its soldiers
(police, KGB/GRU agents, etc) from the masses. Thus if there is
massive anti-government feelings out there, you can be sure that the
soldiers will get it too. (E.g. look at the Philippines and Iran.)
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 12 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 8
Today's Topics:
California Election Results &
Bombers B-52 &
Education and Economics &
Amerika the Beautiful &
Drugs (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM>
Date: 23 Dec 86 08:29:01 PST (Tuesday)
From: Hoffman.es@Xerox.COM
Subject: Re: California Election Results
To: Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI < wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA>
Final, unofficial results, 100% of precincts reporting:
Prop. 63 -- English Only
Yes 5,016,556 73%
No 1,837,803 27%
Prop. 64 -- AIDS
Yes 1,991,672 29%
No 4,879,641 71%
About "how the "English-as-official-language" principle will be
implemented and the actual effects it will have" : No one knows. It
will take years for the courts to try a few cases and determine its
effect.
-- Rodney Hoffman
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@rutgers.rutgers.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 86 10:58:17 pst
From: kontron!cramer@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V7 #88To: voder!nsc!ihnp4!abnji!politics
> Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 11:09:21 PST
> From: wild@Sun.COM (Will Doherty)
> Subject: A couple of nuke B-52's a day keeps the Russkies away...
>
> Although I have no proof to back it up, I have heard numerous oral
> reports that Moffett Naval Air Base, less than a mile from where I
> live, sends two nuclear-armed B-52's out each and every day of the
> year. Can anybody confirm or deny this, or such policies at other
> installations?
>
> Will Doherty
I can deny it. I have worked within a mile of Moffett for over a
year, and my colleagues and I keep careful watch on what flies in and
out. So far we have seen:
C-5A (big MoFo cargo plane)
U-2 (former spy plane, now atmospheric research plane)
Lockheed Orions (sub hunters)
C-130 (turbo prop cargo planes)
C-141 (jet cargo planes)
a variety of fighters
We have NEVER seen or heard a B-52 (and they are damn difficult to
hide) take off or land. In light of the size of Moffett's runway, and
the reason for putting B-52's there, we would take B-52 landing at
Moffett as the "put all the freeze-dried food and guns in the cars and
drive like hell" signal.
Clayton E. Cramer
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 86 16:01:58 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Education
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
You are making the assumption here that the system is sufficiently
well developed economically for [privately funded education] to be
possible.
If it isn't, then publically funded education won't be possible
either. No tax rate will make a group of people wealthier, any more
than one can legislate blood from a stone.
... I think one of the prerequisite of a libertarian society is
that the society is rich enough for voluntary contributions to be
possible.
If it isn't, then involunatry contributions will not be possible
either. Please note that I am speaking mostly of INVESTMENTS, not
charitable donations.
You also make the assumption that the system can withstand
economic stresses (like depressions) so that private money is
always available.
I doubt there would be any depressions in a free economy. It is
true that if nobody (in a depression or otherwise) chose to provide a
formal education, that a formal education would be unavailable. This
is only a problem if you imagine that there is such a thing as a right
to an education which supersedes other people's property rights and
rights of free association, etc. I concede no such right to an
education.
When there are massive bankruptcies and lay-offs, little money is
available for this purpose.
Right. This is true whether education is privately or publically
(i.e. coercively) financed. Perhaps we should concentrate on the
causes of massive bankruptcies and lay-offs.
... Here is another prerequisite of a libertarian society: private
contributions are always available. ...
You are still thinking that people have the right to all these
government provided services. If they can be provided voluntarily,
that's fine, you reason. But if the voluntary providers change their
minds, government should pull out the guns and force them to keep
providing the services. I disagree vehemently.
Or conversely, any interruption or time-lag in the contribution
pipeline will not "endanger" the society. Should the society be
so endangered and there isn't enough time to get the citizens' ok
on what to do, some mechanism must be available to the government
to ensure the survival of the libertarian society.
You mean we have to be willing to destroy a free society in order
to save it?
Please explain what "danger" you see, that is so terrible that
individual rights must be cast aside to survive it.
Another mechanism has to be available to ensure that the emergency
powers of the government won't outlast the emergency.
I don't see how this is possible. If it is up to government when
the emergency begins and ends, if their will supercedes everyone
else's, who is going to force them to turn off these emergency powers?
In summary, I am not convinced that the actual market is
sufficiently free for the forces to work as intended.
Not yet, anyway.
Perhaps the best way to show that the libertarian society work is
to either simulate it on a computer
Who would write this program? I would bet that the results would
depend primarily on the political opinions of the author. How does
one simulate the independant working of millions of minds? Last I
heard, computers couldn't even simulate one mind. But the working
of free minds is central to a free market system.
And who is to decide what constitutes working? What possible result
of such a computer program run would be justification for elimination
of individual rights?
Let me put it another way. Lets say the Nazis had taken over the
world and had almost everyone working to the death in slave labor
camps. Lets say all memory of a previous, non-Nazi form of existance
had been lost. Would it be reasonable then to use a computer program
to decide whether the Nazi system was right or wrong?
or try it out on a small scale (say at the town, county or state
level) in the real world.
This is becoming less and less possible, thanks to growing federal
control over what were previously the domain of state and local
governments. But there are major cities with no zoning laws and there
are states in which gambling and/or prostitution and/or marijuana are
legal. There are even a few places in which two or more local phone
companies compete. I have heard of no catastrophes arising from any
of this freedom.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@rutgers.rutgers.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 86 10:52:10 pst
From: kontron!cramer@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V7 #86
To: voder!nsc!ihnp4!abnji!politics
> Date: Wednesday, 17 December 1986 13:50-EST
> From: Bruce Nevin < bnevin at cch.bbn.com>
> Re: Irresponsible Chicken Little?
>
> The WSJ piece leads me to wonder if there is not a campaign being
> mounted by the radical right when we consider it together with the
> forthcoming ABC miniseries `AMERIKA'. This 12-hour, $44M
> production has been widely regarded as the Far Right's `equal time'
> WRT the movie `The Day After' aired on ABC in 1983 (as though that
> were a production of the far left!). It appears that the idea came
> from columnist Ben Stein,
'The Day After' portrayed circumstances in probably the most severely
impacted part of the United States in the event of a counterforce
nuclear war -- the areas downwind of missle silos. It certainly left
the impression in the minds of of a lot of people that this would be
typical of the U.S. as a whole.
a lot of people that such circumstances
> with contributions from Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media (AIM) and
> Phyllis Schlafley's Eagle Forum, among others on the far
> right. I have articles at home at which I have only glanced (in
> the last issue of the the magazine Mother Jones) that give much
> more detail.
>
ABC's interest in the miniseries developed when Reed Irvine asked if
they had thought of portraying some consequences of NOT fighting a
war. No one fights a war because they like wars -- wars are fought
because the altern- atives are sometimes even worse.
> Here is a summary of the script of AMERIKA excerpted from column
> "The politics of `Amerika'" by Jeff Gottleib, Los Angeles Herald
> Examiner, June 3, 1986:
>
> A copy of the 579-page "Amerika" script obtained by the Herald
> reveals the following:
>
> The USSR has swallowed Turkey and Afghanistan and parts of Iran
> and Pakistan. Central America is called Greater Cuba. Troops
> from the United Nations--controlled by the Soviets--make up
> the occupation force. American farms lie fallow and cities are
> filled with the unemployed. The Soviets call the House of
> Representatives into session, massacre most of its members and
> set fire to the Capitol.
>
Are you familiar with what happened when Afghanistan was invaded? The
head of the local Communist Party was murdered by Soviet troops so
that there would not be domestic Communist opposition to Soviet
invasion. Also, consider what happened in Poland when the Soviets
murdered most of the Polish Communist Party leadership at the start of
World War II, because while Communist, they were nationalist, and
would have opposed Soviet plans for domestication of Poland.
> The Soviets and their allies are prepared to crush a defenseless
> population, and are not afraid to use nuclear weapons.
>
> A Soviet general says, "They (the Kremlin) want the final
> solution to the American problem resolved--quickly. Otherwise
> they might just selectively attack four or five American
> cities. . . . Missile attack on five American cities."
>
Rather like how the U.S. ended World War II -- using nuclear weapons
against cities. What's so implausible about such a scenario -- unless
you assume that the Soviet government is more moral and decent than
the U.S. government was at the end of World War II?
> In another scene, UN troops make an unprovoked attack on a rural
> camp of Americans who have been kicked out of their homes.
> Tanks and attack vehicles smash through tents and trailers,
> killing and injuring scores.
>
> The Soviets in the miniseries are portrayed as racist and
> licentious. A Soviet referring to blacks says, "We have a slang
> word for them: `monkey in a tree.'"
>
> In another instance, before briefing his aides on the latest
> plans for the US, a Soviet general points to the strange women
> in the room:
>
> "A gift from the Chairman. Party girls--for compansionship."
>
> In yet another instance, the hero's sister is raped by four
> members of the UN force, including soldiers from Vietnam and
> Angola, two countries with close ties to the Soviet Union today.
>
I know a fellow that grew up in Poland during World War II. He
describes what happened when the Red Army arrived to "liberate" them
from the Nazis. Remember, Poland was nominally an ally against the
Nazis. He remembers that the Soviet soldiers would drop their pants
in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day, and rape girls
as young as eight with no concern for the fact that they were being
watched.
Remember also that rape is hardly unknown by invading armies, even
when officially discouraged. To expect better behavior out of Soviet
puppet armies than the general rule shows either a tremendous
credulity, or a purposeful blindness.
Concerning racism: while the Communists have made good faith efforts
at discouraging racism, they certainly have not eliminated it. I've
read that many of the Third World students at Patrice Lumumba
University in Moscow have returned home with a less-than-enthusiastic
view of the Soviet people based on the blatant racism of the
population.
> Given that many Americans rely almost totally on TV for
> information, the programming of TV (a public channel) is without
> question a matter of concern, to say the least, to policy makers.
> Might it be an instrument of policy? (Said he, disingenuously.)
>
> It might do to point out to enthusiasts that the scenario in
> "Amerika" amounts to reductio ad absurdum of the arguments on
> the Radical Right--but perhaps I am being too optimistic about
> ABCs audience.
>
*Reductio ad absurdum*? No, exactly the sort of behavior demonstrated
by Soviet invasion forces throughout the world.
Clayton E. Cramer
------------------------------
Return-path: < allegra!dsf@seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 86 13:11:11 EST
From: allegra!dsf@seismo.CSS.GOV
> Junkies have very damaged minds. They are possessed by their
> addiction, and ignore their potential health. After all, they are
> destroying them- selves physically as it is. Many, indeed, are
> suicidal. They'll take their fix any way they can get it, no matter
> what the cost. And the pushers know it.
> Nor do junkies get their information--assuming they are capable of
> comprehending it--from the same places that us educated net readers
> do. They rely on street talk. Most junkies can delude themselves
> that one quick rinse with water cleans off the germs.
> Finally, from a purely economic point of view, the illegal drug
> business is well established, the illegal needle business is not.
> Drugs are ludicrously profitable, needles are not. Drugs are the
> ultimate sellers' mar- ket.
>
> You may hate the phrase "it is obvious", but I consider the above to
> be well known.
>
Matthew, you have been watching too much Miami Vice. Junkies are
people, not deranged animals. They live in apartments. They hold
jobs. You might even see them at parties. And junkies get their
information from the same place we "netters" do: Television.
One of the reasons that crack is so popular is that many junkies
are substituting it as much as possible for dope in order to avoid
needles.
The illegal needle trade is well established, but as you say it
is not terribly profitable, merely a necessary sideline. Like
many industries, it is not completely responsive to the long
range interests of its customers.
> ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA
David Fox
------------------------------
Return-path: < bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu>
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 86 13:13:35 EST
From: bzs@bu-cs.bu.edu (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: black-market needles
Sorry, I missed the first part of this:
> If there is a market for it, black-market needles should be just
> as available as black-market drugs. The very same forces you claim
> are making drugs so available (massive market) should be making
> illegal needles readily available. I wonder why not? [CWN]
I don't know who stated as an axiom that black-market needles are
somehow not available, they certainly are (or certainly were when
I was growing up in NYC.) They are not much of a market because:
a) they are too available - most everyone knew a diabetic
teen-ager who would buy them by the gross (I think for
around 10c each) and sell them to friends for $1 or less.
It's not that hard to fraud a druggist into selling a box.
b) they are not expendable - junkies like to spend every
nickel they have on junk, not needles, so they use them
over and over again (need I tell you about watching someone
"sharpen" a dull needle on a brick one day...)
The same goes for a junkie's efforts, just scoring some
dope is about all s/he can muster, the old needle will do
just fine, or a friend's etc. They see needles they way
you look at a can opener, when they get some dope they
just ask around if anyone has some "works" [needle etc]
they can use for a minute.
I know, you think there is a paradox here, if they are "too" available
then why don't they use them. I dunno, how available are hammers? Ever
hear of someone using the back of a screwdriver or a chisel handle for
a hammer (or whatever misuse you like, screwdriver as a chisel etc)?
Why? Because they don't care, can't be bothered etc, that's why.
I hope this clears something up.
-Barry Shein, Boston University
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 20 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 9
Today's Topics:
Work Week &
The Miracle of Teflon &
Obsessive? Moi? &
South Africa (3 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: 24 Dec 86 06:58:22 GMT
Subject: Re: Work week
KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU writes:
> From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
> Perhaps this is going out to the wrong audience, because we are
> members of a privileged elite that is allowed to be creative.
>
> Never trust a man who proclaims himself a member of an elite.
> Especially if he includes you in the elite and excludes most everyone
> else.
> ...Keith
Uh, Keith, could I suggest more relevant standards for trust? How
about "never trust a person who cannot recognize their own privileged
status". Or more simply, DO trust a person who classifies themself
and you as part of an elite - IF IT IS TRUE. Would you care to place
yourself percentile wise in earning power, education, or
employability? I suspect that most of us on the net are objectively
well rewarded by society, in many ways. Of course being libertarian
(or propertarian) means you never have to say you're sorry, since the
free market which this country is so lambasted for lacking did get at
least that one thing right - treating the aforesaid propertarian well.
(As an aside, am I the only one who suspects that
libertarian/propertarian values appeal to so many well paid people
because it is emotionally more comfortable than liberal guilt?
Designer politics for the Me Generation that "did good"? I speak in
general, not to accuse you, Keith, specifically.)
Rather than make up irrelevant aphorisms, perhaps you should
explain why you dispute Richard's characterization. I for one
would love to know that the net is reasonably characteristic of
the populace, and not some socio-technical elite.
By the way, I certainly don't mean "elite" to mean snobbish, or
heriditary, or power seeking. Only that we are a group at the
socially desired and well rewarded end of a spectrum. I doubt
that many of us would care to invert our percentile ranking in
regards to income, or education, for example.
Solstice cheers to everyone. ~z~
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcvax!cwi.nl!jack@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: mcvax!cwi.nl!jack@seismo.CSS.GOV (Jack Jansen)
Subject: Re: Teflon Presidency
SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA writes:
>
> Can I think of anything remotely within the realm of possibility that
> would cause the public to lose faith in Reagan?
Well, I think the current rumours of the president not seeming to pay
attention when North told him about the weapon deliveries, or the MD
who speculated that Reagan *might* have given permission, but
forgotten all about it, are good candidates. Even though these are
just *rumours*, they might just catch on...
--
Jack Jansen, jack@cwi.nl (or jack@mcvax.uucp)
The shell is my oyster.
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 86 13:10:39 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Obsession
To: ucsbcsl!uncle@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU
From: < ucsbcsl!uncle@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
a certain, obsessive contributor to this bingeboard
Who, me?
maintains ad infinitem
Ad infinitem? For the past few months, I haven't originated any
messages de novo. My messages have all been replies to other
messages.
If you don't like reading my messages, use the D key (or N key in
Unix, I think).
that governments have an infinite potential for evil,
Yep.
whereas billionaires, businesses, etc. have an infinitesimal
potential for evil;
Nope. My point is that whatever abuses wealthy people can
perpetrate are less that the abuses a government that had the power to
prevent these abuses could itself perpetrate.
The CIA/KGB have offices everywhere, too. And, for that matter,
so do e-f-hutton etc.
What's your point?
WHY DON'T YOU QUIT YOUR ARBITRARY AND PATENTLY UNFOUNDED
EXCULPATION OF ONE SOURCE OF EXCESSIVE POWER ... *ALL* EXCESSIVE
CONCENTRATIONS OF POWER ARE BAD,
Do you honestly see no difference between the "power" of a dollar
and the power of a whip? Perhaps if you were to visit one of the many
countries already being run by your principles, you could learn the
difference.
ALL, NOT JUST SOME, NOT JUST THE ONES YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR
PALS!!!!
You think I consider all businessmen to be my pals? I don't. But
if there is a business I don't like for whatever reason, I don't have
to deal with them.
I don't HAVE any such choice when it comes to a government program I
object to. Nobody does. I wish, for instance, that I was allowed to
withdraw from Social Security. I'm not allowed to. And neither major
political party proposes to ever make Social Security voluntary. THIS
is the sort of thing I object to.
Have you any rational or factual objections to anything I have said
on this list? If so, please share them with us.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 1 Jan 87 12:50:19-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa
To: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
ANC's guiding "freedom charter" announces: "The People shall share
in the country's wealth. ... The mineral wealth beneath the soil,
the banks and monopoly industry shall be transferred to the
ownership of the people as a whole; all other industry and trade
shall be controlled to assist the well-being of the people."
You left out other key clauses in the Freedom Charter. Since I don't
think that it is your intention to misinform us, are then you assuming
that they will only enforce this clause and not the others? Once
could argue it the other way too. Anyway, below is the full text of
the Freedom Charter (which I got after numerous phone calls to three
local TV stations and tracing their pointers). The ANC adopted it in
1955. Since then other groups like the UDF have also adopted it.
While reading it, please bear in mind that you said the following in
an earlier message.
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
And the ANC supports NO individual rights for ANYONE.
Willie
______
THE FREEDOM CHARTER
===================
We, the People of South Africa, declare for
all our country and the world to know:
that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and
that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on
the will of all the people;
that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty
and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;
that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people
live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities;
that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can
secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race,
sex or belief;
And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white
together --- equals, countrymen and brothers --- adopt this Freedom
Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither
strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have
been won.
THE PEOPLE SHALL GOVERN!
Every man and woman shall have the right to vote for and to stand as a
candidate for all bodies which make laws;
All people shall be entitled to take part in the administration of the
country;
The rights of the people shall be the same, regardless of race, colour
or sex;
All bodies of minority rule, advisory boards, councils and authorities
shall be replaced by democratic organs of self-government.
ALL NATIONAL GROUPS SHALL HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS!
There shall be equal status in the bodies of state, in the courts and
in the schools for all national groups and races;
All people shall have equal right to use their own languages, and to
develop their own folk culture and customs;
All national groups shall be protected by law against insults to their
race and national pride;
The preaching and practice of national, race or colour discrimination
and contempt shall be a punishable crime;
All apartheid laws and practices shall be set aside.
THE PEOPLE SHALL SHARE IN THE COUNTRY'S WEALTH!
The national wealth of our country, the heritage of South Africans,
shall be restored to the people;
The mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industry
shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole;
All other industry and trade shall be controlled to assist the
well-being of the people;
All people shall have equal rights to trade where they chose, to
manufacture and to enter all trades, crafts and professions.
THE LAND SHALL BE SHARED AMONG THOSE WHO WORK IT!
Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and
all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and
land hunger;
The state shall help the peasants with implements, seed, tractors and
dams to save the soil and assist the tillers;
Freedom of movement shall be guaranteed to all who work on the land;
All shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose;
People shall not be robbed of their cattle, and forced labour and
farm prisons shall be abolished.
ALL SHALL BE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW!
No-one shall be imprisoned, deported or restricted without a fair
trial;
No-one shall be condemned by the order of any Government official;
The courts shall be representative of all the people;
Imprisonment shall be only for serious crimes against the people, and
shall aim at re-education, not vengeance;
The police force and army shall be open to all on an equal basis and
shall be the helpers and protectors of the people;
All laws which discriminate on grounds of race, colour or belief shall
be repealed.
ALL SHALL ENJOY EQUAL HUMAN RIGHTS!
The law shall guarantee to all their right to speak, to organise, to
meet together, to publish, to preach, to worship and to educate their
children;
The privacy of the house from police raids shall be protected by the
law;
All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to
town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad;
Pass Laws, permits and all other laws restricting these freedoms shall
be abolished.
THERE SHALL BE WORK AND SECURITY!
All who work shall be free to form trade unions, to elect their
officers and to make wage agreements with their employers;
The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work, and to
draw full unemployment benefits;
Men and women of all races shall receive equal pay for equal work;
There shall be a forty-hour working week, a national minimum wage,
paid annual leave, and sick leave for all workers, and maternity leave
on full pay for all working mothers;
Miners, domestic workers, farm workers and civil servants shall have
the same rights as all others who work;
Child labour, compound labour, the tot system and contract labour
shall be abolished.
THE DOORS OF LEARNING AND OF CULTURE SHALL BE OPENED!
The government shall discover, develop and encourage national talent
for the enhancement of our cultural life;
All the cultural treasures of mankind shall be open to all, by free
exchange of books, ideas and contact with other lands;
The aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people
and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace;
Education shall be free, compulsory, universal and equal for all
children;
Higher education and technical training shall be opened to all by
means of state allowances and scholarships awarded on the basis of
merit;
Adult illiteracy shall be ended by a mass state education plan;
Teachers shall have all the rights of other citizens;
The colour bar in cultural life, in sport and in education shall be
abolished.
THERE SHALL BE HOUSES, SECURITY AND COMFORT!
All people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently
housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
Unused housing space to be made available to the people;
Rent and prices shall be lowered, food plentiful and no-one shall go
hungry;
A preventive health scheme shall be run by the state;
Free medical care and hospitalisation shall be provided for all, with
special care for mothers and young children;
Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have
transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social
centres;
The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by
the state;
Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all;
Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws which break
up families shall be repealed.
THERE SHALL BE PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP!
South Africa shall be a fully independent state, which respects the
rights and sovereignty of all nations;
South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement
of all international disputes by negotiation --- not war;
Peace and friendship amongst all our people shall be secured by
upholding the equal rights, opportunities and status of all;
The people of the protectorates --- Basutoland, Bechuanaland and
Swaziland --- shall be free to decide for themselves their own future;
The right of all the peoples of Africa to independence and
self-government shall be recognised, and shall be the basis of close
co-operation.
Let all who love their people and their country now say,
as we say here:
`THESE FREEDOMS WE WILL FIGHT FOR,
SIDE BY SIDE, THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES,
UNTIL WE HAVE WON OUR LIBERTY.'
(Adopted at the Congress of the People of Kliptown, South Africa, on
26th June, 1955.)
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 87 23:51:23 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
Thanks for typing that in for us.
How many contradictions did you see in it?
And how many similarities to the Soviet constitution?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri 2 Jan 87 00:53:42-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
How many contradictions did you see in it?
I was only interested in the contradiction between your assertion that
"the ANC supports NO individual rights for ANYONE" and the clauses in
the Freedom Charter which was adopted by the ANC and other
anti-apartheid groups in South Africa.
And how many similarities to the Soviet constitution?
I can't tell until after I have read the Soviet constitution. Can you
submit it to Poli-Sci? But one thing is clear there is no mention of
"the Party" in the Freedom Charter. That's a big difference!
However, I do think it is a good idea to compare it with the
constitutions/policies/platforms/charters of countries like the
Scandinavian countries, France, Italy, Greece, India, Zimbabwe, etc.
or of political parties like the Labour Party of the UK.
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 20 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 10
Today's Topics:
Libertarian places &
Favoritism and Soviet Union (2 msgs) &
Equality and Freedom
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Re: Libertarian places
Date: 24 Dec 86 07:14:56 GMT
KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU writes:
> From: CCCRAIG%UMCVMB.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU (Craig Pepmiller)
> I've been following the discussion for awhile and have been
> wondering why concrete examples haven't been mentioned. Are there
> any practicing libertarian cities, counties, states or
> countries?... If there are no full examples could anyone list
> partial examples (those cities, states and nations that have come
> the closest) and give some measure of how close they have come?
>
> Well, marijuana is legal in Alaska, gambling and prostitution are
> legal in Nevada, and gambling is legal in New Jersey. I don't think
> these places are plagued with any horrible problems as a result of
> these freedoms.
> No place I am aware of grants full economic freedoms.
> ...Keith
Too bad. It is the economic theories for libertarian/propertarian
which seem, at least to me, most questionable and in need of
validation. I know of libertarians who believe that free markets are
so much more efficient that they always succeed much better than other
systems. Uh, make that that they would immediatly succeed much better
if there ever was one. When I ask if a more free market would do
better than a less free one, they usually agree. I cannot help but
chuckle a bit at this point, since it appears that if their theories
were correct free markets would have taken over long ago; instead they
seem to feel that libertarianism is declining around the world, as
governments grow and economic egocenticism is hounded into computer
network refuges. Like ice-9, perhaps it will take a catalyst to
suddenly show the world that free markets are better. Sort of a
creationist approach to the evolution of economic systems. This is
ironic considering that competition and natural selection are primary
libertarian icons. Keith, if I'm misunderstanding, please politely
inform me. ~z~
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 86 01:24:42 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Favoritism, Soviet Union
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Favoritism is going to be a problem as long as government has
power, however small. E.g. A person with the right "connections"
can see to it that his/her son/daughter does not get assigned to
dangerous missions at the front line in times of war.
What would be the point in that? Since there is no draft, his son
must have volunteered.
If the government does not have the power to take from people (for
instance to tax or to draft) then leaving people alone (for instance
to give a tax exemption or a draft deferment) is not a possible favor.
If the government does not have the power to give to people (for
instance welfare or a water project) then giving such things to people
is not a possible favor.
It is true that favoritism is still possible, although on a much
smaller scale. I don't see what can be done about that except pretty
much what is already being done.
... It helps to have a society ingrained with a strong set of
ethical values.
True.
It is easy to forget that this country got along just fine
without any federal income tax for over 130 years.
True, but we are now a global power bent on stopping those
commies.
We should give up our freedom so as to defend freedom?
(-: Perhaps we one day will begin to build bases on the moon and
other planets to protect them from those commies. :-)
We nearly gave away the moon and the planets to the communists and
the third world. Only last minute lobbying by the L5 society
prevented US ratification of the notorious Moon treaty, which said
that all resources in space were "the common heritage of mankind".
We now have fanatical "redbusters" with a deep hatred for anything
left of them.
Yep. I am one of them. Which is not to say that people should be
taxed or drafted to fight them.
To them it is all right for other countries to be dependent on our
government for their national defense
I don't think it is. But let there be no mistake about it, we are
not doing that as any favor to them - though they reap incalculable
benefit - we are doing it for our own benefit. I would see nothing
wrong with it if all contributions were voluntary.
but it is a sin for our citizens to be dependent on our government
for their welfare.
It is. Voluntary charity is one thing, but "charity" that depends
on money coercively taken from taxpayers is just plain theft.
Both kinds of addiction to government subsidies are expensive.
You can't have either one without an income tax.
Or some other kind of tax. True.
... If [communist countries] citizens don't feel strongly enough
to do something about their miseries, that's their problem.
There isn't a whole lot they can do. It's not like they could
circulate petitions, form an opposition party, or distribute anti-
communist literature.
We can't help them if they don't want to help themselves.
We can't help them whether they want to help themselves or not, that
is the real tragedy.
Also these commies are beginning to see their problems and are
attempting to fix them without giving up too much, if any at
all, in terms of political freedom and individual rights.
Are the "commies" the people or their government? This doesn't seem
to parse either way.
... there is a chance of our affecting the liberation of their
economic systems in such a way as to make it impossible for them
to have prosperity without providing sufficient individual
freedom.
Well, a communist economy can run only at a dark-ages level. If we
were to refuse to trade with them unless they respect their citizens'
rights, they will either do so or collapse into a midaeval form that
can be no threat to us. Of course, all other free countries would
have to go along with any such trade emargo for it to be effective.
Perhaps then we can reduce their hostile feelings to us.
I imagine that would increase their hostile feelings. But what
could they do?
I don't think we are on the same wavelength, here.
This would mean a propaganda warfare which would be a lot cheaper
than a defense system based just on paranoia.
"Paranoia" means an unjustified state of concern. I think that
their foreign policy (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, etc) and
their tens of thousands of nuclear weapons is sufficient justification
for keeping an effective deterrant to invasion or nuclear attack.
We don't even have to resort to disinformation as there are enough
facts about their failures to hang them.
Hang them how? In whose view? Anyone who still believes that the
Soviets are misunderstood good guys is so deluded that no facts are
going to change their mind.
What do you mean their "failures"? Are you saying that if they had
SUCCEEDED that that would justify all their terrorism, invasions, and
murders? In any case, I think they have succeeded all too well, given
that their goal is NOT a high standard of living, but eventual world
conquest.
...Keith
------------------------------
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Favoritism, Soviet Union
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
In any case, I think they have succeeded all too well, given that
their goal is NOT a high standard of living, but eventual world
conquest.
So your point is that it is not Soviet Marxism that is the threat but
rather Soviet Militarism that is the threat. If Russian imperialism
can "infect" both ends of the spectrum from the Czars to the
Bolsheviks, it is likely that the ordinary Russians are "infected"
too. Then a democratic Russia would be just as imperialistic. If
this is the case, it is not to our military advantage to have a more
democratic and economically powerful Russia. Psychological warfare
aimed at freeing the Russians from totalitarianism would be fruitless.
Instead we should concentrate on taking care of their imperialistic
tendency first.
I remember a right-wing friend of mine telling me not to confuse
communism with totalitarianism. By the same token we should not
confuse imperialism with communism. Imperialism provides us with an
opportunity for using a "divide and conquer strategy" against the
Communist bloc countries while communism does not.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 86 13:14:32 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Equality, Freedom
To: COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: fagin@JI.BERKELEY.EDU
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Let me give an example of "unproductive economic activity" told by
Seymour Melman at MIT last week. He said, "I do your wash, you do
my wash, we pay each other a dollar, and the GNP goes up two
dollars."
Fair enough. But is there any evidence that such activities
actually occur? If there is, why do they occur? (No fair using any
such examples against a free market economy if the reason is "tax
breaks").
... the economic system makes decisions for us, which actively
promote certain types of activity which would not take place if
the ground rules were different.
The "economic system" is US. Who else is to make decisions? And
what alternative ground rules do you propose?
Under alternative ground rules, the whole society would be better
off: the benefits of prosperity would be shared by more people.
I doubt it. I would be better able to analyze this if you were to
tell us your proposed ground rules.
Yes, I am making a judgement that greater distribution of wealth
would be desirable. Would you disagree?
All else being equal, of course not. But all else is not equal.
Whose wealth is to be distributed? And who decides how much and to
whom? If the creators of the wealth are the ones who decide how to
dispose of it, I have no objection. But I don't think that is what
you are saying. If it is NOT the creators of the wealth who are to
redistribute it, by what right is it to be done?
I do not think there is anything wrong with people having unequal
wealth. If one person has made a million dollars, it is not his fault
that his neighbor has not. Of course I think it is essential that
people have equal opportunity, i.e. there should be no laws which
discriminate against certain individuals, whether because of their
race, sex, nation of origin, or for any other reason.
Equal opportunity does not mean that anyone is owed an education
because of their race (or for any other reason) or that anyone is owed
a good grade in school regardless of how they do in school.
I would like to see a greater proportion of the population be
productive. That is the only way to reduce poverty without the poor
being parasitic on the rest of us. If you wat to give to a charity,
you should give to a scholarship fund. Better yet, campaign for
better public schools. If we must have public schools, and if we all
must attend these schools for thirteen years, the schools should be
useful. Some have said it is a disgrace that some high school
graduates cannot read or write. I say it is a disgrace that anyone is
let into the second grade who cannot read or write. If the high
school diploma, supposedly representing thirteen years (K-12) of
full-time effort and study on the part of the student, is now
worthless, whose fault is that? If a person is not fit to take up a
productive trade without several MORE years of education, perhaps we
should simply abolish elementary and secondary schools. It is not
merely a disgrace but a travesty that students even from communist
countries know more history, literature, math, philosophy, and
sciences than students in the United States.
The "free market" is really a myth; today, even in the purest
capitalist system you must have lots of rules and regulations that
define how the market works.
That a free market system can operate without lots of rules and
regulations is not a myth. That the United States is a free market
system IS unfortunately a myth. Though it does come much closer to
the ideal than most other major countries (which isn't saying much).
Other countries have far MORE rules and regulations on their
economy. I assume they feel that THOSE are necessary. Clearly they
aren't. Is it possible that ours aren't either? Reagan, for all his
faults, has partially deregulated several things including airline
service, oil, natural gas, and long distance telephone service. He
has cut back drastically on anti-trust cases. Has disaster struck?
Or have the goods and services which have been deregulated become less
expensive, more convenient, and of higher quality?
Do you think this trend might profitably be continued? Would we all
soon starve if it weren't for farm price supports? Would (sorry, I
can't imagine any conceivable ill effect) happen if it weren't for
tobacco price supports? Would Detroit look like Ethiopia if we
allowed unlimited automobile imports without tariffs? Would
unscrupulous doctors poison us with deadly pills (more than they are
doing now, I mean) if medical licensing and the FDA were abolished?
That's why the US is now giving China intensive training in how to
organize Western style trading.
More likely because China wants to stay on our good side, having
unaccountably gotten there in the first place.
This is a conscious decision; there is no one way to do it that is
"freer" than another.
There is considerable lattitude in the laws of a free society, but
the United States is outside that range, and China is extremely far
outside that range.
The ground rules must:
Accept that individuals have the right to:
o Run their own lives.
o Make voluntary deals among themselves.
o Keep created, earned, and freely traded wealth.
o Hold other individuals to their end of a freely-entered-into
contract.
o Defend themselves against individuals and groups that try to
violate their rights.
o Express their opinions.
Accept that government does NOT have the right to do anything except:
o Protect individual rights (i.e. police, courts, domestic military
defense).
Accept that individuals do NOT have the right to:
o Run other peoples lives.
o Redistribute other peoples wealth.
o Interfere with voluntary deals made by other people.
o Disarm other people.
Accept that individuals have the responsibility to:
o Support themselves.
o Support their non-adult children.
Accept that individuals do NOT have the responsibilty to:
o Solve the world's problems
o Help bail out other individuals, groups, or countries.
o Pay for debts not personally incurred.
o Donate to any charity.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Tuesday, 20 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 11
Today's Topics:
Our Gov. at work &
Classes in Libertaria &
South Africa &
Soviet Revolution &
Capitalism and Slavery &
Fear and Freedom
Taxation
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < marks@ads.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 10:57:31 pst
From: marks@ads.ARPA (Phil Marks)
Subject: TAXES
Now that we have all received our post-Christmas card (form 1040)
from Big Brother, here is a sample of where all that money will be
going.
AMENDMENT TO HR 5203, AUTOMATIC ELEVATOR OPERATORS. During
consideration of the fiscal 1987 legislative branch appropriations
bill, Representative Pat Swindall (R-GA) offered an amendment to
delete $91,450. from the bill by phasing out the part-time jobs of 14
automatic elevator operators in the House Office Buildings. It is the
job of these operators to punch the automatic buttons in the elevators
so that the Congressmen will not have to do so. According to
Swindall, his amendment was "drafted very carefully not to fire
anyone" but was intended instead "so that we simply do not replace
these individuals as they resign." He reminded his colleagues that,
"while $91,450. may not be a great deal - of course, many people could
buy a couple of homes for that amount - it is very important that we
set the example in our own appropriations." Nevertheless, Swindall's
amendment was rejected on July 29, 1986 by a vote of 168 to 238.
(Congressional Record, page H4991, roll call 257)
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 86 13:17:42 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Lifestyles of the poor and unknown
To: COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: fagin@JI.BERKELEY.EDU
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... What would be the lifestyle of the people who owned least?
I am sure it would vary from person to person.
Would they become a "servant class," like many Mexican-Americans
in California?
Some might, if they felt it was better than any other alternative
available at the time.
How would you be sure that they would not starve?
If there is anything they can do or can supply which is worth more
to someone than the cost of food - and a person can live on 50 cents
of food a day - they will not starve. If anyone who has any money or
food wishes them not to starve, they will not starve.
Why do you think that the people who owned least would be on the
verge of starvation? In many non-free-market economies such as
Ethiopia, even the "middle class" is on the verge of starvation. In
the US, not only do poor people seldom starve, their average weight is
greater than the average weight of wealthier people. Most of them
even have TVs.
Is it not possible that in a truly free economy that the people who
owned least might be wealthier than most Americans are today?
In any case, what guarantees that they will not starve in a non-free
economy? Obviously, nothing does, since there have been great famines
in Russia, China, Ethiopia, and other non-free societies. No amount
of coercion and no amount of pity will feed the hungry if no food is
grown, or house the homeless if no buildings are built.
Where is there a check on the "free market" that limits the amount
of human suffering?
The check is simply that each person is free to act in his own best
interests. People can create wealth secure in the knowledge that it
will not be taken from them by legal force, and that the rules won't
suddenly change on them. People can invest more of their income, give
more to charity, and spend more (which results in increased
employment) when forty percent of their money is not taken as taxes
(that's the average now, counting ALL taxes) and when the remainder
does not lose its value from year to year (i.e. inflation - which can
be solved by going to a gold standard).
Where is there a check on the NON-FREE market that limits the amount
of human suffering? Freedom is quite a lot to give up. What do we
get in return for this enormous sacrifice? And how can government
guarantee it?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri 2 Jan 87 02:11:18-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: South Africa
To: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
ANC's leadership includes admitted members of the communist party.
So we should doubt their sincerity in adopting the Freedom Charter?
(As an aside, does anyone out there know if the SA communist party
adopted the Freedom Charter?)
The ANC praises Desmond Tutu, who said that South African blacks
would welcome a Soviet occupation.
I would be interested in reading the full text of Desmond Tutu
comments with regard to this. Please send me a pointer to the text.
By the way note that P.W. Botha had not put Tutu in prison yet while
many anti-apartheid foes (black and white) have been detained in the
current state of emergency.
The ANC's weapons are supplied by Russia,....
The West turned down their requests for arms. Your case would be a
lot stronger if the West had offered them arms and the ANC made the
explicit choice of not accepting arms from the West but rather from
the communist countries. Also note that the Angolan rebel leader
Savimbi at one time did receive arms from the communist countries.
Now that we offer him weapons, he gladly receives them. Would the ANC
reject our weapons if we were to offer them weapons now? Or should we
doubt Savimbi's loyalty to the anti-communist cause? Note too that
Robert Mugabe's guerilla movement received lots of arms from the
communist countries. But now the British army are providing military
training to the Zimbabwean army. Also Zimbabwe is not a communist
country (at least not yet).
...its radio broadcasts are transmitted from socialist Ethiopia,...
Could be, but I have also read reports that the broadcasts are made
from countries a lot closer to South Africa.
...and its newspaper _Sechaba_ is printed in East Germany.
Could be too, but I have also read that their publications houses are
a lot closer to South Africa and the material are smuggled into SA by
courriers. Logistically it makes sense for them to print near SA.
It and the government are the two main forces in South Africa.
Not true, there are other anti-apartheid forces inside SA. For
example the recent agreement to share power between whites and blacks
in Natal province (where the whites are predominantly English speaking
whites) and KwaZulu. That agreement was rejected by the interior
minister of the Botha government. Also, it is interesting to note
that (1) the small number of votes against the final agreement
included those cast by two Afrikaaner groups that participated in the
discussions and (2) the ANC and far right groups like the ARM (the
Afrikaaner Resistance Movement) did not participate.
...Anyone who opposes one is presumed to support the other.
Not true. Read the previous paragraph.
...Blacks who have publically criticized the ANC have been
assassinated.
You seem to imply that most if not all blacks who are against the ANC
publicly are assassinated. Can you provide the figures? While you
are working at the figures, please include figures on the number of
people killed because they are against apartheid. (-:Perhaps then we
can work out an efficiency ratio and see whether the ANC or the South
African government is more efficient in this kind of thing.:-) Also
bear in mind that Buthelezi (an ex-ANC member) has publicly rejected
the ANC. Buthelezi is still alive. (-: Perhaps Buthelezi is an ANC
mole. :-)
Conclusion: Your point that the ANC is a communist organization
determined on making SA a satellite of the SU contradicts the ANC's
adoption of the Freedom Charter. Perhaps your real point is that the
ANC's adoption of the Freedom Charter is a farce. The South African
government and the Reagan administration would love to let the world
know this if they have concrete evidence. Only time will tell if you
are right. Meanwhile be on a look out for disinformation.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Friday, 2 January 1987 09:57:10 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: SU revolution
I'd like to emphasize what Willie Lim said about the Soviet Union
(SU). Based on what I have read, and people I have talked to who have
lived in the Soviet Union (Americans and Russians), there is not the
slightest chance of any sort of armed Russian resistance against the
government for the foreseeable future. Russians are patriots like
Americans. They may not like everything the government does, but
there is a reasonable chance that in a free election, Gorbachev would
win. A much more interesting question is the discontent among the
Soviet minorities. There was just an article in the New York Times
noting the fact that Russians will shortly become a minority in the
SU. And there were those riots in Alma Ata recently when a Russian
replaced a local as party boss.
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 86 13:21:02 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Who invented slavery?
To: cuae2!ihnp4!dual!paul@TOPAZ.RUTGERS.EDU
Cc: Cowan@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Return-path: cuae2!ihnp4!dual!paul@topaz.rutgers.edu
... The free enterprise system created slavery in this and many
other countries. I don't consider this compatible with human
liberty.
Every major civilization in history had slavery. Ancient China had
slavery. Ancient Egypt had slavery. The Hebrews who escaped from
Egyptian slavery had slavery. The Persian Empire had slavery.
"Democratic" Athens had slavery. The Roman "republic" had slavery, as
did the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire had slavery. The
Spaniards enslaved the people they found in South America. Slavery is
condoned in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, and the
Vedas.
The free enterprise system did not INVENT slavery, it INHERITED it.
And it ABOLISHED it, something no other system had done.
Also slavery was not stopped by a bunch of Libertarians either.
It is true that Abe Lincoln had a few un-libertarian ideas. For
instance he instituted a draft, and he favored sending all blacks to
Africa.
Communism has reinstituted slavery over much of the world. Stopping
this, and the semi-slavery of huge tax rates and excessive control of
private activities found in semi-free countries like the United
States, is in fact the main task that libertarians set for themselves.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 18:59:36 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Fear and rights
To: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
Cc: fagin@JI.BERKELEY.EDU
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
I would say that "reasonable" fears are those based on fact;
... I can think of no empirical reason to be afraid of blacks
any more than i should be afraid to whites ...
What if blacks are statistically more likely to attack people on the
street? Is a fear of them then reasonable? Perhaps so.
In the case of rational fears, legislation would be appropriate if
no other method of eliminating the fear is possible, in order to
protect the rights of others to not be harmed.
Does that mean it is ok to pass a law banning blacks from the
street? I would say definitely not.
A while back, there were a few comments in this digest about
whether or not it was possible for basic rights to be in
conflict,...
It isn't, by definition.
Isn't this such a case where rights can be in conflict?
Only if freedom from fear is a right. It isn't. Not even if you
restrict it to "reasonable" fear.
People have a right not to be mugged, and if someone mugs them he
can be locked up. But people do not have any right to be free from
FEAR of being mugged, which would imply that a person who is feared
should be locked up.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 86 13:26:05 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Taxes
[ I find no real proof of this. I don't buy that people would
take their tax monies, turn right around and spend it on exactly
what their taxes would have gone for.
If they wouldn't, that is further proof that taxes are wrong. A
correct tax, if there could ever be such a thing, would pay for
exactly what people would voluntarily pay for in its absense.
(Not to say that I favor the current system of taxation.) -CWM]
What would you favor in its place?
...Keith
[ Hey, we're arguing about what you favor, not what I favor! :-) In
any event, I find your reasoning rather circular - which makes it easy
to 'prove', I suppose.
Unfortunately, I have no dogma to fall back on in this regard. I
think some form of government revenue-generation (yes, taxation) is
required, though not at levels even approaching 10% of income. I
favor considerably less government, but (I know this will send me to
libertarian hell - oh that's right, I'm already there) I don't beleive
that hell-for-leather profit-making will solve everything, or even
most of everything. I think there's a middle ground. -CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 21 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 12
Today's Topics:
Education and Democracy &
Drug Testing &
Comparable Worth &
Pollution, and Property Rights (3 msgs) &
Roads and Mass Transit
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Friday, 2 January 1987 10:01:30 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Education, Economics and Democracy
The recent demonstrations in China bring to mind an interesting
question: Is it always the case that high education levels lead to a
strong push for democracy? In a similar vein, is their always a
strong coupling between a high standard of living and democracy? Or
does the high standard of living imply high education levels, which
causes the push for democracy? All three factors are at work in Korea
and Taiwan.
------------------------------
Return-path: < fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 12:27:30 PST
From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
Subject: drug testing
Jonathan Corbet (jon@seismo) writes, with regard to drug testing:
> ... I don't know about you, but I am not owned by anybody but me,
> and the details of what I do with my body are my own business.
You certainly do own your body, and if you really feel that the
details of what you do with your body are your own business, then you
can tell employers who want to know more to go take a hike. But if
the employer wants to test job applicants, what right do you have to
say that he cannot? By what right may you dictate the actions of
other human beings? Other job applicants may not find testing
objectionable; should the employer be forced to consider you on an
equal footing anyway?
Seems to me that a) your rights extend only so far as to what you
agree to, and b) the rights of the employer extend only so far as to
what he will agree to. Anything else just doesn't make sense. So, in
a nutshell, I think the best way to decide the testing issue is to let
it be negotiated in the marketplace.
One advantage of letting consenting adults decide the
testing issue is the large quantities of information that
would be generated. Does drug use seriously affect worker
productivity? If so, how much? Which drugs are worse
than others? Are drug tests really reliable? What about
the effect of drug testing on employee morale? Surely
everyone agrees that these questions are important. No
congressional committee report, NSF study, or legislative
act can help answer these questions as thoroughly, reliably,
and quickly as open-market negotiation.
--Barry
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Friday, 2 January 1987 10:24:50 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: comparable worth
There are many reasons given for why on average women earn less than
men: child bearing, job categories, shorter career, etc. One that
does not seem to receive a lot of play is unionization. A typical
example given by the advocates of comparable worth is that of a
secretary making much less than an assembly line worker. The
assembler has to work in a semi-unpleasant environment, but the
secretary has greater skills and needs more education. The kicker is
that the assembler is a union member, and the secretary is not. One
can think of the secretary as an exploited worker worth more than s/he
is getting, or one can think of the assembler as overpaid. In any
case, I think this gap will narrow for the following reasons: union
jobs are concentrated in the manufacturing sector, which is in fierce
competition with foreign companies. This holds down manufacturing
wages, narrowing the wage gap. In addition, manufacturing is being
automated, which is causing a decline the number of union members,
forcing unions to look to the service sector for members. Even if
unionization of pink collar works is not successful, the threat of it
will probably force wages up some.
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 19:07:25 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Pollution, Parks
To: mangoe@MIMSY.UMD.EDU
Cc: fagin@JI.BERKELEY.EDU
From: Charley Wingate < mangoe@mimsy.umd.edu>
[Wells and reservoirs] are very sensitive to anyone who uses "his"
section of the river as a dumping ground for chemicals or sewage.
If the dangerous chemicals enter someone else's property, as they of
course would if sections of a river were seperately owned, then the
dumper is violating the property rights of the owner of the downstream
section of the river.
Property rights do not imply the right to damage other people's
property. Quite the opposite. It is property that everyone owns -
which therefore noone owns - which tends to get polluted, damaged,
vandalized, abused, or otherwise trashed.
... a really important benefit which nearly everyone accrues from
the national parks: the notion that *they*, through the proxy of
the government, are protecting this stuff.
Why not make it voluntary? Why should those who aren't interested
in this dubious benefit have to pay for it anyway?
... And the selling off of those national assets cannot look
anything but commercial.
What's wrong with looking commercial?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 19:11:19 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Waste
To: lll-crg!amdcad!csanders@RUTGERS.RUTGERS.EDU
Cc: Cowan@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU, fagin@JI.BERKELEY.EDU
From: lll-crg!amdcad!csanders@rutgers.rutgers.edu
(Craig S. Anderson)
... Companies ... just bury drums full of waste on their own
property to avoid the expense of sending it to an approved
landfill. Are they exercising their private property rights?
As long as they are able to guarantee that the waste won't escape
and spoil other people's property, and so long as they reveal the
existence of the waste to any potential buyer of their property, yes.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 19:19:04 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Pollution and compensation
To: flink@MIMSY.UMD.EDU
Cc: fagin@JI.BERKELEY.EDU
From: flink@mimsy.UUCP (Paul V Torek)
Is it OK for me to go ahead and pollute, as long as I am held
responsible for damages I cause?
No. Pollution is just like any other crime. It has one or more
victims, who will not normally be "society" or "government" but
individuals and organizations.
what if the damaged persons aren't satisfied with being imposed
upon and then "compensated"?
One could ask the same question in the case of any crime.
Who gets to decide how much compensation is enough: the person
whose well-being is at stake, or the courts? It seems that a
consistent libertarian must say: the person whose well-being is at
stake.
No. The courts. Why is that inconsistent?
P.S. I have directed followups to talk.politics.theory, which I
regularly read (unlike this newsgroup).
I am sending this to Poli-Sci since I am on the ARPA side rather
than the UUCP side. I don't know how that maps into UUCP.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < andy@shasta.stanford.edu>
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 87 19:08:10 PST
From: Andy Freeman < andy@shasta.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Road-users paying for it
dual!paul@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU writes:
> [arguments for "roads should not be subsidized" I agree, but mass
> transit shouldn't be subsidized either, for all of the same reasons.]
>
> [He then quotes someone else, no source given, who said:]
> > All mass transit does is get people from A to B slowly, and in
> > discomfort. The only beneficiaries are the small minority of
> > individuals for whom the mass transit system's service nearly
> > approximates an automobiles.
>
> Once again little of this is true. Mass Transit benefits everyone,
> even drivers. Every person who travels by public transit leaves
> extra room on road for those who are not travelling by public
> transit.
Roads benefit everyone, even users of (read subsidized) mass transit.
Every person who drives leaves extra room on mass transit for those
who are not traveling by roads.
Subsidized transit authorities constantly fight non-subsidized mass
transit providers. The Bay Area used to have a private train system
that worked. SF-MUNI is trying to abolish small carriers that run
between the train station (running from San Jose to SF) and the
financial district.
Most of the problems of mass transit are due to their being
subsidized. Mass transit only works along high traffic corridors, yet
subsidized systems have to appear to be universal. BART should have
double tracks on some of its routes and shouldn't exist on others. It
should have decent parking at the suburban stations. (There isn't
enough even if the urban lots weren't used by non-patrons.) Neither
of these is possible in a tax-supported system, yet they would make it
possible for BART make money. Mass transit doesn't work for the whole
Bay Area, but it could work for parts of it.
As he wrote earlier in the same article:
> > In sum, the roads perform a variety of useful services besides
> > getting people from A to B.
> This is absolute drivel. The ONLY service roads provide is to get
> objects from A to B. In all other respects they are very
> unsatisfactory. They are dangerous, killing ten of thousands a year.
> They are the chief cause of pollution in most cities. How close to a
> Freeway would you like to live?
>
The ONLY service mass transit provides is to get objects from A to B.
It is inconvenient and people value this more than the risk of
accident. (I've never been mugged in my car either.) Moreover, I'd
rather live close to a freeway than to a subway or BART station
because the cost (probability * expense) of violent crime near the
latter is higher than the cost of pollution near the former. (I've
lived on a frontage road of 101, a freeway. It was easier to sleep
there than it would be near a BART station.) Mass transit is also
heavly optimized for people-transport. I couldn't shop "in bulk" if I
had to use mass transit and I'm sure that there are other things that
I would find difficult if I couldn't drive. (BTW - The local road
system is necessary for bulk items, like furniture, deliveries to
stores, etc. Mass transit can't replace the expensive part of the
road system, the local streets; freeways have a lot of economies of
scale.)
> Also
> in the Bay Area and other real city areas, the "minority" that uses
> public transit is far from small.
The SF Bay Area is a perfect example of a place that mass transit
technology can't handle. (BTW - Mass transit usage in the Bay Area is
important, but under 10%. The absolute number of people who use mass
transit is large, but the relative one isn't.) It covers a large
area, yet the density of transportation demand varies widely from
place to place. (Did you know that total ridership on the New York
City subways peaked in 1948. Since the population has grown since
then, it is losing proportionally. NYC is much better than the Bay
Area for mass transit because its population density is not only
higher but more uniform.)
Current road technology scales over a wider range (10 lane freeways to
the street outside my house) and is predictable. BART missed its
design performance goals by somewhere between a factor of 2 and a
factor of 4 (and the cars are full) yet costs (original capital and
reoccurring) that much more than it was supposed to. (No, inflation
doesn't explain most of the cost overrun.) A six-lane freeway can be
built within 10% of budget and supports the same traffic that other
six-lane freeways do. Every subsidized mass transit system is
different and none of them work as well as promised. (This may be due
to being government run, but that doesn't affect roads nearly as
much.) Did I mention that highways are very redundant and degrade
gracefully, yet mass transit systems degrade catestrophically?
The traditional response to "mass transit doesn't handle wide traffic
variations" is "we'll use different types of mass transit for the
different loads". That hasn't worked very well and it isn't likely to
get more convenient. Not only that, it is usually restricted to
variations over space, not time. Mass transit systems provide decent
off-hours service only if they aren't adequate for high traffic
periods. Most are the worst of both worlds, they are inadequate in
both heavy and light usage times.
> Certainly the Los Angeles solution
> of building ever wider Freeways at taxpayer's expense is no solution.
> The result is always the same: the congestion that was to be reduced
> by the new Freeway is moved to another section of road. In the end
> you get a sprawling city of clogged roads.
>
> Paul Wilcox-Baker.
>
Wrong lesson. Many overloaded systems have many points of congestion
and the LA freeway system is certainly overloaded. Easing one spot
lets others be expressed. Also, there is substantial unsatisfied
transportation demand in LA, eg some people travel at "inconvenient"
times or batch or omit trips. Some of this comes back into the system
when it improves a bit.
-andy
--
Andy Freeman
UUCP: ...!decwrl!shasta!andy forwards to
ARPA: andy@sushi.stanford.edu
(415) 329-1718/723-3088 home/cubicle
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 22 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 13
Today's Topics:
Hiring (3 msgs) &
Social Security &
Communism (2 msgs) &
Libertarian Ideals &
Immigration &
Drugs for the dying
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 19:40:46 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Hiring
To: SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA
From: Lynn Gazis < SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
It is a fact of nature that food and housing do not come without
someone working for them. It need not be a fact of nature that
people, on getting out of school or losing a job, wanting
desperately to work, print and mail out hundreds of resumes, then
rewrite them and try again after they have seen those hundreds of
resumes fail to turn up so much as one interview, mail out
hundreds more, and gradually grow to hate themselves because
nothing they do seems to turn up a job. That is the way things
are now, and that needs to change, ...
Agreed. The cause is quite simple. Check into how much government
paperwork must be done in order to legally hire someone, and into what
the penalties are for failure to fill it out completely or properly.
Don't forget state, county, and city governments, either. Check into
how much money must be earmarked for various mandatory government
programs such as Social Security, Workmen's Compensation and
Unemployment Insurance, for each dollar on the employees paycheck.
Don't forget state run programs such as California's mandatory
Short-term Disability Insurance. Look into how much employers must
withhold from employee's paychecks in how many categories, how many
different places this withheld money must be sent, and what the
penalties are for making any mistakes. Look into the EEOC rules, what
constitutes "evidence" that an employer has been discriminating, and
what the penalties are. Look at the network of laws that make it
almost impossible to fire an employee once he or she is hired. And
what about the new laws in many states that if a woman takes off for a
year or two to have a child, she must be immediately given her old job
back if she asks for it? And what are employers to make of the
contradictory requirements that women must be given equal preference
to men AND that veterans (who are mostly men) must be given preference
over all non-veterans? And don't forget the new immigration reform
bill, which says that if an illegal alien is hired, the employer can
go to jail, even if the employee had what appeared to be proof that he
was a citizen!
All this is in the free industries. Many industries are controlled
by legally mandated monopolies called labor unions, one of whose main
functions is to exclude newcomers.
This is why it is sometimes hard to get a job.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!jon@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!jon@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 87 19:39:40 mst
Subject: Drug testing
To: berkeley.edu!fagin@ji.berkeley.edu
Barry Fagin writes:
> > ... I don't know about you, but I am not owned by anybody but me,
> > and the details of what I do with my body are my own business.
>
> But if the employer wants to test job applicants, what right
> do you have to say that he cannot? By what right may you dictate
> the actions of other human beings?
> [...]
> Seems to me that a) your rights extend only so far as to what
> you agree to, and b) the rights of the employer extend only
> so far as to what he will agree to. Anything else just doesn't
> make sense. So, in a nutshell, I think the best way to decide
> the testing issue is to let it be negotiated in the marketplace.
I think that employer's rights make sense only if these rights are
also guaranteed:
- The right not to starve, and not to have to watch one's
dependants starve.
- The right to shelter.
- The right to health care.
In essence, the right to not take a job that one finds repulsive. As
a high-tech professional, I would indeed tell a drug-testing employer
to take a leap, and work somewhere else. If I were a layed-off
30-year steel worker with a family to feed, mortgage payments, and a
sick child, and a single job popped up after months of looking, I
would be forced to abide by just about anything the employer required.
What it comes down to is this: when somebody needing a job has no
choice but to take whatever comes up, a "free market" condition really
does not exist. The situation is analogous to any other sort of
monopoly situation. If Ford were the only automobile manufacturer,
then a marketplace solution to price and quality problems would be
highly unlikely. It is thus asking a great deal to expect the market
place to resolve an issue like drug testing in any sort of
satisfactory manner.
> One advantage of letting consenting adults decide the
> testing issue is the large quantities of information that
> would be generated.
One advantage of genocide is that lots of bodies are made available
for medical research. Just as victims of genocide generally are not
"consenting," most employees have little choice.
---
Jonathan Corbet
{hao | nbires}!gaia!jon
------------------------------
Return-path: < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 5 Jan 87 01:16:22-EST
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: How are wages set?
To: kfl@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
It seems that the concept of an ideal "free market," which frequently
appears on this digest, faces a fundamental obstacle: wages are never
determined simply by market forces (supply and demand). Market forces
obviously have an effect (especially in skilled jobs such as computer
programming), but the balance of supply and demand is largely
determined by the more general struggle for power between labor and
management.
There is ample historical evidence to back up this connection; three
well documented books which deal with some of these battles between
labor and management (like the 40-hour work week) are "Poor People's
Movements," by Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, "On Democracy,"
by Josh Cohen and Joel Rogers, and "Forces of Production," by David
Noble.
So my question is, where do unions stand in a "libertarian" society?
I don't believe anyone has stated a mechanism that would make them
unnecessary. Certainly a free society could not prohibit
unrepresented workers from organizing to gain benefits. Thus unions
must be compatible with "free enterprise?"
Or would unions be taking away the rightful property of investors by
fighting for higher wages -- interfering with market forces? This, I
believe, comes down to the question Keith Lynch raised -- who creates
the property, workers or owners? Marxists would say "labor creates
all wealth" and Milton Freedman might say "investment capital creates
all wealth." I'd say the answer is somewhere in between, and that
there is no free market mechanism to set the ratio. Rather,
distribution of the wealth created by production depends on the
relative power of workers and management.
Comments?
-rich
------------------------------
Return-path: < @po3.andrew.cmu.edu:haste#@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 18:17:30 est
From: haste#@andrew.cmu.edu (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Mismanagement of Social Security
> Over the past several years, I have invested thousands of
> dollars in the largest investment fund in the world. I
> recently learned that this fund has been grossly mismanaged.
> ........Does ANYONE know or have an idea
> how I can get out of the social security system.
A bit of historical perspective.
When the social security system was introduced, the best part of half
a century ago, it was clear to the introducers that it would neither
be an investment fund nor an insurance fund. This was known from the
actuarial verities of the time.
It was also clear that the program could only be sold, politically, as
an insurance program (although the numbers didn't really support
that). And so it was.
Part of the legacy of that decision was that to this day it is common
to find people who think that someone, somewhere, somewhen, commited
the social security program to pay its expenses out of its invested
income.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 18:37:22 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Commies
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU, hal@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
After years of anti-communist indoctrination, it is hard to call
[commies] anything else. ... It is also hard to say anything good
about them. Thus the quest for objectivity (-: a way of
self-deprogramming :-). ...
I am not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that opposing
communists is not objective? Or that "indoctrination" is the only
reason why anyone would oppose them or have nothing good to say about
them? Please clarify.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 4 Jan 87 20:59:16-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Commies
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU, hal@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Are you saying that opposing communists is not objective?
Nope but opposing communism out of sheer hatred and without any
factual support is not objective. (You are attempting to argue
against yourself here since the point implied by the question is yours
and not mine.)
Or that "indoctrination" is the only reason why anyone would oppose
them or have nothing good to say about them?
Indoctrination is bad. It insults the intelligence of the individual.
Rational individuals would come to the same conclusions (against
communism) without being told by the government what to conclude from
the facts. In the case of communism, it turns out that the facts show
that communism is a big lose. For those unlucky ones who are
subjected to communist indoctrination, that (indoctrination) is the
only way for them to oppose, or to have nothing good to say about, our
free enterprise system.
Please clarify.
Things should be pretty clear by now.
Willie
P.S. If you are into arguing against yourself please leave me out of
it.
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Mon 5 Jan 87 15:23:03-EST
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: What a libertarian treasures most
To: kfl@mx.lcs.mit.edu%mc.lcs.mit.edu
"Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> writes:
> I'll put it another way. Suppose majority of taxpayers in an
> area have become convinced that 2+2=5. Should they actually be
> able to force schools to stop teaching that 2+2=4?
>
> Yes. It is completely unreasonable to compel someone to pay for
> the teaching of something they believe to be false.
So it is now quite clear that the highest value held by Libertarians
is that of Money, rather than something more superfluous such as
Truth.
> The only answer to this paradox is to eliminate public schools.
> The wall between education and state should be as solid as the wall
> between church and state, and for the same reason.
If state-sponsored education is to be based on verifiable facts, and
churches are based on faith, then the same reason cannot apply.
~joe testa~
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 20:38:44 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Immigration deform
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... given that there are lots of illegal immigrants from
non-Hispanic regions too ... does the new law apply to them too?
Yes. Though of course most illegal immigrants are from Spanish
speaking countries.
If so, then employers better ask for their green card or
naturalization papers.
What if the person really was born in the United States? He
wouldn't have such papers.
My understanding is the employer is liable even if the illegal
immigrant showed him realistic fake papers.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 28 Dec 86 19:24:25 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Drugs for the dying
... If you were dying of the disease and had plenty of money, you
could do what you describe. ...
Not legally.
Do the poor or uneducated just die and we say too bad?
If anyone anywhere is willing to pay for drugs that would cure them,
then they would not.
But this isn't the issue. The issue we were discussing is whether
people who can afford a drug should be allowed to use it, given that
they believe it might help. The government's position is that they
should not, unless the government itself approves the drug.
And would you PLEASE stop trying to create arguements for me try
and get me to defend? ... - CWM]
You appeared to agree with the government's position. I simply
asked if this is true, and if so, why.
...Keith
[ Well, I don't, so there. I don't agree with your definition of the
topic, by the way. The issue is whether people with terminal illness
should be preyed upon by snake-oil salesmen. You appear to say yes, I
say no. -CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 26 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 14
Today's Topics:
Immigration &
Pres. Carter (2 msgs) &
Social Security &
Slavery &
Road-users &
'Involuntary Financing' &
Discrimination
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Monday, 5 January 1987 15:50:15 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: immigration ID
The new immigration law does not require the employer to verify the
authenticity of identification provided as proof of residency. So as
long as a person presents ID, and you duly record it, you're in the
clear.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 17:29:05 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Carter
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Thanks for the numbers. But you left out inflation, which is far
more insidious than unemployment. Also, don't forget the "energy
crisis" which went away as soon as oil was decontrolled. Carter's
solution was to demand that thermostats be kept at 68 and 78 degrees.
Many people including me found this an unreasonable extention of
government powers. He also re-instituted draft registration, and
"voluntary" wage controls.
Reagan, for all his faults, isn't one to just start demanding this
and legislating that, all across the spectrum of human activities.
Neither did Reagan act incredibly shocked and let down when the
Soviets did something really brutal during his administration, as
Carter did. And Reagan has the sense to sit and wait when necessary,
instead of carrying on like Carter did during the Iran hostage crisis.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 5 Jan 87 00:55:03-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Carter
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
But you left out inflation, which is far more insidious than
unemployment.
That wasn't intentional but I did mention real interest rates and that
I didn't have time to look up the numbers. You did however left out
the trade and budget deficits. Only time will tell if these deficits
are more harmful than the high inflation rate of the Carter
administration. My point was that there was more economic growth in
Carter's four years than in Reagan's first four years. You seem to be
saying (and the public perception seems to concur) that a high
inflation rate (and hence interest rate) is worse than a lower
economic growth or a high budget deficit. I sure hope you are right
especially with regard to the budget deficit otherwise our economy
might be in for some deep trouble.
Reagan, for all his faults, ....
Whatever Reagan can get away with, any future president (including a
statist) can get away with too. If a president is not held
accountable for his/her actions simply because you like him/her more
(or dislike him/her less) can lead to a corruption of our system of
government. Presidents of the left or right will keep testing the
limits of your tolerance until one eventually goes overboard.
Remember that we elected a president and not an emperor. If we let a
president get overboard we have no one else but ourselves to blame.
Also if you like a president who is for less government, someone like
Jack Kemp, Warren Rudman, John Sunnunu (and even Pat Buchanan) would
be a much better choice. These people are not only intelligent they
are also highly competent (except maybe for Buchanan).
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Monday, 5 January 1987 16:00:13 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Social Security
The Social Security "prospectus" doesn't say that they're going to
invest your contributions. They just promise to pay you an amount
determined by a formula starting at a retirement age or disability
conditions, all subject to change. The only way to stop paying while
living and working in the US is to go to work for a state whose
government has its own retirement plan.
P.S. Of course SS has billions in liquid assets. They also have
zillions in unfunded liabilities, but they could also list the
estimated future Social Security tax collections from the US
population as an asset too.
The above does not constitute an endorsement of "pay-as-you-go"
retirement funds.
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 86 20:34:58 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Who invented slavery?
To: cuae2!ihnp4!dual!paul@TOPAZ.RUTGERS.EDU
Cc: Cowan@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Return-path: cuae2!ihnp4!dual!paul@topaz.rutgers.edu
... The free enterprise system created slavery in this and many
other countries. I don't consider this compatible with human
liberty.
Every major civilization in history had slavery. Ancient China had
slavery. Ancient Egypt had slavery. The Hebrews who escaped from
Egyptian slavery had slavery. The Persian Empire had slavery.
"Democratic" Athens had slavery. The Roman "republic" had slavery, as
did the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire had slavery. The
Spaniards enslaved the people they found in South America. Slavery is
condoned in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, and the
Vedas.
The free enterprise system did not INVENT slavery, it INHERITED it.
And it ABOLISHED it, something no other system had done.
Also slavery was not stopped by a bunch of Libertarians either.
It is true that Abe Lincoln had a few un-libertarian ideas. For
instance he instituted a draft, and he favored sending all blacks to
Africa.
Communism has reinstituted slavery over much of the world. Stopping
this, and the semi-slavery of huge tax rates and excessive control of
private activities found in semi-free countries like the United
States, is in fact the main task that libertarians set for themselves.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < ihnp4!killer!elg@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: ihnp4!killer!elg@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Re: Road-users paying for it
The poster of the above dialog basically argued that he does not
use roads, thus he doesn't want to pay taxes to support roads. Or
something to that effect.
Actually, almost all federal highway construction IS financed by
the people who use the roads. Just look at the gas pump someday...
and notice the excise tax... thus the people who use the road, ARE
paying for the road.
There's a lot of things that I don't want our government doing. Like
subsidies, boondoggles, huge security agencies, etc... but let's be
reasonable, government DOES have a purpose in the general realm of
things. The primary one, of course, being to protect me from those who
would rob me of my things, or my life (thus police forces, fire
departments, the Armed Forces if we assume that unfriendly powers
would rape & pillage us otherwise, etc.). And subsidising or
providing public utilities in areas where otherwise they would be
unprofitable -- e.g. rural areas had no electricity until the Fed.
Govt. set up rural electrical co-op fund, one way Ma Bell was allowed
to keep her monopoly for so long, was by using city dwellers to
subsidise rural phone co.'s, etc. Basically, you CAN say that these
are necessary for the protection of those unfortunate enough to be in
a place where utilities are not commercially economical.
And to a rural dweller, the automobile is the most important
part of his life. Without an automobile, someone living in Castor,
Louisiana (pop. 500), would starve to death -- walking 20 miles to
the nearest store isn't very feasible, especially for the old,
and 500 people won't support
much of a store, and wouldn't be able to finance a road to take
their product to the nearest city, Shreveport, which is 50 miles
away over hilly terrain (that'll be a few million dollars,
probably!).
I still can't get over these city slickers with their snide
assumptions that life in The Real World is just like it is in
their canyons of concrete and glass.... listen, Los Angeles or
New York isn't the United States, most people still live in cities
of 250,000 or less.
* Airwick *
--
Eric Green {akgua,ut-sally}!usl!elg, elg%usl.CSNET
(Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509)
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 19:08:29 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Involuntary financing
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
You are still thinking that people have the right to all these
government provided services.
I never said that!
If they can be provided voluntarily, that's fine, you reason.
But if the voluntary providers change their minds, government
should pull out the guns and force them to keep providing the
services.
Nope, I never said anything about guns and force. (I am beginning
to agree with Charles:
"...And would you PLEASE stop trying to create arguements for
me and get me to defend?...- CWM]"
Well said, Charles.)
I am making the assumption that if you argue in favor of something,
that you favor it. In particular, that if you argue against the idea
that education can be voluntarily financed, that you believe that it
should be INvoluntarily financed. That means guns and force whether
you recognize it or not.
I am not sure whether you don't really favor coercive financing, but
are just arguing with me for the hell of it, or whether you DO really
favor coercive financing, but believe that it can be done without
recource to guns and prisons. Please explain.
Consider this hypothetical case: A depression happens in your
libertarian society,
I don't believe a depression could happen in a free society, but for
the sake of argument I will concede it.
10% of the population got hurt (i.e. lost their jobs, run out of
money, etc.). The other 90% started to get worried about their
own survival and the contributions to charity dry up.
Which is an excellent reason why institutions and individuals should
not rely on charity.
"Have-nots" get frustrated, people start to starve. They started
demostrating in the streets. The international community got wind
of that and international confidence in your economy drops, so
less trade, so more people got hurt.
Trade depends on values received, not on confidence.
The "haves" decided to protect their interests---join the
police/army, contribute to law and order type of things.
Meanwhile outside elements (communists, racists, etc.) started
exploiting the "have-nots" and supply them arms. Many of the
"have-nots" volunteer to join the revolutionary army. More
economic chaos, more "have-nots", larger revolutionary army, less
"haves", less contribution for maintaining law and order. The
cycle repeats. Get the picture?
I get the picture, but what is your point? You seem to be saying
what if a free society somehow falls apart, won't it be chaos? One
could similarly argue against anything this way. What if a non-free
society falls apart, won't it be chaos? What if your car suddenly
falls apart on the highway, won't it be chaos?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 86 01:37:15 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Discrimination, defense
Interestingly enough, the discrimination against blacks (that
various 'afirmative action' sought to defeat) was for the most
part carried out by individuals - not the federal government. In
your view this was not evil then?
No, I don't think that exercising one's right of free association is
ever evil, even if you choose to associate with evil people or to NOT
associate with good ones.
It is laws and government policies which discriminate against blacks
- or against ANYONE, whether or not they are a member of an official
minority group - which are evil.
If it is evil to privately discriminate, just where does this evil
end? If one lives in a city that is 50% black, and one has two wives
(not at the same time) is one guilty of discrimination if neither one
is black?
Does a business have the right to discriminate against potential
clients? What about private schools, which exclude all members of
some race? Before you answer - what if the school was founded by
the will of a wealthy black person for the purpose of educating
black students? Is it evil for it not to violate the wishes of its
deceased benefactor by using his money to educate white students?
If you think that is ok, but that it would NOT be ok if the races
were reversed, then I assert that it is YOU who is racist, not I.
And don't say anything about the slave days. I do not believe
in collective guilt or in inherited debt. No white person alive
today is guilty of anything that happened to blacks before 1865.
Rather handy the way you waved away the defence issue. I'll
have to remember that one! :-) - CWM]
Very well, I believe that defense, police, and the courts should
be run by the government. And that nothing else should, since
government's sole purpose is the protection of individual rights.
...Keith
[ OK, so the power is in the hands of the government - they have the
bombs, and the guns, the police and the courts to back them. This is
going to guarantee liberty?
I find it hard to understand how someone's liberty is protected if
they are discriminated against. If someone cannot get a job because
they are discriminated against, cannot vote because they are
discriminated against (this has happened after 1865), and is too poor
to move what liberty do they have? The liberty to starve? The
vicious cycle of keeping minorities 'in their place' is a lot more
recent than 1865. - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 29 Jan 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 15
Today's Topics:
Records Accessability &
Constitutionality &
South Africa &
Employment Discrimination &
Soviet Union &
The Economy (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < DAUL@OFFICE-1.ARPA>
Date: 5 Jan 87 16:34 PST
From: William Daul / McDonnell-Douglas / APD-ASD
From: < WBD.MDC@OFFICE-1.ARPA>
Subject: Records Accessability
What are an individual's rights with regards to their medical, job and
education records? Can anyone gain access to them legally? When I
apply for a job and list my last employers, do those ex- and current
employers have to verify my employement? Can they say more than that?
And what about my medical and educational records?
I realize these are broad questions, but I would appreciate any
responses I can
get.
Thanks, --Bi//
------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: 8 Jan 87 09:39:13 GMT
Subject: Re: Tests of constitutionality
"A Well Regulated Militia, being neccessary to the Security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed".
Anybody recognize that? I think one could make a case that the right
of people in the National Guard to bear arms is protected by the
Constitution (Amendment II); it is not clear to me that they meant to
say that every person who felt a gun enhanced their personal security
(or masculinity, or whatever) was entitled to unregulated, non-militia
related, weaponry. No wonder the right was so worried about the ERA's
simple language; they were afraid that somebody would take as much
liberty with it as they do with other amendments.
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 87 17:51:10 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: South Africa
To: ametek!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
Cc: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU, WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU,
Cc: hal@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
This is because of the racist laws against employers hiring
who they want to hire. Employers should insist on an exemption
from such laws, and refuse to remain in South Africa without
such exemptions.
Wait a minute, Keith. You seem to argue here that employers
should do something which is morally correct even if it denies
them profits, at least in the short term. Doesn't sound very
libertarian to me :->.
No, it would add to their profits.
Keith, I still have not seen an answer to the larger
question. How is a free society to deal with the problem of
non-free societies? Do we ignore them? Do we trade with them
and, by implication, endorse their form of government? Do we seek
by means fair and foul to overthrow them?
I wish I knew.
My opinion is that we should treat them as a legitimate
government until such time as their own people are willing to die
in large numbers in order to effect changes.
I think we should deny recognition to the Soviet Union and all other
totalitarian states. There is nothing they crave more than
legitimacy. I also think we should get out of the United Nations.
... I also think the US should proceed with all due speed to
setting up [a direct broadcast satellite] to transmit to the SU as
soon as possible. Of course, we could agree not to do this if the
Soviets disconnect their current jamming stations. ...
They have signed a treaty agreeing not to jam broadcasts. I don't
think we should offer them anything in return for doing what they
should already be doing. Doing so only encourages them to break more
treaties.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Mon 5 Jan 87 22:59:58-EST
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Employment discrimination
To: KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU%MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
"Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> writes:
> Some high schools and colleges are careful to give blacks the same
> average grades as whites regardless of their performance, either to
> avoid trouble or out of a misguided sense of fairness. The result,
> of course, given that blacks on the average do worse in school than
> whites, is that a high school diploma and a college degree are worth
> less in the hands of a black than in the hands of a white. Employers
> are aware of this. They know that blacks with a M.A. degree often
> know less of the subject matter than whites with a B.A. So which do
> you think they hire?
I agree that such a grading system does not fairly evaluate
performance. But this has nothing to do with the original discussion,
which was about equal pay for men and women; this is a separate
problem, whose solution, i believe, is to maintain one grading
standard, but give people more opportunities to learn enough to meet
that standard.
> More and more individuals of all races, nationalities, creeds, and
> genders are realizing for themselves that ... the only thing
> limitting their own personal attainment is how valuable and
> productive they can make themselves.
You mean to say that external situations are never a factor? All of a
sudden in 1929-30, millions of people suddenly were no longer valuable
or productive?
> ... I support equal pay for the SAME work, not for work of
> "equal value".
>
> That isn't what the "women's rights" groups are campaigning for.
> They want government to list the "value to society" of ALL
> professions...
ALL of these groups are campaigning for this?
~joe testa~
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 4 Jan 87 23:55:02-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Soviet Union
To: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Cc: ametek!jaguar!walton@CSVAX.CALTECH.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Reality here could very well be that there are enough
Russians who love their form of government to make an
effective totalitarian system.
Quite possible, especially since they are not allowed to hear of
any alternatives.
A few of those Russians (immigrants to the US) who have heard, seen
and lived in an alternative system elected to go home. Some of those
who decided stayed here permanently said that the thought of going
back to Russia did occur to them. Those who don't like it here like
the state to take of things for them. They find the daily task of
making decisions for oneself a big burden.
... they are starting to do something about their economy ...
Explain, please?
Gorbachev has initiated a number of moves to make their system more
efficient e.g. the crackdown on alcoholism and corruption initiated by
Gorbachev and the plan (effective on May 1 1987, I think) to allow
ordinary Russians sell their wares.
Any evidence that they are doing this?
Read the paragraph above.
... I would really enjoy debating an intelligent and devoted
communist (if there is such a creature) online. Too bad their
government would never allow it.
I don't think any communist would want to debate anybody on a computer
network that is funded by the DOD. Neither am I sure if our
government would allow a Russian to debate us over the ARPANET. But
if you really want to debate a Russian, try the Russian Embassy in
D.C. Their new breed of diplomats have been debating our government
officials in the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour on PBS. However given the
fact that you have a security clearance, you might have a lot of
explaining to do should you be seen near the Russian Embassy.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 87 01:22:07 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: The economy
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... the trade and budget deficits.
I wish people wouldn't mention them in the same sentence. The trade
deficit consists of millions of deficits and surpluses voluntarily
entailed by individuals and corporations. The federal debt is
involuntary and applies to all of us, in that either we will all be
stuck with the bill or that those of us who have loaned the government
money will find that the government is a deadbeat. We will see.
... You seem to be saying (and the public perception seems to
concur) that a high inflation rate (and hence interest rate) is
worse than a lower economic growth
Of course. There is no such thing as a right to high economic
growth. But there IS a right not to have one's money stolen. And
that is what inflation is. Just plain theft. Carried out by the
government on everyone fool enough to have dollars. (Which is not to
say that I believe that high inflation correlates with high economic
growth - the opposite is more nearly true.)
or a high budget deficit.
Inflation is simply a way of the government reneging on its own
debt. If the currency is worth half as much, then the debt is
suddenly half as large. I have no opinion as to whether this is more
or less destructive that raising taxes so as to fulfill debt
obligations. Either way is horribly destructive. The only solution
is to cut government spending by a factor of ten to a hundred,
immediately.
I sure hope you are right especially with regard to the budget
deficit otherwise our economy might be in for some deep trouble.
I have made no statement praising the debt (not the deficit, which
is simply the rate at which the debt is increasing). On the contrary,
I agree that we are in trouble, and I am not sure how much longer our
phenomenal productivity can survive the growing tides of statism. I
think now is the time to sell stocks and buy gold.
... If a president is not held accountable for his/her actions
simply because you like him/her more (or dislike him/her less) can
lead to a corruption of our system of government.
I don't think corruption in the sense of scandals is the greatest
threat. A far greater threat is what they do openly, for instance
Roosevelt's creation of the Social Security system.
I am no fan of Reagan. I don't like him at all. Which
unfortunately does not mean that any plausible candidate for 1988
would be any better. Many in both parties would be much worse. My
least favorites are Pat Robertson and Ted Kennedy. Kemp might be
marginally better than Reagan, but I don't know enough about him to be
sure.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: 8 Jan 87 09:01:04 GMT
> If government takes 1/2 of all income in Japan and 1/3 of all
> income in the US (lets say), then if Japanese work more than 1 and
> 1/3 times as many hours as Americans (more than 12 hours per day
> rather than 9 hours per day), then they will exceed our
> productivity, all else being equal, and given that the extra free
> time that Americans have is assumed to have no value.
> ...Keith
Uh, sorry to wind up responding to you again, Keith. I don't really
mean to pick on you, and I hope you can take it as, say, that I find
you a stimulating (as well as prolific) writer, who often manages to
focus a conversation in a way that seems to merit further response.
OK? It is a useful ability.
That said, I would like to respond to the economic analysis above, but
I think it would be useful if you had a second chance to state it
first. It almost sounds like you are saying that productivity is
directly proportional to net wages, which would be something we could
actually quantify and get a handle one [something I always look for in
Libertarians, sigh]. Clarification or retraction would be welcome.
I would especially like it if (bonus) you could explain how government
theft of wealth thru taxes has restrained the Japanese from creating
wealth; it would certainly be interesting if it had not, and they were
as good at it as we are. :-)
Looking forward to it. ~z~
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 9 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 16
Today's Topics:
SDI and Soviet Fears &
Taxes and Schools (2 msgs) &
Wages and Labor &
The Right to Arm Bears &
Ideological Purity
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@rutgers.rutgers.edu>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 87 13:25:46 pst
From: kontron!cramer@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: SDI & Soviet Fears Of A First Strike
To: pyramid!topaz!poli-sci, voder!nsc!ihnp4!abnji!politics
One of the arguments presented against SDI is that it is
destabilizing; if successful, the argument goes, the Soviets would
feel so threatened by the possibility of a successful first strike by
the U.S. that they might strike first. The following quote from a
recent issue of time should demonstrate that Soviet leader Gorbachev
knows full well that we aren't going to start a war.
From Time, 01/05/87, p. 54.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Gorbachev Talks Tough
In a stunningly candid and hard-hitting speech last June 19 before a
closed meeting of some 40 Soviet writers, General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev discussed his views of Soviet society and his plans to
reform it. Last week the New York *Times* provided the most extensive
English translation to date based on notes taken by one of the writers
present. Excerpts:
...
On relations with the U.S. Our enemy sees us clearly. They are not
frightened by our nuclear might. They will not start a war. They're
worried about one thing: if democracy develops here, if we succeed, we
will win. For this reason they have begun a campaign against our
leadership, using all means, including terror. They write about the
apparat that broken Kruschev's neck, and about the apparat that will
now break the neck of the new leadership.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems reasonable that if a Soviet writer released these notes, it
is because the Soviet Union would like this to be generally known. A
question now arises: if the Soviet Union know that we have no
intentions of a first strike, how can SDI possibly be destablizing in
the scenario usually cited by the opponents of SDI?
Clayton E. Cramer
"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot
strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the
wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the
brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot keep of
out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build
character and courage by taking away man's initiative and
independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what
they could and should do for themselves." -- Abraham Lincoln
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 6 Jan 87 00:09:57-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Involuntary financing
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I am making the assumption that if you argue in favor of something,
that you favor it. In particular, that if you argue against the
idea that education can be voluntarily financed, that you believe
that it should be INvoluntarily financed.
I was arguing against the idea that government always screws up the
education system. Take a look at the Japanese education system. It
doesn't matter whether it is voluntarily or involuntarily financed.
That means guns and force whether you recognize it or not.
Not true see below.
I am not sure whether you don't really favor coercive financing,
but are just arguing with me for the hell of it, or whether you DO
really favor coercive financing, but believe that it can be done
without recource to guns and prisons. Please explain.
Immigrants (like me) always have a choice on where they want to go to.
When that choice is being made the facts about the tax system of the
desired country are available. (In my case, I was also told of the
draft and I did try to register for the draft but was told that they
just stopped drafting people. If there is a draft again, I would go
register again.) If the tax system stinks, the immigrant can make the
choice of not going to that country and pick another one (I had the
choice of emigrating to Brunei which has no income tax). I picked the
US (over Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Belgium, France, West
Germany, Brunei and Singapore) because I like its constitution and
also because the potential for accumulating wealth here far outweighs
the taxes I have to pay. In addition to that I choose to live in
Taxachusetts for the same (wealth accumulating) reason. I gladly pay
my taxes even though I have no control over how it is spent. I don't
need anyone to coerce me into paying taxes.
At the local level, I know of many people who choose to move to
Lexington, Mass and pay the higher property taxes (and higher housing
costs) there just so that their children can be educated by the
Lexington public school system. To them the benefits of the public
school system outweigh the higher taxes they have to pay.
Every individual in the US can make the choice of moving to another
country for any reason. If you don't like the taxes here, look around
for a country with no income tax (e.g. Brunei) and then decide whether
you want to emigrate there. There is a free market (though not a big
one) of countries out there for you to choose from. You may not like
the products being offered out there but they are the ones currently
available.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 87 22:35:19 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Public schools
To: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
I'll put it another way. Suppose majority of taxpayers in
an area have become convinced that 2+2=5. Should they
actually be able to force schools to stop teaching that
2+2=4?
Yes. It is completely unreasonable to compel someone to pay
for the teaching of something they believe to be false.
So it is now quite clear that the highest value held by
Libertarians is that of Money, rather than something more
superfluous such as Truth.
You are taking that out of context. There is really no question as
to what 2+2 is, but I will concede as an extreme example that the
majority could believe the wrong answer. A more realistic example is
creationism vs evolution. It is obvious to me what the correct
pre-history is. But it is NOT obvious to others, or it IS obvious and
they reach the opposite conclusion from me. Should these people be
compelled to pay for the teaching of something they believe to be
false? They should not.
The only answer to this paradox is to eliminate public
schools. The wall between education and state should be as
solid as the wall between church and state, and for the same
reason.
If state-sponsored education is to be based on verifiable facts,
and churches are based on faith, then the same reason cannot
apply.
Not all religions are (or at least claim to be) founded on faith
rather than belief. That is not a good dividing line between
religious truth and other truth. Religious people believe that their
beliefs are FACTS. Just as government people believe their whims and
notions to be FACTS. In both cases, some people doubt the "facts".
Who is to say they are wrong? Even when you and I both know for
certain that they ARE wrong, who are we to impose our beliefs on them
by force? And that is what government provided education is. Force.
People are compelled against their will to pay for the teaching of
things they strongly believe are false. That is immoral, and should
be stopped. The precise nature of the beliefs in question is NOT
important. I find it unlikely that anyone doubts that 2+2 is 4, but
if they do that is their right. A right to one's own opinions only if
they are CORRECT opinions is worthless. Who is to be the judge of
correctness? The government? Perhaps it is competent in this role
when it comes to addition, but just where do you draw the line?
Oh yes, it is also immoral to force someone to pay for the teaching
of ideas he DOES agree with. People should pay for someone's
education only if they choose to do so.
I can't speak for other libertarians, but I value both money and
truth very highly. I would not want to live in a world with money but
no truth, and I wouldn't not want to live in a world with truth but no
money. But there is no paradox. As I have explained in prior
messages, truth is best spread when money is not stolen from people
for the purpose of spreading government mandated "truth".
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 87 01:35:51 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: How are wages set?
To: COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... wages are never determined simply by market forces ... but ...
by the more general struggle for power between labor and
management.
That is a part of market forces.
... Certainly a free society could not prohibit unrepresented
workers from organizing to gain benefits. Thus unions must be
compatible with "free enterprise?"
Of course.
Or would unions be taking away the rightful property of investors
by fighting for higher wages -- interfering with market forces?
Nobody is interfering with market forces unless they operate
coercively. It is true that labor unions do so to some extent today.
Special laws give them unfair advantages. For instance that a company
is not free to ban unions, or to refuse to bargain with one.
This, I believe, comes down to the question Keith Lynch raised --
who creates the property, workers or owners? Marxists would say
"labor creates all wealth" and Milton Freedman might say
"investment capital creates all wealth." I'd say the answer is
somewhere in between,
Many elements go into creating wealth. Investment and labor are
both important. I would arge that management overshadows both of
them. Certainly laborers are free to strike, just as investors are
free to withdraw their investments, and just as management is free to
dissolve the company.
... distribution of the wealth created by production depends on
the relative power of workers and management.
Labor will get paid as much as they can convince management to pay
them. Management will pay as little as they can get away with. This
is the free market at work, so long as neither side is given an unfair
advantage such as 19th century laws banning labor unions or 20th
century laws banning the private banning of labor unions.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < firth@sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1987 08:01-EST
From: firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Tests of constitutionality
oswald!jim@ll-xn.ARPA writes:
> In a recent article, mwm%opal.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
> writes:
>
> >> Many people claim that the second amendment provides the general
> >> populace a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is
> >> demonstrably false.
> >
> >It would be interesting to see that demonstration.
>
> O.K. The Supreme Court doesn't have a monopoly on legal
> interpretation of the U.S. constitution. Every court, both federal
> and state, is bound to enforce, and therefore to interpret, the
> constitution. The Supreme Court's interpretetions bind all lower
> courts, but where the Supreme Court is silent, lower court rulings
> are binding. Without exception, every gun control case that has come
> before the courts has denied the existence of a general right to keep
> and bear arms. Such a general right therefore does not exist. Q.E.D.
>
> Jim Olsen ...!{decvax,lll-crg,mit-eddie,seismo}!ll-xn!oswald!jim
Jim, I think your argument almost decisive, except that it is slightly
ambiguous at the end. There is no constitutional right to keep and
bear arms; that you prove. Most people forget that the text of the
constitution can be interpreted in any way the courts please, and that
interpretation becomes the "correct" one.
But your last sentence speaks not of a "constitutional" right, but
of a "general" right. I believe a general right to bear arms does
exist, but as a "natural" right, not a "constitutional" one. I
would further argue, historically, that the authors of the Bill of
Rights respected that natural right, and today's courts violate it.
But that is another issue entirely.
------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: 8 Jan 87 08:35:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Ideological purity
kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu writes:
> > From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
> > Despite all your objections to government subsidies, you are
> > actually dependent on one.
>
> I would say I USE one (several actually); I am not DEPENDENT on
> one. I also use the public roads, ride the subsidized bus, work on
> government contracts at work, and put out the trash for the town to
> haul away, etc. I am sorry if this makes me ideologically impure by
> your standards. I would be glad to give it all up in a minute if I
> could thereby exempt myself from all taxes.
> ...Keith
Good News: You can. We have open borders. I hope however that
you will reconsider and stay here to contribute your efforts.
[No, I am NOT asking you to leave, merely asking you to
stop posturing. I like having you here.]
I like it here in many ways, in a mixed economy where public and
private interests are believed to operate best in balance: some air,
some fuel, makes the wheels go round. We need more accountability in
government and industry, but I don't complain because there ARE taxes.
That's why I pay taxes, use government services, and stay. Feel free
to tell us why you VOLUNTARILY choose to stay and accept the theft of
your wealth; please remember that money, family and cultural ties are
not coercive, only government force is. It seems to me that in any
country with open borders (going out), nobody is being coerced to do
anything, by libertarian standards. So you can try to persuade us
(please do) about your philosophy, but you need not expect much
sympathy for the taxes you choose to pay. ~z~
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 18 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 17
Today's Topics:
Records Accessability &
The Constitution &
Soviet versions of history &
Idealogues &
Libertarian Viewpoints
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < abc@BRL.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 87 9:37:10 EST
From: Brint Cooper < abc@BRL.ARPA>
To: William Daul / McDonnell-Douglas / APD-ASD < WBD.MDC@office-1.arpa>
Cc: hpcnou!dat%hplabs.csnet@relay.cs.net, info-law@mc.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Records Accessability
I can give you a partial answer.
Schools who receive any public money (especially if it can be
traced to federal sources) may not give out your academic records
without your written permission. Included is a prohibition on
instructors' posting exam results and final grades.
Similarly, your medical records cannot be released without
your permission, except perhaps by subpoena.
I'm not sure about job records. You get into a "freedom of
speech" issue here if you attempt to constrain one employer from
talking to another about a former employee.
I hope that this was helpful.
_Brint
------------------------------
Return-path: < rochester!kodak!grodberg@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: rochester!kodak!grodberg@seismo.CSS.GOV (jeremy grodberg)
Date: 7 Jan 87 01:24:28 GMT
Subject: Re: What does the Constitution mean?
While I do not see the importance of this bogus account of New Christ
City's usurpation of first amendment rights, and don't understand its
relation to politics or law, I would like to comment on the 2nd
amendment rights outlined, provided that was not also intended to be
satirical.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the second amendment rights to
bear arms are not rights of the individual to own or use weapons, but
rights of the state to form militias to defend the state and its
citizens. The courts silence does not speak as loudly as this ruling.
-Jeremy Grodberg
Usenet: ...siesmo!rochester!kodak!grodberg
------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 87 17:49:13 PST
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Subject: Soviet history
There was an extremely depressing editorial in the Sunday, January 4
issue of the Los Angeles Times by Robert Gillette on the subject of
what Soviet schoolchildren are taught about the United States in the
fourth grade. (Gillette is the Times's correspondent in Warsaw at
present, having just finished duty in Moscow.) Some highlights:
"Under capitalism, children labor in heavy industry from 4 a.m.
until 8 p.m., in constant fear of suffering 25 lashes for even the
most minor infraction--such as breaking a tool. For emphasis, the
book offers a color illustration of a bearded shop foreman holding a
whip poised over the back of a kneeling child."
"The Red Army crushed both Germany and Japan [in World War II],
only to have the United States drop its atomic bombs on an
already-defeated Japan." "For Soviet fourth-graders, World War II
began not in September, 1939, when Germany (and its then-ally, the
Soviet Union) attacked Poland, but in June, 1941, when Germany invaded
the Soviet Union. 'For a long time before, the capitalist countries
had prepared to attack the USSR,' the book says. 'They hated the free
socialist state.' The United States, Britain, and France appear only
as they advance through Germany in the closing days of the war in
1945. The Western allies are said to have 'met with almost no
resistance,' while Soviet forces waged a fierce battle to capture
Berlin.
"Then, with Germany defeated, 'Soviet soldiers dealt a shattering
blow to the Japanese army and annhilated it. On Sept. 2, 1945, Japan
lay down its arms.
"In fact, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on Aug. 8, 1945,
and attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria two days after the United
States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. Nagasaki was destroyed on Aug.
9 and Japan announced its surrender on August 15, but the formal
surrender ceremony did not take place until Sept. 2. Yet, by the
book, 'even as the Red Army was destroying the Japanese army, the
government of the U.S.A. sent its pilots to drop atomic bombs on the
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to frighten the people of the world
with these fearful weapons. The atomic bombing was a crime of the
capitalists of the U.S.A. against humanity, which the people of the
world will never forget.'"
The overall picture presented is of a US which is completely and
utterly evil, oppressing both its own citizens and those of other
lands, wantonly murdering others for no very good reason, and desiring
the complete and utter destruction of the "free socialist state." So
much for glasnost. No wonder _1984_ is a banned book in the SU.
Stephen Walton ARPA: ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
Ametek Computer Research Div. BITNET: walton@caltech
610 N. Santa Anita Ave.
Arcadia, CA 91006 USA UUCP: ...!ucbvax!sun!megatest!ametek!walton
818-445-6811
------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Re: Idealogues?
Date: 8 Jan 87 07:07:14 GMT
kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu writes:
> From: Jim Hofmann < hofmann@nrl-css.arpa>
> Libertarians? Objectiveists? You all sound like idealogues to
> me...
>
> An idealogue is simply someone who has ideas and considers them
> important. I know that ideas are unpopular among Democrats and
> Republicans, but I will accept the label "idealogue" and wear it with
> pride.
> ...
> There can be no discrepancies in Democrat or Republican
> philosophies, as they don't have any philosophies. Since you don't
> like "idealogues", it is clear that you agree that reacting in a knee
> jerk fashion, according to whim or the latest opinion polls, is your
> highest ideal of a leader.
> ...Keith
Keith, I believe that Jim was using "Ideologue" in a the sense of an
ideological zealot, one who is so obsessed with their political or
social theories that they are close minded and blind to aspects of
reality which fail to support said theories (not to put words in his
mouth). This is pretty common usage nowadays; he later made it clear
that he was opposing fanaticism. I agree with him that *some* people
who call themselves libertarian (as some of the supporters of any
ideology) would fit this description. In particular, their tendencies
toward hyperindividualism and self-defined reality which underrates
the importance of consensus is easily overdone, methinks. In this
regard, I cannot help but imagine what a deliciously self referential
statement it would be if your were to add "An Ideologue and Proud of
It" to your .signature. You would be asserting your right to mean
whatever you want with words without regard to what they mean to
others and saying that you were an "ideologue" not because of excesses
but because you have ideas. Others could see the statement as
evidence of your being an ideologue as *they* define the word; you
might both be right. Not suggesting it, just thought I would share
the ironies potentially available.
Also, it does appear to me that your characterization of Jim's ideal
of a leader is deliberately inaccurate and derogoratory; either you
totally missed his point or you are pretending such ignorance in order
to knowingly make a false and defammatory attribution of attitude.
Reminds me of Ronnie: is he incompetant or deceitful? I certainly
hope I am mistaken and that you had better motives than the above
would appear. You have at time contributed worthwhile and rational
argument. I think you do your cause no good by stooping to
misrepresentation. ~z~
While as a individualist you can use any word any way you want, I
respectfully suggest that more than a few of us will be amused if you
add "An Ideologue and proud of it" to your .signature. Your doing so
would be deliciously self-referential.
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
Return-path: < hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV>
From: hao!gaia!zhahai@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Re: (none)
Date: 8 Jan 87 08:17:27 GMT
kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu writes:
> From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
> Libertarianism may put the individual above the State, but it
> still does not put the individual above the Corporate State.
>
> This doesn't make any sense. The individual is above everything,
> unless he personally chooses to place something above himself (such
> as a religion). Libertarians and objectivists all believe this.
Keith, I cannot speak for Richard, but I think I may know what he is
driving at; with hope and faith that you will place understanding
before refutation, here goes (Mr. Cowan can respond if He has a
different point ot make).
Libertarians often have a well founded distrust of large powers which
tend to override the "natural" rights of individuals; by "natural"
rights I mean those that are self-evident to the person in question.
Certainly the State is formost among such potential and frequently
real abusers, in terms of size, monolithic nature, and power of
coercion. It seems very encouraging to some people (including me)
that Libertarians are aware of such potential abuses. Unfortunately,
to my mind, Libertarians appear to have too narrow a definition of
"coercion" and usually can only see the abuses of the state. When
pressed, they sometimes admit particularly undeniably abuses by
private industry, but generally attribute these to interference by the
government in the free market (and consider that this closes such an
uncomfortable subject, with no further evidence needed). In practice,
our world is being increasing run by corporations, which have grown in
size and power, and shrunk in accountablility, at an even greater rate
than governments. Many people's effective choices are more limited by
Corporate decisions than by government policies (in practice; in
theory a government COULD always be worse). Furthermore, the methods
of "correction", "feedback", and "control" of corporations are more
limited (you can't vote em out without going thru government, you
can't pass laws giving people the right to sue a multinational for
something not in a contract < I never signed a contract with Rockwell
which disallowed their poluting my air, so only laws give me any right
to sue them> without government; you can avoid their products (I don't
buy many jet fighters or plutonium triggers anyway :-), but this has
even less effect on a multinational than your one vote does in
electing local and state government). Thus, there is a real danger,
some of us believe, that a "private" power structure based on major
corporations will come to have many of the same negative effects on
individuals as governments can have. Thus, the "Corporate State" may
put itself over individuals , with the blessing of some libertarians.
I would welcome a well thought out response to this; how does
Libertarianism or Objectivism (Or Propertarianism :-)) deal with
abuses by huge corporations?
[responding to comments on wealth and power.]
> Wealth and power are totally different.
> Power should be distributed evenly among the population. Wealth
> should belong to whoever creates it, unless he decides to trade it or
> to give it away.
> ...
> Wealth and power are not the same. Mentioning them interchangably
> won't make them the same.
He never said they were the same; would you deny that in every real
society they are closely associated? Kernighan and Ritchie are not
the same either and mentioning them together won't make them so.
> I don't think it matters how concentrated wealth is. Wealth
> belongs to those who create it. If it is routinely stolen from them,
> they will stop creating it.
I hope your ideology is considered enough to realize that the question
of when wealth is created and by whom is not a solved problem, but a
matter of much dispute. If by "stealing" you mean removed by
coercion, not eveyone would even agree about when that happens. By
the way, since your wealth is routinely stolen from you in massive
quantities (by your definitions), please feel free to stop creating
any time you see fit. In fact, I would think you would feel compelled
to reduce your creatively by at least 30-50% nowadays; on the other
hand, you could go to some remote island and be twice as creative with
no taxes! Again, I feel that this removal of yourself from the
process of interdependent and complex wealth creation is your right!
> Communications technologies ... will allow those in power to
> exert greater control over ever greater numbers of people.
>
> Which is one of the reasons why communitions media must be
> privately owned, rather than controlled by the government as in
> communist countries.
> ...Keith
And a reason for armies to be privately owned as well. Private
abuses are OK, only government abuses hurt. ~z~
--
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 18 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 18
Today's Topics:
Highway Maintenance &
"LaRouche Initiative" Results &
Employment (4 msgs) &
Economics (2 msgs) &
Drugs
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < mwm%violet.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: Paying for Highway maintenance
Date: 06 Jan 87 19:34:31 PST (Tue)
From: Mike Meyer < mwm%violet.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU>
Since nobody else bothered to reply, I thought I'd point out what is
(was) going on:
The federal government provides (provided?) funding for interstate
highway maintenance. I'm not sure what the level is, but the term
"matching funds" comes to mind.
Since there wasn't any constitutional way to push a national 55 mph
speed limit, the feds threatened to cut this funding for any states
NOT having a 55 mph speed limit.
I'm not sure what has happened to this funding under RR. Since the
states still have (even if they don't enforce) the 55 mph limit, I
suspect that the funding is still there.
< mike
------------------------------
Return-path: < wild@Sun.COM>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 87 10:56:17 PST
From: wild@Sun.COM (Will Doherty)
Subject: Prop 64 -- "LaRouche Initiative" Results in CA
We defeated the "LaRouche Initiative" statewide with 71% against, 29%
in favor, almost exactly the same margin as the defeat of the Briggs
Initiative (in 1976? which would have prohibited lesbian and gay
people from teaching in schools). Exit polls on votes against Prop 64
tabulated two main reasons why people voted "no." The first, they
felt Prop 64 was a witchhunt. The second, they had been educated to
realize that AIDS is not a casually transmissable disease.
Will Doherty
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 87 22:10:19 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Employment discrimination
To: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
>More and more individuals of all races, nationalities, creeds,
>and genders are realizing for themselves that ... the only thing
>limitting their own personal attainment is how valuable and
>productive they can make themselves.
You mean to say that external situations are never a factor? All
of a sudden in 1929-30, millions of people suddenly were no longer
valuable or productive?
No. But attitude is more important than external situations except
in extreme situations such as being Jewish in Nazi Germany. Even at
the height of the great depression the majority of people who wanted
jobs had them.
...Keith
[ Funny, my grandmother and her four daughters eked out a miserable
existance through the depression as a *substitute* teacher (which is
not a steady job at all in a job-depressed market, by the way) - my
grandfather having died. I'm sure she would have been comforted by
your assertion that she really didn't want a job. - CWM]
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Thursday, 8 January 1987 10:32:19 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
Subject: women's wages
"Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>:
THIS [lower women's wages] is an example of vicious feedback.
If women's salaries WERE mostly the same as men's, women would
find it cost effective to take off only a few weeks to have a
baby, since they would find child care affordable.
Why must WOMEN find it cost effective to take off only a few weeks,
and why must THEY find child care affordable? The above statement
assumes that the woman must bear almost all the burden of having kids.
Assuming the woman is married, there is a man around too. And if she
isn't married, she's not going to take off more than a few weeks
anyway. Most current marriage power relationships are such that the
cost of child care is only factored into the marginal value of the
woman's job, but there is nothing fundamental in this power
relationship. Of course there is a Catch-22 here too in that the
man's power derives mostly from his greater earnings.
Some economists have advocated government support of child care (tax
credit, tax deduction, voucher, direct subsidies to day care centers,
generous pregnancy leaves, etc) solely to increase the marginal value
of a woman's job, and thus modify the marital balance of power.
Well-run companies have voluntarily provided generous pregnancy
leaves, on-site day-care, etc, because they recognize that this will
allow them to better retain employees, and thus allow them to amortize
substantial training investments. Companies that aren't well-run do
not make substantial training investments, and so more commonly find
it cheaper to accept higher turnover. You can bet that if it took a
year to train an employee before they could do useful work, the
company would try rather hard to retain them. The company must hire
women, because there aren't enough good men around, and so faces the
need to maintain the woman's career in the face of child-bearing.
------------------------------
Return-path: < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 8 Jan 87 19:04:58-EST
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: sub-minimum wage
To: hank.walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU
***** From Hank Walker, on causes of teenage unemployment:
2) Lack of Work Skills - My experience as a teenager convinced me
that if you managed to get your foot in the door, ... you could
advance simply by showing up on time, working hard, and not
talking back to your manager. It's amazing how many people lack
these basic skills due to af poor upbringing.
*****
There is another factor: the number of rewarding jobs. The export of
manufacturing jobs overseas means that all one can do (without a
degree, in the city) is work in service jobs, often in large chains
(like McDonalds). Yes, you can advance in those jobs, but job roles
are so rigidly defined that even managers often have no
decision-making power or freedom to innovate.
Such alienating jobs are not conducive to employee satisfaction, and
thus have a high turnover rate. There may always be openings
advertised. But just because there are openings doesn't mean it's
easy to get the job. By analogy, imagine you are trying to find an
apartment in Cambridge, MA. There are lots of ads, due to the college
turnover rate, but few apartments to choose from at any one time.
Hank brings up is the origin of "basic skills" and principles all job
seekers should hold. It is interesting to examine how the American
culture currently views those "skills" :
1) The technological notion of working at home via computer and the
practice of flex-time avoid the need to "show up on time."
2) "Working hard" is similarly rejected, by TV shows which show people
having fun at the job, by the ideal of automation ending work, and by
"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."
3) "talking back to your boss" is also something which is sometimes
promoted, sometimes again for entertainment, and also to break down
(or pretend to break down) hierarchical decision-making structures to
make employees feel they have a part of the decision-making process.
The paradox in all this is that the goal of making life better and
easier that society is supposedly trying to achieve -- through an
expanding economy and hard work -- will render such work obsolete.
In the end, will inner city blacks really achieve the greatest
benefits by "showing up on time, working hard, and not talking back to
your boss?" Probably, if you measure benefits by money. But that is
not the only measure. Will they instead just be caught up in a rat
race in which a few benefit, but the majority remain stuck where they
are now?
-rich
"Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means."
-H. Marcuse
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Friday, 9 January 1987 09:04:02 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
To: Richard A.Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: sub-minimum wage
As the book "McDonald's - Behind the Arches" makes clear, most
McDonald's product innovations were thought up, developed, and
field-tested by individual franchisees. Service jobs aren't
necessarily jobs for automatons. A company whose employees don't aid
innovation won't be long for this world. The fact that there aren't
as many manufacturing jobs is sort of irrelevant. Where I grew up
teenagers haven't EVER gotten their start in manufacturing.
This is not quite germaine, but manufacturing jobs haven't really gone
overseas. The industrial output of the US is greater than its ever
been. It would be greater without all those imports, but it hasn't
declined. Increased productivity is the main cause of the decline in
manufacturing jobs.
------------------------------
Return-path: < SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: 10 January 87 14:20-PST
From: SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: "haves" versus "have-nots"?
In Poli-Sci V7 #6 Willy lim gives the following argument:
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
> ...The "haves" decided to protect their
>interests---join the police/army, contribute to law and order type
>of things. Meanwhile outside elements (communists, racists, etc.)
>started exploiting the "have-nots" and supply them arms. Many of
>the "have-nots" volunteer to join the revolutionary army. More
>economic chaos, more "have-nots", larger revolutionary army, less
>"haves", less contribution for maintaining law and order. The cycle
>repeats. Get the picture?
I have serious doubts about the above argument. Is this the picture
that is supported by the evidence of history? I ask: If revolutions
are really the revolt of the "have-nots" against the "haves" why is it
that the "money" seems always to be on the side of the "have-nots"? Or
don't you think that it costs money to groom and train all the
political, religious, broadcasting, journalistic, and professorial
prostiutes that it takes to preach revolution? Poverty pimping is big
business indeed! As economist Walter Williams points out for example
in 1983 we (FED GOV) spent $36,000 per year per family of four in
poverty. The poor obviously weren't getting anywhere near that amount.
Who was? Williams says that the poverty pimps got most of it. He
covers similar ideas in his book The State Against the Blacks.
----------------------------
It seems to me that preaching against the "haves" is aimed at
suggesting expropriation of property as the "solution" (really as a
way to bring on revolution by the disintegration of law and order).
If one really cared about the "have-nots" isn't it better to give away
one's own property to them rather than bring on a revolution that will
enslave everyone?
John Smith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 11 Jan 87 02:23:22-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: The economy
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... the trade and budget deficits.
I wish people wouldn't mention them in the same sentence.
Economically they are different but politically they both cause
politicians to react---e.g. protectionist legislation for the former
and a tax hike or spending cuts for the latter.
The trade deficit consists of millions of deficits and surpluses
voluntarily entailed by individuals and corporations.
And the government too e.g. in buying strategic materials for
stockpiling.
I don't think corruption in the sense of scandals is the greatest
threat. A far greater threat is what they do openly, for instance
Roosevelt's creation of the Social Security system.
I disagree. In the former, the people didn't approve of it in the
first place and cannot bear responsibility for the action while in the
latter the people approve of it (as the government action is known to
the public and there is not objection). In this case it is the people
that has to bear responsibility for it. They can't blame their
government for taking an action that they approve of. However in the
case of corruption there is no such approval and the effectiveness of
government is affected. In the case of a libertarian government any
deviation from "what is pure and perfect" (i.e. corruption) means you
don't have a libertarian government. Hence corruption is a threat to
any democracy.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < allegra!dsf@seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 87 10:32:10 EST
From: allegra!dsf@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Re: Dirty needles
> Please explain why you think a person should not be allowed to put
> whatever he chooses into his own body. Why should government have a
> claim on your body?
> ...Keith
>
> [ I find your position a trifle inconsistant. If a person can put
> anything they want into their bodies, shouldn't that person be
> responsible for the consequenses? Doesn't that include diseases? Or
> does your libertarian government decide that it does things 'for the
> people's own good' too? In any event, the libertarian government of
> NYC has decided to go along with you, and is providing free needles.
> -CWM]
> -------
This is not inconsistant. In addition to the right to put what they
want into their bodies, people should have the right to keep what they
don't want out of their bodies. Disease is not a consequence of
taking drugs any more than poisening is a consequence of taking
Tylenol.
[ How do we guarantee this right? "Buyer beware" is a touchy line to
follow for poisoned tylenol. - CWM ]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 20 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 19
Today's Topics:
Trade and Confidence &
Drug Testing &
Amerika &
Education (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 10 Jan 87 02:25:12-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Trade and Confidence
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Trade depends on values received, not on confidence.
You assume that there is enough information for trade to be risk free
(which is true in an IDEAL free market as you have complete
information e.g. information from the past, present and future). If
the risk is significant (due to incomplete information), trade will be
based on confidence (that the expected values will be received). For
concrete examples take a look at the commodity and stock markets.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 87 21:03:35 pst
From: Michael C. Berch < mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA>
Subject: Re: pre-employment drug tests
jon@gaia.UUCP (Jonathan Corbet) writes:
> > If I buy a car, is it okay for me to have a mechanic inspect it
> > first? If I buy a house, can a contractor look it over?
>
> This, in my mind, implies that you are treating people the same way
> you treat cars and houses -- as property. A car has no privacy to
> be invaded. When you buy a house, you have done just that: *bought*
> it.
I am against drug testing as a policy matter, and if I were an
employer I would not use them. Nevertheless, I cannot understand the
difference between a prospective employee's right to inquire into the
financial health of the company, etc., and the prospective employer's
right to inquire into the health of the applicant, including drug use,
alcoholism, or heavy smoking. Either party obviously has the right to
refuse to disclose these facts, in which case the employment
relationship will not be consummated.
As an employer I would not "treat" people in the same manner as cars
or houses; that is not a meaningful concept. But I should have the
same right to decide whom I should make a new employee start-up
investment in as the applicant has to decide who he wants to work for.
If I treat employees poorly, they will quit. If they treat me poorly,
I will fire them, unless we have made an agreement that I will not do
so.
The civil rights laws in the U.S. have restricted the rights of
employers to choose whom they wish to have work for them. Now, I'm all
for civil rights, equality, and opportunity, and I do not practice
racism or sexism, but I wonder just how much farther this type of
legislation can be stretched. Can/should employers be forced to hire
people who are alcoholics? drug addicts? heavy smokers? AIDS patients?
mental patients? ex-convicts? If so, what is to prevent the government
from extending the "suspect classifications" of race, gender,
religion, disability, etc., to things like years of education, general
state of health, criminal record, and the like, in the name of
"equality"? Do we really want, as a matter of public policy, the
government standing over employers trying to determine for them
whether having a college degree is or is not a bonafide occupational
qualification for a particular position?
Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.arpa
UUCP: ...!lll-lcc!styx!mcb ...!lll-crg!styx!mcb ...!ihnp4!styx!mcb
------------------------------
Return-path: < mcgeer@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 87 09:55:42 PST
From: mcgeer@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Rick McGeer)
Subject: Amerika
Well, frankly, I don't understand why people object to ABC's
miniseries "Amerika"; the script that appeared here seems
frighteningly plausible to me. The depicted behaviour of the Soviet
occupying forces is highly reminiscent of the behaviour of Nazi troops
in WW II, and Soviet troops in WW II Poland, 1956 Hungary, 1968
Czechoslovakia and present-day Afghanistan.
I think that the use of the UN as a cover for Soviet occupying
forces is most unlikely; after all, it takes Security Council action
to commit troops acting under the UN flag, and we still do have the
veto. Nor do I think that we're going to collapse anytime soon
(though during the Age of President Peanut I had my worries...).
Still, if we *did* collapse -- which is to say, if Dellums & Co had
their way -- "Amerika" seems pretty close to the mark. Which is
interesting, because the Soviets are a bunch of homophobic, racist
chauvinists; feminists, minorities, and homosexuals would get it in
the neck in the event of a Soviet takeover, even more than the rest of
us. That's most ironic, given that those three groups make up the
left wing of the Democratic party, which has a strong anti-defense
agenda...
-- Rick.
------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 87 20:26:31 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Education, "free market" in countries
To: WLIM%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I was arguing against the idea that government always screws up
the education system. Take a look at the Japanese education
system.
I have never said that it does. Though the Japanese system IS not a
good example for you. It is true that Japanese students score well on
standardized tests, but they are quite deficient in original thinking
and in willingness to disagree with authority.
My point is threefold. In public education:
1) There is no effective control over what is taught or how it is
taught, so it is always possible that education will degenerate
into illiteracy and/or indoctrination. (This is not to say it
is ALWAYS in these states, which is what you seem to think I
had said.)
2) There is no effective control over costs. There is a tendency for
more and more money to buy less and less, as with any government
program.
3) It is not fair to force people to pay for it against their will.
Why should people without children pay to educate other people's
children? Why should people with many children pay no more? Why
should people have no control over what is taught, or how, even
if they vehemently disagree with what is taught (for instance
creationism vs evolution).
Immigrants (like me) always have a choice on where they want to go
to. When that choice is being made the facts about the tax system
of the desired country are available. (In my case, I was also
told of the draft and I did try to register for the draft but was
told that they just stopped drafting people. If there is a draft
again, I would go register again.) If the tax system stinks, the
immigrant can make the choice of not going to that country and
pick another one ...
What about those of us who were born here, and don't want to be
forced to flee? I don't want to leave my family, my friends, and the
infrastructure which my ansestors and compatriots built through
generations, making this the most productive country on Earth, and one
of the most free.
Every individual in the US can make the choice of moving to
another country for any reason. If you don't like the taxes here,
look around for a country with no income tax (e.g. Brunei) ...
Are you saying taxation is ok only so long as there is at least one
country that does not have taxes? What if those countries limited
one's freedom in other ways?
There is a free market (though not a big one) of countries out
there for you to choose from. You may not like the products being
offered out there but they are the ones currently available.
It is not a free market. I can change my brand of soap or potato
chips without changing virtually everything else in my life. Not so
with countries. If I don't like the brands of loudspeakers or shirts
available, I am free to start a company to compete with existing
suppliers. But I am not free to found a new country, nor is anyone
else.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 12 Jan 87 00:40:16-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Education, "free market" in countries
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Though the Japanese system IS not a good example for you.
The bottom line for any school system is whether it produces competent
graduates. 95-98% of all Japanese high school students graduate.
These graduates are obviously competent enough to run their economy.
Also in math, we rank below them (and Hong Kong). The average amount
of time devoted to math is 144 hours/year for us and 101 hours for the
Japanese kids. Their class size is also bigger---40 in the 8th grade,
43 in the 12th grade---for us it is 26 in the 8th grade and 20 in the
12th grade.
It is true that Japanese students score well on standardized
tests,...
I don't know what you are implying here. Do you mean to say that
doing well in standardized tests is no achievement? Or is it that
they can only do well in standardized tests?
.... but they are quite deficient in original thinking ....
That seems to be the general perception. (Sometimes I wonder if we
have such a perception because we have nothing else to hold onto.) At
one time it was that they were copycats. (Until recently, the term
"Japanese goods" was used in the Far East to mean inferior goods. Of
course things are quite different now.) I also wonder if it is
possible to become an economic power (and yes folks the richest
country in the world in terms of personal income and here is another
surprise, Italy is as rich as the UK---the Economist, late 1986) when
there is a deficiency in original thinking. Persumably we'll know
soon if they are deficient in original thinking.
... and in willingness to disagree with authority.
Disagreeing with authority for the hell of it is not such a great
thing. Their consensus style management system seems to indicate the
absence of an "authority". However in the schools it (obedience) may
mean that teachers can concentrate on teaching. More time is spent on
teaching the material (and hence more things are taught).
1) There is no effective control over what is taught or how it is
taught, so it is always possible that education will degenerate
into illiteracy and/or indoctrination.
By getting the government out of education, you seem to be saying that
there can never be effective control. Or it is the case that it is
just not worth our effort in making the controls effective?
2) There is no effective control over costs. There is a tendency
for more and more money to buy less and less, as with any
government program.
See the previous paragraph. (I have also heard of Buchanan's work.)
3) It is not fair to force people to pay for it against their will.
Theorectically in a democracy, the people can enforce their will on
the government and not the other way round. So if they think that
should be no public schools, they can get rid of them.
What about those of us who were born here, and don't want to be
forced to flee? I don't want to leave my family, my friends, and
the infrastructure which my ansestors and compatriots built
through generations, making this the most productive country on
Earth, and one of the most free.
I do understand such brand/product loyalty very well. I had to make
such kind decisions when I immigrated here. My point is that there is
a choice for you to make . However I do note that workers who lost
their jobs in the rust belt seem to have similar reasons for not
relocating to a new area.
Are you saying taxation is ok only so long as there is at least
one country that does not have taxes? What if those countries
limited one's freedom in other ways?
Until we have a libertarian country somewhere and you can't convince
enough people in this country to make it libertarian, that's the
trade-off you have to make.
It is not a free market. I can change my brand of soap or potato
chips without changing virtually everything else in my life.
Ah yes, but when you move into a new house or change jobs lots of
things in your life get changed i.e. more things than changing your
brand of soap or potato chips. I do find it strange that you would
come down hard on those people who wouldn't change their lifestyle or
attitude to make things better for themselves (e.g. "welfare addicts",
unemployed steel worker who refused to move to another region to take
a new job) but would excuse yourself when asked to make a similar
decision. Note that changing countries is not that hard; it is just a
little harder than moving to a faraway state (like Alaska).
(-: If you want to go free market, you might as well go all the way
i.e. let people to change countries for economic reasons. :-)
If I don't like the brands of loudspeakers or shirts available, I
am free to start a company to compete with existing suppliers.
But I am not free to found a new country, nor is anyone else.
You pick those markets/products where the cost of entry is relatively
low. Try starting a company for producing large passenger jet planes
or automobiles. The cost for starting a new country is even higher,
if you have enough money you can try persuading some countries to part
with one of their islands. (-: For that matter, if you have enough
money, you can also try to buy a government. :-)
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 20 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 20
Today's Topics:
The Middle of the Road (2 msgs) &
SDI
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 87 21:42:42 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Middle of the road
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... By the way, I try to be an objective, compassionate, pragmatic
and fair moderate (i.e. at the center of our (US) political
spectrum and no flames on this, please). It is not an easy thing
to do ... At least I try.
I don't know if this counts as a flame, but, I am really curious.
What do you see as admirable about the average opinion of US citizens?
Judging by your use of the word "try", I take it that you do not
just happen to hold the opinions that the average person holds, but
that you hold the opinions you hold precisely because they are the
average opinion. I take it that you drift to the "left" and "right"
with the prevailing opinion?
If you had been around in the 1850s, when many Americans advocated
continued slavery for blacks and many others advocated abolition of
slavery, would you have advocated moderate amounts of slavery? During
the wars with the Indians, when some advocated leaving them alone and
others advocated killing them all off, would you have advocated
killing half of them off?
Please tell me just how far the middle-of-the-road position would
have to drift before you would abandon it, and by what standards you
would make this decision.
How does one distinguish an "objective, compassionate, pragmatic and
fair" moderate from any other kind of moderate, given that they all
hold the same opinions?
If your opinions are truly middle-of-the-road, there is no point in
your voting since your vote would simply be the average of everyone
else's. Nor is there any point in your expressing your opinions since
they are just the average of everyone else's opinions.
If everyone reasoned the way you seem to, there would be no point in
anyone voting, since their votes would just be the average of the
votes of whoever did bother to vote, if anyone. There would be no
point in thinking about the issues, since all one needs know is what
everyone else has concluded, on the average, about the issues.
I know it annoys you when I quote from Ayn Rand, but I am going to
do it anyway, since a quote from _The Fountainhead_ is so appropriate
here. The villain Ellsworth Toohey is describing his vision of
utopia:
"The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience
and unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own,
but an attempt to guess the thought in the brain of his neighbor, who
will have no thought of his own but an attempt to guess the thought of
the next neighbor who'll have no thought - and so on ..."
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 12 Jan 87 22:56:12-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I don't know if this counts as a flame, but, I am really curious.
Yes, you are flaming.
What do you see as admirable about the average opinion of US
citizens?....(flaming about middle-of-the-road =
average-opinion-of-US-citizens).....
Being a moderate has very little to do with the average opinion of US
citizens. (So the rest of your message is just hot air.) By moderate
I mean the political center i.e. neither too left (e.g. 100% state
control of the economy) or too right (e.g. 0% state control).
If you had been around in the 1850s, when many Americans advocated
continued slavery for blacks and many others advocated abolition
of slavery, would you have advocated moderate amounts of slavery?
Absurdity numero uno. I would advocate the abolishment of slavery and
get the slave owners to pay compensation to the slaves. I would also
call for a program (need not be involuntarily financed) to
train/educate/prepare the ex-slave for a fruitful life outside of
slavery. If these things had happen, we would have economic parity by
now and we would have a more united and harmonious nation. (You would
also have some great black libertarian authors too.)
During the wars with the Indians, when some advocated leaving them
alone and others advocated killing them all off, would you have
advocated killing half of them off?
More absurdity. I would have advocated talking to them since they are
humans and not savages.
I know it annoys you when I quote from Ayn Rand,...
It annoys me if you quote it like a fundamentalist preacher (or an
extremist ayahtollah) would quote the bible (koran) without looking at
the facts out there first i.e. quoting without looking and thinking.
....but I am going to do it anyway,....
(-: Bad habits die hard. Sometimes they never die. :-)
...since a quote from _The Fountainhead_ is so appropriate here.
The villain Ellsworth Toohey is describing his vision of utopia:
"The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience
and unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his
own, but an attempt to guess the thought in the brain of his
neighbor, who will have no thought of his own but an attempt to
guess the thought of the next neighbor who'll have no thought -
and so on..."
(-: Sounds like good advice for the unthinking mind. It is especially
apt for those who believe in a future world of obedience (e.g. to the
libertarian philosophy only) and unity (since only libertarians need
apply (or deserve to live)). It is also good advice to those who have
been doing too much guessing (and guessed wrong too e.g. moderate =
average opinion) of their neighbor's thought. :-)
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < pyramid!kontron!cramer@rutgers.edu>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 87 10:36:52 pst
From: kontron!cramer@rutgers.edu (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V7 #93
> Arms-Discussion Digest Saturday, January 10, 1987 11:01PM
> Volume 7, Issue 93
>
> Date: Friday, 9 January 1987 15:25-EST
> From: convex!paulk at a.cs.uiuc.edu (Paul Kalapathy)
> To: ARMS-D
> Re: Offensive Uses of SDI
>
> THE SEMANTICS
>
> Before I discuss what I consider to be the offensive uses of SDI
> components, I will try to make some sort of definition of what I
> consider to be an "offensive weapon". First, I think that the
> categorization of weapons as "offensive" and "defensive" is
> frequently (not always) a semantic ruse. The categorization is
> generally used
> with the implicit connotation that "defensive"="good" and
> "offensive"="bad". Witness the Strategic *Defense* Initiative or
> the Peacekeeper (which will no doubt be operated by the Ministry
> of Peace someday). Our bombers, missiles, and others are never
> "referred to as our offensive B-52's" or "our offensive Warmaker".
> Due to the hidden implications of the terms, I think one needs to
> be very careful about categorizing weapons as either "offensive" or
> "defensive".
>
> Second, because of the complex nature of the tactics and
> strategies of war, the classification of a single weapon is almost
> meaningless. Analogy: bulletproof clothing would be classified by
> most people as a defensive item when it is regarded in isolation.
> However, if the wearer of the clothing can as a consequence walk
> into an enemy camp and kill freely, with no worry of being shot or
> otherwise retaliated against, then the classification of bulletproof
> clothing as defensive is false.
At first I wasn't going to point out the inaccuracy of this
characterization of "bulletproof clothing", since this
mod.politics.arms-d, not mod.rec.guns, but after reading the rest of
the posting, it seems to me that the same conceptual misunderstanding
of "bulletproof clothing" is being used by Mr. Kalapathy when he
discusses SDI.
The soft body armor worn by police officers does NOT allow someone to
"... walk into an enemy camp and kill freely, with no worry of being
shot or otherwise retaliated against..." It makes it unlikely (but by
no means impossible) that a torso shot (which is the easiest to make
with a handgun) will kill or incapacitate the police officer. This
means the police officer is able to return fire -- not that he can
walk with impunity into a den of murderers without fear. (See the
most recent issue of _American_Handgunner_ for a description of how a
Detroit pizza delivery man invented soft body armor.)
> Therefore, a tentative definition of an offensive weapon is: a
> weapon which can be used to attack or, a weapon which is used in an
> attack to blunt any response to the attack.
>
> This is the definition that I will use in this article. If I have
> not made it clear that an apparently "defensive" weapon can be used
> to improve the effectiveness of the offense to the point of becoming
> "offensive", I will be happy to discuss it further.
>
> SDI USED AS AN OFFENSIVE SHIELD
>
> The SDI system's ability to shoot down missiles is usually gauged
> as a percentage of the incoming missiles. Estimates of this
> percentage vary wildly (30%-99%), but I think that no one with
> knowledge of the program (including the SDIO) gives numbers larger
> than 95% any more (correct me if I'm wrong). These numbers
> generally refer to a mass attack of several thousand warheads. A
> critical point here is that a system which can destroy 95% of
> several thousand warheads CAN PERFORM MUCH BETTER AGAINST AN ATTACK
> OF A FEW HUNDRED WEAPONS.
>
> What is the benefit of a system which can destroy 95% of 5000
> warheads leaving several hundred warheads to fall on our cities and
> annihilate our society? The benefit is its use in a preemptive
> strike. If the US launches a preemptive counterforce strike against
> the SU, destroying the bulk of their missiles on the ground then the
> remnants of the Soviet missile force (perhaps a few hundred
> warheads) is easy pickings for an SDI system designed to cope with
> thousands of warheads.
1. There is powerful reasons to wonder how many warheads will actually
arrive on target, and how many will function once they arrive. My
understanding is that the U.S. targets two warheads per target to
have some degree of certainty that at least one warhead will destroy
the target. (Some of you may recall the beautiful (if viewed in
isolation from what it means) photograph that appeared in the news
media some months back of two warheads reentering on the Pacific
Missle Range.)
2. If you live in a city that is destroyed by nuclear weapons, SDI has
no benefit. If you live in a city that was going to be destroyed, but
isn't, the benefit of intercepting those warheads seems quite clear.
(Let me mention that 250 (5% of 5000) warheads doesn't necessarily
mean 250 destroyed cities. The 1979 Congressional study of effects of
limited nuclear war concluded that as many as 40 warheads might be
necessary to destroy the Los Angeles basin.
Presumably many of the 250 warheads would be directed at military
bases and missle silos. Suddenly SDI, if used to protect from a first
strike, becomes the difference between a badly damaged half-dead
nation, and a nation that no longer exists.
3. To assume that SDI's purpose is to protect the U.S. from Soviet
retaliation for a counterforce strike assumes that it is possible to
destroy the vast majority of the Soviet nuclear delivery capability.
This seems unlikely both because of the difficulties of destroying
hardened silos, and the SLBM fleet the Soviets have, and the very
likely possibility that some of their bombers will make it into the
air.
Also, if we accept the possibility that the U.S. thinks it could do
such a thing, and might, then we must also accept the reciprocal
possibility of the Soviet Union believing that it could do such a
thing, and attempting it. In this case, the argument for SDI to
discourage such a counterforce first strike becomes stronger, doesn't
it? (Unless of course we assume that the U.S. government is less
moral than the Soviet government -- a basic assumption of many people
on USENET.)
4. We must also assume that the Soviet Union views this sort of first
strike as a realistic possibility. An item from a recent issue of
Time: From Time, 01/05/87, p. 54.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Gorbachev Talks Tough
In a stunningly candid and hard-hitting speech last June 19 before a
closed meeting of some 40 Soviet writers, General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev discussed his views of Soviet society and his plans to
reform it. Last week the New York *Times* provided the most extensive
English translation to date based on notes taken by one of the writers
present. Excerpts:
...
On relations with the U.S. Our enemy sees us clearly. They are not
frightened by our nuclear might. They will not start a war. They're
worried about one thing: if democracy develops here, if we succeed, we
will win. For this reason they have begun a campaign against our
leadership, using all means, including terror. They write about the
apparat that broken Kruschev's neck, and about the apparat that will
now break the neck of the new leadership.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems reasonable that if a Soviet writer released these notes, it
is because the Soviet Union would like this to be generally known. A
question now arises: if the Soviet Union know that we have no
intentions of a first strike, how can SDI possibly be destablizing in
the scenario usually cited by the opponents of SDI?
> There is even motivation to launch such a preemptive strike. The
> SDI system will respond much better to the reduced threat posed by a
> diminished response to a preemptive strike than it would to a massed
> attack. This is even more true since a Soviet massed attack would
> surely be simultaneous, while the response to a preemptive strike
> would necessarily be sporadic and uncoordinated.
Also an argument for SDI's usefulness against an attack by a country
like Libya, Iraq, or Iran. Keep in mind that Iraq has made serious
efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and Libya has apparently made
efforts to acquire a ballistic missle capability.
> This is why Gorbachev is worried. SDI looks better used in a
> preemptive strike than as a "peace shield".
>
From Gorbachev's remarks cited above, it sounds like SDI isn't
worrying him as a bulletproof vest at all.
> -Paul Kalapathy
Clayton E. Cramer
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Friday, 20 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 21
Today's Topics:
Universities and Goverment
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 8 Jan 87 20:41:30-EST
From: Richard A. Cowan < COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: A famous speech that still applies today
Cc: lkk@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
The following Senate speech was referred to me by Aaren Perry of the
American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. I *think* the
speech will ring true for some of you. If so, please check out the
open questions that follow the speech.
-rich
[The following is part I of the second half of a famous speech by
Senator William Fulbright entitled "The War and Its Effects." It
appears in the Senate Congressional Record of December 13, 1967, page
36181.]
Mr. President, today I resume my comments on the Vietnamese war and
its far-ranging effects. In the first half of my statement I
questioned the assumption on which the American war policy is based
and suggested what seem to me to be the principal causes of the deep
and widening division among the American people. Today I shall point
to some of the destructive effects of the war upon our domestic life
-- to the growing militarization of the economy and the universities,
to the deepening crisis of poverty and race, and to the underlying
question of America's concept of herself, either as a traditional
world empire as we seem to be becoming, or as an example of creative
democracy, as we have traditionally regarded ourselves.
I. THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-ACADEMIC COMPLEX
While young dissenters plead for resurrection of the American
promise, their elders continue to subvert it. As if it were something
to be proud of, it was announced not long ago that the war in Vietnam
had created a million new jobs in the United States. Our country is
becoming conditioned to permanent conflict. More and more our
economy, our Government, and our universities are adapting themselves
to the requirements of continuing war -- total war, limited war, and
cold war. The struggle against militarism into which we were drawn 26
years ago has become permanent, and for the sake of conducting it, we
are making ourselves into a militarized society.
I do not think the military-industrial complex is the conspiratorial
invention of a band of "merchants of death." One almost wishes that
it were, because conspiracies can be exposed and dealt with. But the
components of the new American militarism are too diverse,
independent, and complex for it to the result of a centrally directed
conspiracy. It is rather the inevitable result of the creation of a
huge, permanent military establishment, whose needs have given rise to
a vast private defense industry tied to the Armed Forces by a natural
bond of common interest. As the largest producer of goods and
services in the United States, the industries and businesses that fill
military orders will in the coming fiscal year pour some $45 billion
into over 5,000 cities and towns where over 8 million Americans,
counting members of the Armed Forces, comprising approximately 10
percent of the labor force, will earn their living from defense
spending. Together, all these industries and employees, drawing their
income from the $75 billion defense budget, form a giant concentration
of socialism in our otherwise free enterprise economy.
Unplanned though it was, this complex has become a major political
force. It is the result rather than the cause of American military
involvements around the world; but, composed as it is of a vast number
of citizens -- not tycoons or "merchants of death" but ordinary, good
American citizens -- whose livelihood depends on defense production,
the military industrial complex has become an indirect force for the
perpetuation of our global military commitments. This is not -- and I
emphasize "not" -- because anyone favors war but because every one of
us has a natural and proper desire to preserve the sources of his
livelihood. For the defense worker this means preserving or obtaining
some local factory or installation and obtaining new defense orders;
for the labor union leader it means jobs for his members at abnormally
high wages; for the politician it means preserving the good will of
his constituents by helping them to get what they want. Every time a
new program, such as Mr McNamara's $5 billion "thin" antiballistic
missile system, is introduced, a powerful new constituency is created
-- a constituency that will strive mightily to protect the new program
and, in the case of the ABM, turn the "thin" system into a "thick"
one, a movement already underway according to reports in the press.
The constituency-building process is further advanced by the
perspicacity of Defense officials and contractors in locating
installations and plants in the districts of influential key Members
of Congress.
In this natural way generals, industrialists, businessmen, labor
leaders, workers, and politicians have joined together in a
military-industrial complex -- a complex which, for all the
inadvertency of its creation and the innocent intentions of its
participants, has nonetheless become a powerful new force for the
perpetuation of foreign military commitments, for the introduction and
expansion of expensive weapons systems, and as a result, for the
militarization of large segments of our national life. Most interest
groups are counterbalanced by other interest groups, but the defense
complex is so much larger than any other that there is no effective
counterweight to it except concern as to its impact on the part of
some of our citizens and a few of our leaders, none of whom have
material incentive to offer.
The universities might have formed an effective counterweight to the
military-industrial complex by strengthening their emphasis on the
traditional values of our democracy, but many of our leading
universities have instead joined the monolith, adding greatly to its
power and influence. Disappointing though it is, the adherence of the
professors is not greatly surprising. No less than businessmen,
workers, and politicians, professors like money and influence. Having
traditionally been deprived of both, they have welcomed the contracts
and consultantships offered by the Military Establishment.
The great majority of American professors are still teaching
students and engaging in scholarly research, but some of the most
famous of our academicians have set such activities aside in order to
serve their government, especially those parts of the government which
are primarily concerned with war.
The bonds between the Government and the universities are no more
the results of a conspiracy than those between Government and
Business. They are an arrangement of convenience, providing the
Government with politically usable knowledge and the universities with
badly needed funds. Most of these funds go to large institutions
which need them less than some smaller and less well-known ones, but
they do on the whole make a contribution to higher learning, a
contribution, however, which is purchased at a high price.
That price is the surrender of independence, the neglect of
teaching, and the distortion of scholarship. A university which has
become accustomed to the inflow of government contract funds is likely
to emphasize activities which attract those funds. These,
unfortunately, do not include teaching undergraduates and the kind of
scholarship which, though it may contribute to the sum of human
knowledge and to man's understanding of himself, is not salable to the
Defense Department or the CIA. As Clark Kerr, former president of the
University of California, expressed it:
The real problem is not one of Federal control but of
Federal influence. A Federal agency offers a project.
The university need not accept, but as a practical
matter, it usually does... Out of this reality have
followed many of the consequences of Federal aid for the
universities; and they have been substantial. That
they are subtle, slowly cumulative and gentlemanly
makes them all the more potent. < 1>
From what one hears the process of acquiring Government contracts is
not always passive and gentlemanly.
One of the dismal sights in American higher education --
Writes Robert M Rosenzweig, associate dean of the Stanford University
graduate division --
is that of administrators scrambling for contracts for
work which does not emerge from the research or
teaching interests of their faculty. The result of
this unseemly enterprise is bound to be a faculty
coerced or seduced into secondary lines of interest, or
a frantic effort to secure nonfaculty personnel to meet
the contractual obligations. Among the most puzzling
aspects of such arrangements is the fact that
Government agencies have permitted and even encouraged
them. Not only are they harmful to the universities --
which is not, of course, the Government's prime concern
-- but they insure that the Government will not get
what it is presumably buying; namely, the intellectual
and technical resources of the academic community. It
is simply a bad bargain all the way around. < 2>
Commenting on these tendencies, a special report on government, the
universities and international affairs, prepared for the U.S. Advisory
Commission on International Educational and Cultural Affairs, points
out that --
The eagerness of university administrations to
undertake stylized, Government-financed projects has
caused a decline in self-generated commitments to
scholarly pursuits, has produced baneful effects on the
academic mission of our universities, and has, in
addition, brought forward some bitter complaints from
the disappointed clients. < 3>
Among the baneful effects of the Government-university contract
system, the most damaging and corrupting are the neglect of the
university's most important purpose, which is the education of its
students, and the taking into the Government camp of scholars,
especially those in the social sciences, who ought to be acting as
responsible and independent critics of their Government's policies.
The corrupting process is a subtle one: no one needs to censor,
threaten, or give orders to contract scholars; without a word being
uttered, it is simply understood that lucrative contracts are awarded
not to those who question their Government's policies but to those who
provide the Government with the tools and techniques it desires. The
effect, in the words of the Advisory Commission on International
Education, is --
To suggest the possibility to a world -- never
adverse to prejudice -- that academic honesty is no
less marketable than a box of detergent on the grocery
shelf. < 4>
The formation of a military-industrial complex, for all its baneful
consequences, is the result of great numbers of people engaging in
more or less normal commercial activities. The adherence of the
universities, though no more the result of a plan or conspiracy,
nonetheless involves something else: the neglect, and if carried far
enough, the betrayal, of the university's fundamental reason for
existence, which is the advancement of man's search for truth and
happiness. It is for this purpose, and this purpose alone, that
universities receive -- and should receive -- the community's support
in the form of grants, loans, and tax exemptions.
When the university turns away from its central purpose and makes
itself an appendage to the Government, concerning itself with
techniques rather than purposes, with expedients rather than ideals,
dispensing conventional orthodoxy rather than new ideas, it is not
only failing to meet its responsibilities to its students; it is
betraying a public trust.
This betrayal is most keenly felt by the students, partly because it
is they who are being denied the services of those who ought to be
their teachers, they to whom knowledge is being dispensed wholesale in
cavernous lecture halls, they who must wait weeks for brief audiences
with important professors whose time is taken up by travel and
research connected with Government contracts. For all these reasons
the students feel themselves betrayed, but it is doubtful that any of
these is the basic cause of the angry rebellions which have broken out
on so many campuses.
It seems more likely that the basic cause of the great trouble in
our universities is the student's discovery of corruption in the one
place besides perhaps the churches, which might have been supposed to
be immune from the corruptions of our age. Having seen their
country's traditional values degraded in the effort to attribute moral
purpose to an immoral war, having seen their country's leaders caught
in inconsistencies which are politely referred to as a "credibility
gap," they now see their universities -- the last citadels of moral
and intellectual integrity -- lending themselves to ulterior and
expedient ends, and betraying their own fundamental purpose, which, in
James Bryce's words, is to "reflect the spirit of the times without
yielding to it."
< 1> Clark Kerr, The Uses of the University, (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1964), pp. 57-8.
< 2> Quoted in: Walter Adams and Adrian Jaffe, "Government, The
Universities, and International Affairs: A Crisis in Identity,"
Special Report Prepared for the U.S. Advisory Commission on
International Educational and Cultural Affairs, 90th Congress, 1st
Session, House Document No. 120 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1966), pp. 5-6.
< 3> Ibid., p. 6.
< 4> Ibid., p. 8.
------------------------------
For further discussion:
If the speech rang true, I ask, why do you think (and I emphasize,
*think*) that what Fulbright is saying is right? Is it from
first-hand experience? "Grassroots" discussions with colleagues?
Perceptions as presented in the media or advertising? *Seeing
through* these perceptions? Is there little evidence for what
Fulbright says? Is there lots of evidence that is simply never
shared? (If this is the case, please share some!)
Does Fulbright discuss those things which are difficult to quantify,
and is there a tendency to omit these things from the debate? Are all
forms of bias difficult to quantify?
And if you disagree, *why* do you think that Fulbright is wrong?
-rich
P.S. If you send replies to me, I will post excerpts (anonymously if
you wish).
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 21 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 22
Today's Topics:
South Africa &
The Middle of the Road (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: 13 January 87 09:47-PST
From: SMITH%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: Response to Willy Lim.
In Poli-Sci digest V7 #4 Willy Lim in replied to me:
(Lim):
>(I have also read
>reports that the SACP (South African Communist Party) have plans to
>recruit more whites in SA.)
They already have white membership in the SACP. Lithuanian born Joe
Slovo (SACP) is the top man of the militant wing of the ANC (he
operates from London, Lusaka, and Odessa) and travels on British
papers.
(Lim then says):
>A definition of what you meant by communists would help. But in
>general I agree with what you said about communism as it is
>practiced.
Ok, I like Lenin's own definition "Communism is power based on force
and limited to nothing, not by any law and by absolutely no set rule"
*Lenin's Collected Works* vol. XVIII pg 361 (availible from CPUSA or
one of their bookstores). Communism is a Bruderbund of people
dedicated to total power and total control of the world. Communists
are the membership of this Bruderbund. Other good descriptions of
Communists and the way they operate can be found in books like *The
Masters of Deceit* and *A Study of Communism* by J. Edgar Hoover.
(Lim):
>By the way, you have inadvertently ignored the documented killings
>due to the SADF and the SA police.
Ok, here's one thing I know. At this moment insurgent SWAPO forces
from Angola last no longer than about 7 days (on average) before the
local black people turn them in to the authorities (SADF).
(Lim):
>How do you think the government sanctioned killings look to the
>Afrikaaners and anyone else in SA?
You mean the shootings that occur when the local black people call the
police in to stop the necklace murders and other criminal activity.
What about the black policemen who engage in these shootings? What
are they supposed to do--give the ANC cap guns, call in the media and
play games? The police are looked up to by a good deal of people
regardless of race. Several black police chiefs have been decorated
for service to their communities despite threats on life, property,
and family.
(Lim):
>The word "moderate" have different
>meanings to different people. Remember P.W. Botha is considered a
>moderate by the Afrikaaners. Anyway such labels don't mean much
>in SA politics. I am more interested in the facts than the labels.
Are you familiar with the following statements of Nelson Mandela?
"We communist party members are the most advanced revolutionaries
in modern history..."
"As in Cuba, the general uprising must be sparked off by organized
and well prepared guerrilla operations during the course of which
the masses of the people will be drawn in and armed."
"The people of South Africa, led by the Southern African Communist
Party, will destroy capitalist society and build in its place
socialism...The transition from capitalism to socialism and the
liberation of the working class from the yoke cannot be affected by
slow changes or by reforms as reactionaries and liberals often
advise. One must therefore be a revolutionary and not a
reformist."
So much for Mr. Mandela. No wonder the ANC hates black police chiefs
and mayors. They don't want law and order. What the ANC wants is total
ANC control of all their fellow citizens. If it is greater individual
freedom that the ANC offers, why do they carry on a campaign of terror
against their fellow black citizens?
(Lim):
>Given that we have more facts and that most of us
>are at least as rational as them, we would trust our conclusions
>more than theirs.
Pure BS, our major press is censored. We live with suppression here.
(Lim):
>Whatever is wrong with it, it is still hell of a lot better than
>the press in SA. You at least have the freedom to write letters to
>newspapers and make your opinions known. You can also send your
>sources of information to the editor in the Wall Street Journal and
>have him/her use them in his/her editorials (most of which you
>would agree with). You can also go make a movie, print and
>distribute leaflets, organize a lecture/demostration/debate, etc.
>If you didn't do any of these things don't blame the press or
>anybody else.
I do what you are saying and think the US press is really screwed up.
I send in letters-to-the-editors to the press. It has become common
that I worry about whether or not the editors will leave some
important word like "not" out of my sentence and change the meaning
entirely. They prefer to print an opinion by a 9-year old third
grader on SDI than the opinion of a particle physicist. Have you ever
gotten on opinion printed on the editorial page of the NYT?
I wonder what you really know about the press in SA?? Have you
ever looked at The Daily News, Die Vaderland, Beeld, Pretoria News,
Die Transvaler, Business Day, Finansies and Tegniek, The Natal
Witness, Sunday Times, The Natal Mercury, Cape Times, Rapport, Daily
Dispatch, Die Burger, The Star, Oosterlig, The Citizen, The Argus, or
Die Volksblad? Do you think that The Sowetan is a SA government
operation? Everything you mentioned about writing letters and printing
leaflets happens in SA. There are plenty of different opinions
expressed. I would say, however, that in general the press in SA is as
messed up as the press in the USA-staffed by people who have the same
biases as our media. The South Africans can blame Harry Openheimer
(Anglo-American Corp) for this problem since he owns a great deal of
interest in them (he is similar to Hearst). Someone is buying the SA
gold shares at a bargain...could it be H.O.?
SA will most likely get a new constitution in the next couple of
years. It will be interesting to see if they will implement the Swiss
Canton system of government that is being talked about a great deal.
These Cantons could very well drop the socialism that has plagued SA
for the last several decades. The Ciskei has adopted a total
free-enterprise economy and businesses are moving in rapidly (no
business taxes). SA is probably one of the few countries on earth that
could go on a gold standard (or even use gold for currency). This
could be enacted by several of the Cantons as soon as the new
constitution becomes a reality. If they do this the rest of Africa
will be looking at them very carefully and wondering about their own
plunge towards socialism and economic disaster.
Anyone interested in a report on South Africa by a knowlegdable,
experienced American should get a copy of the videotape by Donald
McAlvany entitled *South Africa: The Accelerating Onslaught*.
John Smith
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 87 00:15:35 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
What do you see as admirable about the average opinion of US
citizens?....(flaming about middle-of-the-road =
average-opinion-of-US-citizens).....
Being a moderate has very little to do with the average opinion of
US citizens. (So the rest of your message is just hot air.)
Ok.
By moderate I mean the political center i.e. neither too left
(e.g. 100% state control of the economy) or too right (e.g. 0%
state control).
Well, I don't know about left and right. The communists supposedly
set 0% state control as their vision of communism achieved. And Nazi
Germany, usually regarded as far right, believed in 100% state
control. Left and right are not useful terms. Even if they were,
libertarians and objectivists don't fit on that spectrum at all.
Please explain why you see partial state control of the economy as
desirable.
You realize that it is possible to describe any position as a
compromise between two extremes. Being a compromise between extremes
is no virtue, as I explained in my previous message.
...since a quote from _The Fountainhead_ is so appropriate
here. The villain Ellsworth Toohey is describing his vision of
utopia: ...
(-: Sounds like good advice for the unthinking mind. It is
especially apt for those who believe in a future world of
obedience (e.g. to the libertarian philosophy only)
"Obedience" to the libertarian philosophy means no more and no less
than "obedience" to the idea that people shouldn't have to obey
others.
and unity (since only libertarians need apply (or deserve to
live)).
Aren't we getting a little ad hominem here? When have I ever said
anything like that?
I have said that people have the right to think whatever they want,
and to say and write whatever they want, even if they profess
socialism or fascism, but not to ACT in whatever they want if such
actions entail anyone being enslaved or robbed (i.e. drafted or
taxed).
If you are saying that a free society excludes people who argue in
favor of non-free societies, you are wrong. If you are saying that a
free society excludes thieves and killers, you are right.
It is also good advice to those who have been doing too much
guessing (and guessed wrong too e.g. moderate = average opinion)
of their neighbor's thought. :-)
I apologize for that. It is indeed hard for me to guess what is in
the mind of someone who advocates some state control of the economy.
Since none of you statists ever really explain your reasoning, I have
to guess at it if I am to criticize your ideas.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 17 Jan 87 13:47:31-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Even if they were, libertarians and objectivists don't fit on
that spectrum at all.
Many people consider libertarians to be at neither extremes and but
rather closer to the center i.e. moderates. I am glad that we agree
that moderates/middle-of-the-road is not the same as "average
opinion". For otherwise, your earlier points:
"How does one distinguish an "objective, compassionate, pragmatic
and fair" moderate from any other kind of moderate, given that
they all hold the same opinions?
If your opinions are truly middle-of-the-road, there is no point
in your voting since your vote would simply be the average of
everyone else's. Nor is there any point in your expressing your
opinions since they are just the average of everyone else's
opinions."
would apply to libertarians too.
Please explain why you see partial state control of the economy
as desirable.
I am not saying that partial state control of the economy is desirable
but rather that I have not seen a successful case of a 0% or 100%
state controlled economy. The so-called free market countries that
exist have some state control i.e. there are at least some rules,
regulations and state bodies (like the Fed, SEC) just so as to ensure
that the market has some resemblance to the ideal free market. I do
see the necessity of some regulation for this purpose (i.e. make the
market as free as possible). This is the result of the fact that the
ideal free market (PERFECT flow of COMPLETE information) can never
exist (proved by contradiction). Very often regulations are enacted
to prevent individuals from taking advantage of the imperfections of
the actual market (which I prefer to call the real (or physical or
practical) market) to cheat/rob/exploit others (e.g. fraud, insider
trading).
I don't equate state control of the economy with just state control of
economic resources (which I think is what you meant by state control).
But I do mean that the state does get involved in some kind of
planning/control, be it strategic planning (which seems to be the
current thinking of some conservatives e.g. Kevin Phillips) or
monetary planning (via the central bank) or control of foreign trade
(import/export restrictions for military, economic and other reasons).
By your (and mine) definition, all those newly industrialized
countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have state
controlled economies since their governments do actively get involved
in planning and implementing their economics. The fact that (1) they
are successful in achieving startling economic growth rates when
compared to many countries in the West, (2) there are no prosperous
countries (note Hong Kong, the "most libertarian" place in the world,
is not a country) with zero state control of the economy (i.e. their
economy is completely unregulated, no state licensing boards, no
central bank, etc.), and (3) communist countries have very bad
economic performance, mean that the facts do not support the argument
that 0% or 100% state control of the economy is a good idea. I do,
however, see the possibility of our evolving into better (I don't
what) systems.
I think it is more interesting to ask whether we can have an effective
real market (i.e. the "freest" possible) when we have a government
acting strictly as a rules making and arbitration body. That is, just
play referee and does not own/control any resources (e.g. no state
owned/controlled central bank, no state police) in the economy. That
would be the closest approximation to the 0% state control economy
that I can think of.
If your argument is that taxation cannot be robbery because a
person can always leave the country, I would ask whether street
robbery in a city with a known high crime rate is really robbery,
since the victim could have chosen to move to another city when he
learned of the high crime rate.
Many people who can afford it, do move out of the high crime areas
while other "choose" to stay because of economic and social reasons
e.g. can't afford to move out, can't find a job, got chased out from
some safer neighborhoods because of racism, can't buy a house or rent
an apartment in an affordable and safer neighborhood because of
discrimination, etc.
I would ask whether what Hitler did to the Jews was ok, given that
Jews were free to leave Germany for several years after Hitler's
rise to power, and given that Hitler's anti-semitism was no secret
to them.
I was talking about relocating to another area for economic reasons.
(I did say something about weighing the potential returns (i.e. wealth
accumulation) and cost (i.e. taxes you have to pay).) So my answer to
your insinuations is an ABSOLUTE NO, for 1) Hilter did not believe in
a free market as he wanted to exclude Jews (and non-Aryans) from it,
2) only Jews were persecuted, and 3) I am not sure if the Jews were
sufficiently warned i.e. did Hitler tell them he was going to send
them to concentration camps and the gas chambers several years ahead
of time? If (3) were true and that other countries didn't do anything
about it then the Jews didn't have a choice when it comes to leaving
Germany (i.e. the other countries didn't readily accept them). It is
not just freedom to leave a place, there must also be freedom and
ability (have the means) to move into/live in another place. You need
all these to emigrate successfully (and legally).
That is their right. They can stay where they are. If they want
a job which only exists somewhere else, they will have to move
somewhere else. If they want to stay where they are, they will
have to accept - or change - the opportunities that exist where
they are. What is your point?
My point is that that is exactly the same situation as leaving (or not
leaving) a "free market" country for another "free market" country for
economic reason. So in your own words, "If they want to stay where
they are, they will have to accept - or change - the opportunities
that exist where they are." So either accept the system we currently
have or change it (through peaceful and constitutional means).
What if we had lost World War II, and the only choices as to where
to live were the German empire or the Japanese empire?
Fortunately we live in a world where this is not true and arguing
about fictitious things would be like arguing what if the whole world
is libertarian and it turned out to be a big lose.
Would that make it right?
There are a lot of things that are not right in this world. Some of
these are easier to fix than others. You are free to be obsessed by
whichever one you want (e.g. taxation). Other people worry about
other things (e.g. the distortion and corruption of the "free" market
due to discrimination or incompetence). People have different
priorities when it comes doing something about what is not right.
Hence insisting that they follow your priorities is a waste of your
(and their) time.
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Sunday, 22 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Minimum Wage &
Property Taxes &
Involuntary Financing &
The Middle of the Road &
Corruption &
Capitalism
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 87 21:36:20 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Minimum wage
To: Hank.Walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
I used to believe that the sub-minimum wage would substantially
reduce black teenage unemployment. But inconvenient facts have
gotten in the way. The problem does not appear to be high minimum
wages eliminating jobs. ...
The implicit ideas here seems to be that the government has the
right to set a minimum wage, and that there is no reason to reduce the
minimum wage unless unemployment would be reduced thereby.
I don't see why one couldn't equally well maintain that the
government has the right to set minimum and maximum costs for any
goods or services. Nixon certainly thought it did - remember wage and
price controls?
Even if unemployment would not be any lower - which I doubt -
minimum wage laws violate the rights of employers. There are goods
and services which I would buy no less of if their price was higher,
but that doesn't mean that government ought to mandate that their
price BE higher.
Federal minimum wage laws are quite arbitrary anyway. They don't
apply to farm workers, to people not engaged in interstate commerce
(which has never been clearly defined), to volunteer workers who work
for nothing at all (often in hopes of gaining a paying job), to self
employed people, or to exempt employees (people paid an annual salary
rather than an hourly wage).
Nor does there seem to be any rational standard by which the minimum
wage is set. Sometimes it increases much faster than inflation.
Other times much slower or not at all. Employers and employees don't
know what it will do in the future, which creates great uncertainty
and difficulty in financial planning.
1) Job Location - McDonald's restaurants in the suburbs often pay
more than minimum wage because that is the only way they can
attract enough employees. In more well-to-do areas, the teenagers
don't really need the money, so they aren't going to work if it
isn't worth it.
Rather it is because nobody can live off the mimimum wage thanks to
the lack of low cost housing. This lack is due largely to zoning
laws, high property taxes, and overregulation of what constitutes
acceptable housing conditions.
... inner-city youths won't take jobs at very low wages any more
than suburban teenagers will. ... Why break your butt down at the
corner grocery for $2/hour when you can make $1500 a day running a
crack house
This can be easily fixed by repealing drug laws. A large percentage
of the population do not respect the drug laws, otherwise running a
crack house would not be socially acceptable. Nor would there be many
customers. Instead, as you point out, it is a high status high paying
occupation among inner city youths.
Until these three basic problems are solved, I don't think the
minimum wage level will affect teenage unemployment much.
Quite possibly true, though I think the minimum wage laws should be
repealed if even one person is unemployed who otherwise wouldn't be.
In fact, even if employment wouldn't go up at all.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < dmw@gauss.ECE.CMU.EDU>
Date: Friday, 16 January 1987 23:07:07 EST
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
To: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: property taxes
I don't believe that property taxes have a significant effect on
housing affordability. I just happened to go to a meeting about
Pittsburgh's taxes recently, so have a bunch of numbers handy. The
municipal property tax rate in Pittsburgh is 151.5 mills for land and
27 mills for building, and the school property tax is 40 mills, with
the assessed value 25% of the market value. Fox Chapel has a
municipal property tax of 15.5 mills and a school property tax of 58
mills. For a $12,500 assessed value ($50,000 house, 92% building, 8%
land) the annual property taxes are thus $918.75 in Fox Chapel and
$962 in Pittsburgh. And yet all the poor people seem to live in
Pittsburgh, not Fox Chapel. Why? Hint: the 1980 median family income
was $62,585 in Fox Chapel and $17,499 in Pittsburgh.
Lest you think this example is extreme, McKeesport has total property
taxes of $1281.25 on that $50,000 house and a median family income of
$17,129. If anything, in this area there's really something of an
inverse relationship between community wealth and property tax rates.
This isn't surprising since the need for services does not grow
linearly with property values. I should also point out that most
Allegheny County communities have a 1% city/school wage tax, while
Pittsburgh's city/school wage tax is 4%. The reason for the
discrepency is that 40% of Pittsburgh property is tax exempt, so
commuters get a free ride while residents get hosed. It's not
surprising that even though the total workforce rose from 280,000 to
300,000 in the past 20 years, the resident workforce fell from 180,000
to 120,000 as people sought to avoid higher Pittsburgh taxes. For you
Boston readers, they solve their tax exempt problem with a grant from
the state legislature.
P.S. It is not hard to buy a reasonable $50,000 house in Pittsburgh.
It is not hard to buy a reasonable $200,000 house in Fox Chapel.
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 19 Jan 87 01:08:03-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Involuntary financing
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I get the picture, but what is your point? You seem to be saying
what if a free society somehow falls apart, won't it be chaos? One
could similarly argue against anything this way. What if a
non-free society falls apart, won't it be chaos?
The point is robustness of the system. I was trying to find out what
makes a libertarian state robust given that it has no control over
nature or the behaviors of the other states in the world and that it
can't force its citizens to do things even if it is for their own good
(let's not argue about whether this is good or bad just take it as
given). I frankly don't know how much stress a libertarian system can
take before it breaks. Maybe it is more robust that what we have
(which has gone through many stresses, e.g. a civil war, world wars, a
depression, Vietnam, numerous recessions, riots, earthquakes, etc.)
may be not.
What if your car suddenly falls apart on the highway, won't it be
chaos?
Fortunately if your car breaks, there is still a society out there to
offer you help. If a libertarian system is losing and the rest of the
world is willing to help, the libertarian government would have
difficulty accepting help from the other nations since its power to
use such help (in the form of, say, loans) would be severely
restricted (e.g. it can't plan or implement an economic recovery
plan).
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 17 Jan 87 14:24:57-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
You realize that it is possible to describe any position as a
compromise between two extremes. Being a compromise between
extremes is no virtue, as I explained in my previous message.
Any position includes the libertarian position. See my last message.
"Obedience" to the libertarian philosophy means no more and no less
than "obedience" to the idea that people shouldn't have to obey
others.
That is, to obey not to obey others. Sounds contradictory.
and unity (since only libertarians need apply (or deserve to
live)).
Aren't we getting a little ad hominem here? When have I ever said
anything like that?
It is only ad hominen if I said that you said that which I never did.
That whole paragraph was delimited by a "(-:" and a ":-)". These
symbols are commonly used to delimit a joke or something not to be
taken too seriously. (-: But sometimes I do get the feeling of being
subtly coerced (e.g. something must be wrong with you if you don't see
the beauty of a libertarian system) into accepting the libertarian
position. :-)
I apologize for that.
Apologies accepted and appreciated.
It is indeed hard for me to guess what is in the mind of someone
who advocates some state control of the economy.
In my last message, you'll learn what I mean by state control of the
economy. By that definition, as long as there is at one state body
like the Fed/central bank or least one regulation affecting the
economy (market), there is state control of the economy.
Since none of you statists ever really explain your reasoning, I
have to guess at it if I am to criticize your ideas.
You used the word statist wrongly. I also resent its use here as it
is often used by conservatives (and others) to invoke an emotional
response (like "commies", "gutter".) The definition of a statist,
according to the Webster dictionary is:
> >>> stat.ist \'stat-*st\ n : an advocate of statism -- statist adj
> >>> stat.ism \'stat-.iz-*m\ n : concentration of economic controls
and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government
I don't advocate a highly centralized government just sufficient
government to make the market "free".
(-:If one does not use the term statist carefully, everybody who does
not believe in a system of 0% government can be called a statist.
E.g. Conservatives who believe in a strong military or a big defense
budget will easily qualify as statists.:-)
(-: You often resort to guessing when you have something to flame
about and use my (or someone's else) statements to ignite your flame.
:-) (My apologies if that sounds a little ad hominem.)
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < ray@rochester.arpa>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 87 08:13:00 est
From: Ray Frank < ray@rochester.arpa>
Subject: Re: Corruption?
kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu writes:
Is it possible for a libertarian government to be
incompetent or corrupt or engage in illegal activities?
Is it possible for a bear to shit in the woods?
ray
------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 87 09:33:20 PST
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Subject: A story
A recent business transaction here in the City of the Angles brings up
some questions about unfettered capitalism.
KFAC (AM and FM) is LA's only commercial classical music station.
The programming tended toward short pieces, along with various
syndicated programs (Karl Haas's "Adventures in Good Music") and the
occasional forays into jazz, folk, and even fusion rock. I didn't
much care for them and didn't listen to the station. (Like a good
libertarian, I give a significant voluntary contribution each year to
the commercial-free alternative, KUSC.) However, KFAC had a loyal,
albeit not large audience, and never had any trouble showing a profit
each year. The programming staff had been with the station for quite
a while, three of them in excess of twenty years.
Recently, the station was purchased by new owners, at a cost of
$35 million. The new owners had to go heavily into debt to make the
purchase, and the service on the debt was more than the station was
earning. Marketing surveys were commissioned, and it was determined
that a larger audience would result from an emphasis on pure classical
music, longer pieces, and younger on-air personnel. The old veterans
were summarily fired on January 3, "without even the customary gold
watch," as one of the put it, and replaced with new people, including
someone hired away from KUSC.
Personally, I greatly prefer KFAC's new format. KUSC is a
difficult reception problem where I live, and KFAC is now a viable
alternative. If I am typical, then the new owners are correct, their
listenership and hence their advertising revenues will go up, and they
will make money on their purchase. But, the nagging question remains:
what about the people who were fired?
I believe (without proof, I hasten to add) that such incidents
are the reason for much of people's distrust of capitalism; this sense
that even though no laws were broken and no one's rights were
violated, the new station's owners did wrong by the old employees.
Steve
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 25 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 24
Today's Topics:
Education (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 87 23:56:15 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Education, taxation
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Disagreeing with authority for the hell of it is not such a great
thing. [Japanese] consensus style management system seems to
indicate the absence of an "authority".
Not at all. They so often reach a consensus precisely because they
respect an authority, i.e. the head honcho at each management meeting.
It is considered nearly unthinkable to openly disagree with an
authority.
I do not advocate disagreeing for the hell of it. I advocate a
process of reason. If one comes to a different conclusion that an
authority, I don't think one should ever agree with the authority
simply because he is an authority. This is common in every culture,
not just in Japan. It is perhaps somewhat more common in Japan than
in most countries, and somewhat less common in the United States than
in most countries. But it is still far too prevalent even here.
Have you read of the experiments where the great majority of people
were willing to inflict what they thought was electrical torture on an
innocent person simply because an authority told them to? (References
on request.)
However in the schools it (obedience) may mean that teachers can
concentrate on teaching.
If you are speaking of inner city schools in which teachers are
frequently assaulted by unruly students, I agree. Students should
obey the law and should not disrupt the classroom. That is not what I
meant. I meant the willingness of a student to ask questions of his
teacher when he does not understand the material or disagrees with the
material. If he disagrees, he should continue to disagree unless the
teacher or someone else is able to explain to him why they are right
and he is wrong. And saying "I am the teacher!" or "I spent eight
years at Harvard!" is not explanation, it is intimidation.
More time is spent on teaching the material (and hence more things
are taught).
Teaching more things isn't of much use unless they are understood.
It is one thing to say all matter is atoms, and it is quite another to
explain why people became convinced of such an unobvious fact. The
former is quite useless, unless the goal of education is to be able to
answer multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions "All matter is
composed of _____". The latter leads to an understanding of how
knowledge can be reliably obtained, and what are valid and invalid
methods of reasoning.
If young people today are attracted to cults with bizarre doctrines
which don't bear analysis, it is quite likely because as students they
were trained to pay attention to authorities and to not ask questions.
The ideas that science accepts sound just as bizarre as any
religious or socialist dogma. The difference is how we know these
things. We do students no service if we brush aside the question of
how we learn these things with the assertion that it is very
complicated and we don't have time to get into it if we are to meet
our quota of memorized facts for this semester.
"Memorized fact number 2317: The abdomen contains the bowels, which
are A E I O U and sometimes Y. Memorized fact number 2318: The
hypothesis of a square triangle is equal to the other two sides.
Memorized fact number 2319: ..."
1) There is no effective control over what is taught or how it
is taught, so it is always possible that education will
degenerate into illiteracy and/or indoctrination.
By getting the government out of education, you seem to be saying
that there can never be effective control. Or it is the case that
it is just not worth our effort in making the controls effective?
The people en masse don't really control the government. Even if
they did, the majority opinion of how to educate someone does not
necessarily coincide with the parents idea of how their child should
be educated.
2) There is no effective control over costs. There is a
tendency for more and more money to buy less and less, as
with any government program.
See the previous paragraph. (I have also heard of Buchanan's
work.)
These ideas aren't original with him.
Government costs tend to be out of control and much greater than
individuals would pay for the same things in a free economy. Just
look at what has happened to medical costs since government started
paying for much of them. Look at what DoD pays for commonplace goods
and services.
It is not clear to me how this can be changed, given that government
is to remain the purchaser. It is not clear to me that it CAN be
changed. Buchanan helped to inspired Graham-Rudman. I doubt I could
have done any better. And we see how little that is accomplishing.
Mainly, government agencies are lying about their expected costs, and
there is much talk of tax increases. In fact there HAVE BEEN tax
increases, despite Reagan's promise that their won't be - I recently
discovered that the government will take ten percent of my company
financed retirement plan funds if I leave the company before age 59.5
IN ADDITION to all income taxes on the same funds. This is a totally
new tax, and one I never heard any debate over and certainly never
agreed to when reviewing employee benefits before joining this
company. It applies to all funds in the retirement plan, not just
funds that are accumulated starting this year. This is retroactive
taxation. This is plain theft.
But there IS a simple solution. Make it all private. Government
should not pay for education. Or for medical care. Or for anything
else except the minimum necessary to ensure our individual liberties,
i.e. the courts, domestic defense, and the police. A mimimal
government of this sort can be financed without any taxes, as I have
explained in previous messages to the list.
3) It is not fair to force people to pay for it against their
will.
Theorectically in a democracy, the people can enforce their will
on the government and not the other way round. So if they think
that should be no public schools, they can get rid of them.
If there were such a thing as a collective will, and no such thing
as an individual will, I would have to agree with you (assuming our
representatives are truly representative). But that is not the case.
Why should an individual who has no children have to pay for the
education of other people's children? Why should an individual with
more than the average number of children have to pay no more than his
neighbor with none? Why should the amount they pay be proportional to
the amount of land they own? Why should there be growing federal
control and increasing use of income tax revenues to fund local public
education? Why should someone who vehemently disagrees with much of
what is taught in public school have to pay for it being taught? Why
should someone who chooses to enroll his children in a private school
for whatever reason have to pay for the public schools as well?
... I had to make such kind decisions when I immigrated here. My
point is that there is a choice for you to make.
If your argument is that taxation cannot be robbery because a person
can always leave the country, I would ask whether street robbery in a
city with a known high crime rate is really robbery, since the victim
could have chosen to move to another city when he learned of the high
crime rate. I would ask whether what Hitler did to the Jews was ok,
given that Jews were free to leave Germany for several years after
Hitler's rise to power, and given that Hitler's anti-semitism was no
secret to them.
That the victim could have been elsewhere is no excuse for any
crime.
However I do note that workers who lost their jobs in the rust
belt seem to have similar reasons for not relocating to a new
area.
That is their right. They can stay where they are. If they want a
job which only exists somewhere else, they will have to move somewhere
else. If they want to stay where they are, they will have to accept -
or change - the opportunities that exist where they are. What is your
point?
Are you saying taxation is ok only so long as there is at
least one country that does not have taxes? What if those
countries limited one's freedom in other ways?
Until we have a libertarian country somewhere and you can't
convince enough people in this country to make it libertarian,
that's the trade-off you have to make.
That doesn't make it right. What if we had lost World War II, and
the only choices as to where to live were the German empire or the
Japanese empire? Would that make it right?
I am not arguing for what is plausible in the near term, but for
what is right. Once a substantial number of people agree on what is
right, I think you would be surprised how obtainable it becomes.
... I do find it strange that you would come down hard on those
people who wouldn't change their lifestyle or attitude to make
things better for themselves (e.g. "welfare addicts", unemployed
steel worker who refused to move to another region to take a new
job) but would excuse yourself when asked to make a similar
decision.
I do not come down hard on unemployed steel workers. They don't
have any right to stay where they are *IF* such a right entails other
people being compelled to pay for their choice.
I DO come down hard on welfare people, not because they are
unwilling to work - I really couldn't care less whether they work -
but because welfare is stealing. They are free to find any way they
want to live, so long as it doesn't involve taking money or goods from
people who do not agree to give money or goods to them.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 18 Jan 87 00:57:14-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Education, taxation
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Not at all. They so often reach a consensus precisely because they
respect an authority, i.e. the head honcho at each management
meeting.
That is not true according to many market oriented journals like
Fortune, BusinessWeek, The Economist, etc. From what I have read, it
seems that the consensus style of management can be slow (e.g. in
making deals) simply because the head honcho does not make the
decision him/herself but rather he/she has to consult his/her
management people. Many of the CEOs in US companies that I know of
(including at least two I know through very reliable sources) are very
dictatorial. Their subordinates don't dare voice their disagreements.
This confirms what you said about the US (and elsewhere) with regard
to disagreeing with the head honcho.
It is considered nearly unthinkable to openly disagree with an
authority.
I know of that kind of behavior in US companies too. But the point is
not how the disagreements get communicated but that they do get
communicated to top management somehow. (Also note the "patriotic"
calls by some people in the White House against public disagreement
with the President over Iranscam.)
Have you read of the experiments where the great majority of people
were willing to inflict what they thought was electrical torture on
an innocent person simply because an authority told them to?
(References on request.)
I learnt of that work (by someone at Yale, sometime in the 1940s, I
think) in a marketing course and I probably still have that article
somewhere. The professor described the experiment as sick. From what
I can remember, the torturers were taken from a sample of ordinary
people. They (the torturers) did it because they were told (and
believed) that the torture was for the torture victim's own good.
I meant the willingness of a student to ask questions of his
teacher when he does not understand the material or disagrees with
the material. If he disagrees, he should continue to disagree
unless the teacher or someone else is able to explain to him why
they are right and he is wrong.
There are limits to how long a teacher or a class should "help" the
lone individual especially if he/she just didn't get it. Should a
whole class fall behind just because someone didn't get it? Does
anybody have a "right" to understanding the material being taught? If
it is a private school where everybody pays the same fee, should the
teacher devote equal time to all the students? So asking questions
(just like not asking questions) have their limits and faults. If
students don't ask questions, the teacher can't get immediate feedback
on how well she/he is teaching. If there are too many questions,
there is little time for presenting the required material.
Teaching more things isn't of much use unless they are understood.
Not exactly true, some things can be understood a lot better after the
students do some thinking or experimenting on their own. There should
be an effort made by the students to work at understanding the
material. This may take the form of going to privately funded
remedial classes (common in Japan) or have the
parents/relatives/friends explain things to the student or doing some
hard thinking alone or doing some research. The last two activities
tend to encourage independent thinking and discourage a dependence on
the teacher as the sole source of knowledge.
If young people today are attracted to cults with bizarre doctrines
which don't bear analysis, it is quite likely because as students
they were trained to pay attention to authorities and to not ask
questions.
It could also be because they didn't get any satisfactory answers
(because, say, there are no such answers) and thus decide to do things
their own way. Some do such things as a perverse expression of
individualism and independent thinking. Others may do them just to
check them out i.e. to see how different they are from individualism.
Still others do it because of peer pressure. Etc.
...answer multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions "All
matter is composed of _____".
Sounds like an SAT type question. It tests mainly recall and some
level of understanding, a better test would be an essay-like problem
where the student is required to explain his/her answer and show how
it can be applied (or is relevant) to the real world using examples of
his/her own choice.
Memorized fact number 2318: The hypothesis of a square triangle is
equal to the other two sides.
(-: A bad "fact" to try to understand or memorize.:-)
We do students no service if we brush aside the question of how we
learn these things with the assertion that it is very complicated
and we don't have time to get into it if we are to meet our quota
of memorized facts for this semester.
I don't see memorizing as the only alternative to asking questions.
Independent thinking, research, and group discussions are better
alternatives.
Anyway we have digressed significantly from the main point which is
that there exist good public school systems. Let's find out why
theirs work and ours doesn't. Sermons on the evil of taxation are
unnecessary and irrelevant as what can be learnt from this can benefit
privately (or voluntarily) funded schools too.
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 26 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 25
Today's Topics:
Education (2 msgs) &
Government Regulation &
Drug Testing (2 msgs) &
The Miracle of Teflon (2 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun 18 Jan 87 01:41:22-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Education, taxation
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
The people en masse don't really control the government. Even if
they did, the majority opinion of how to educate someone does not
necessarily coincide with the parents idea of how their child
should be educated.
True for private schools too, viz. no private school of sufficient
size can cater to the individual needs of every parent. Parents have
to do their job at home to supplement what is being taught in school.
E.g. parents can provide additional help to bring the children up to
or exceed the school's standard. (Japanese parents are very involved
(too involved in my opinion) in educating their children.) The
correlation has been that if the parents are interested and
participate in educating their children, their children tend to do
better in school.
Government costs tend to be out of control and much greater than
individuals would pay for the same things in a free economy. Just
look at what has happened to medical costs since government
started paying for much of them. Look at what DoD pays for
commonplace goods and services.
True for our government. I don't know if it due to a lack of
accountability, absence of a strong sense of ethics, or our
incompetence in governing ourselves. We need to understand the causes
for this better before we know what the cure is. The problem may be
with us, the people. We may have to (1) develop a better
understanding of economics, (2) acquire a better sense of ethics, (3)
be less apathetic, and (4) be prepared to take the necessary actions
(e.g impeachment, vote him/her out of office, recall, firing, etc.)
should the government screws up.
But there IS a simple solution. Make it all private.
Sounds simple. You need to change the government which means you have
to convince enough people. That's hard. It might become even harder
if there is a major economic calamity as people will tend to look more
to the government then.
(-:You gave a paragraph of six good questions. Go ask your teacher
since you are the unhappy one.:-)
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 19 Jan 87 21:37:55-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Education
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Perhaps the best way to show that the libertarian society work
is to either simulate it on a computer
Who would write this program?
Presumably someone in a libertarian think tank.
I would bet that the results would depend primarily on the
political opinions of the author.
That would depend on the models used. The validity of these models
can be critiqued by other people.
How does one simulate the independent working of millions of
minds? Last I heard, computers couldn't even simulate one mind.
But the working of free minds is central to a free market system.
You don't need to model each individual mind but rather have a model
that "captures" the overall behavior of the group. People in
marketing do a lot of research in figuring out what makes people buy
or not buy a product. I know of some companies that have programs
modeling the economy for forecasting purposes. (I was told that one
of them was pretty accurate.) So there is a knowledge base for you to
start with.
And who is to decide what constitutes working? What possible
result of such a computer program run would be justification for
elimination of individual rights?
I do sense your paranoia with regard to elimination of individual
rights, which is not what I am talking about. I was raising the point
that perhaps we can study the system (via simulation or a small
experiment) to determine if it can easily become unstable because of
the invalidity of one or more of the assumptions (say, a critical
prerequisite) made.
Let me put it another way. Lets say the Nazis had taken over the
world and had almost everyone working to the death in slave labor
camps. Lets say all memory of a previous, non-Nazi form of
existence had been lost. Would it be reasonable then to use a
computer program to decide whether the Nazi system was right or
wrong?
Unfortunately it took a real experiment in the 1940s in Germany to
learn that it was a real big lose. Again you are missing the main
point which is that having a computer simulation or a small experiment
now (in this real world and not some absurd hypothetical world) will
be very useful for showing whether the libertarian system will work or
not. If it does, it'll convinced skeptics much more effectively than
than the multitude of pro-libertarian bytes that have been sent to
Poli-Sci.
I have heard of no catastrophes arising from any of this freedom.
A catastrophe occurring in any libertarian system within our lifetime
would be a real disaster for the libertarian cause. E.g. look at the
economic failures of communist countries.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Wed 21 Jan 87 17:06:35-EST
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Subject: Government regulation
To: kfl@ai.ai.mit.edu
Keith Lynch says:
> That a free market system can operate without lots of rules and
> regulations is not a myth. That the United States is a free market
> system IS unfortunately a myth...
> Other countries have far MORE rules and regulations on their
> economy. I assume they feel that THOSE are necessary. Clearly they
> aren't. Is it possible that ours aren't either? Reagan, for all his
> faults, has partially deregulated several things including airline
> service, oil, natural gas, and long distance telephone service...
> ... have the goods and services which have been deregulated become
> less expensive, more convenient, and of higher quality?
Telephone service sure isn't more convenient, when it takes so much
effort to figure out how-to-dial-from-here-to-there or to find out
where to get information or other services. Airline service sure
isn't of higher quality, unless you consider overcrowded flight paths
and overworked traffic controllers to constitute higher quality.
Anyway, in libertaria, would there be ANY air traffic control at all?
> Do you think this trend might profitably be continued? Would we
> all soon starve if it weren't for farm price supports? Would
> (sorry, I can't imagine any conceivable ill effect) happen if it
> weren't for tobacco price supports? Would Detroit look like
> Ethiopia if we allowed unlimited automobile imports without tariffs?
Now you're talking about something which goes beyond mere "regulation"
and extends to "financially aiding one industry". Can you not see the
difference?
> Would
> unscrupulous doctors poison us with deadly pills (more than they are
> doing now, I mean) if medical licensing and the FDA were abolished?
I think that regulation which protects people -- from being harmed by
airplanes crashing, from having nasty chemicals being dumped in their
water supply, from people misrepresenting their qualifications or
products (such as doctors), etc, is essential. I agree that at least
some of the tariff and subsidy policies are not a good idea.
~joe testa~
------------------------------
Return-path: < wild@Sun.COM>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 09:39:29 PST
From: wild@Sun.COM (Will Doherty)
To: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu
Subject: Drug testing provides useful info?
One advantage of letting consenting adults decide the
testing issue is the large quantities of information that
would be generated. Does drug use seriously affect worker
productivity? If so, how much? Which drugs are worse
than others? Are drug tests really reliable? What about
the effect of drug testing on employee morale? Surely
everyone agrees that these questions are important. No
congressional committee report, NSF study, or legislative
act can help answer these questions as thoroughly, reliably,
and quickly as open-market negotiation.
Poppycock. What will happen is simple. People who are using illegal
drugs will lose their jobs and possibly face criminal charges. People
who are using legal drugs will be told to stop; if they don't, they'll
lose their jobs. Perhaps there will be referrals to drug treatment
programs; we have those already and whatever useful info they're
generating they'll continue to generate with or without employee drug
tests.
I can't believe people can fall so blindly into this "Just say no"
propaganda hogwash. Pretty soon, we'll need drug tests to get
passports, driver's licenses, or use our credit cards. Where will it
end?
Will Doherty
UUCP: ...sun!oscar!wild
ARPA: "oscar!wild"@sun.com
------------------------------
Return-path: < fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 12:48:25 PST
From: fagin%ji.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (Barry S. Fagin)
To: wild@sun.com
Subject: Re: Drug testing provides useful info?
Will Doherty writes:
(Regarding my comments on the usefulness of letting consenting adults
decide the testing issue and the useful things that would happen)
> Poppycock. What will happen is simple. People who are using
> illegal drugs will lose their jobs and possibly face criminal
> charges...
Some would argue that this is a very strong point in *favor* of
mandatory drug testing; I assume you're arguing from opposite
perspective.
The only reason I can think of for firing a productive,
contributing employee who tests positive for illegal drugs is
that I might be threatened with criminal prosecution or legal
harassment myself. But this is an argument for the legalization
of all drugs for consenting adults, not the illegalization of
drug testing. You would seem to be implying that it follows from
the existence of drug laws that we must have laws that prohibit drug
testing. Whether or not this is true depends on how much of the
present state of affairs you question. I suggest you do not
question enough of it.
> People
> who are using legal drugs will be told to stop; if they don't,
> they'll lose their jobs....
Only if the benefits outweigh the costs.
A person who tests positive but is productive on the job
(and yes, I do believe such people exist) is not likely to be
fired. Someone who is addicted to a drug to the point where
he cannot function properly but has the potential
to do useful work is more likely to be reprimanded and
ordered to undergo therapy as a condition for employment.
Someone who tests positive and is totally incompetent on the job,
with no hope or desire for succesful rehabiltation will get
the sack, pure and simple.
I understand the above analysis isn't perfect; people are not always
rational, companies may not have rehab programs, etc. But I never
claimed perfection, only superiority. I repeat: letting consenting
adults to negotiate the drug testing issue is the *best* way to deal
with the problem, from both a moral standpoint (if you lean toward the
ideological) and a practical standpoint (if you're more of a
pragmatist). Advocates of mandatory drug testing (conservatives, for
the most part) and advocates of prohibiting drug testing (liberals,
for the most part) are both way off base.
Given the sheer stupidity of firing an employee
who tests positive for a legal drug but is otherwise an
asset to the company, and given the ability of employees
to band together and attempt to negotiate a drug testing
policy more to their liking, you must make a better case
for outlawing drug testing.
Or any other arrangement between consenting adults.
--Barry
------------------------------
Return-path: < ethos.UUCP!gary@ethos>
From: ethos.uucp!gary@mcnc.org (Gary J. Smith)
Date: 21 Jan 87 16:56:21 GMT
Subject: Re: Reagan, again
nike!rutgers!uwvax!astroatc!krs@cad.Berkeley.EDU writes:
> > The point of the exercise is to support the following assertion:
> > the American people have decided to "like" Ronald Reagan, no matter
> > what he does.
> I think the reason you have such a hard time understanding this is
> that your frame of reference is different from many other peoples.
> I start with the assumption that Regan, or any president for that
> matter, is a reasonable person. I also assume that his actions are
> at least motivated by the desire to do the right thing.
If most people operate from your stated assumptions, then there is no
plausible explanation for the nation's general dislike for Jimmy
Carter, who certainly was at least as "motivated by the desire to do
the right thing" as Reagan. I have never been led to believe that a
conservative's tolerance for error was any more generous than a
liberal's. It seems that humans are innately intolerant of positions
other than their own.
--
Gary J. Smith {ihnp4,mcnc,duke}!ethos!gary 919/493-9575
5802 Garrett, Durham, North Carolina 27707
------------------------------
Return-path: < brian%sequent%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
From: Brian Godfrey < brian%sequent%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Date: 20 Jan 87 22:15:59 GMT
Subject: Re: Reagan, again
Date: 20 Jan 87 22:15:57 GMT
> other peoples. I, for one, start with the assumption that Regan, or
> any president for that matter, is a reasonable person. I also assume
> that his actions are at least motivated by the desire to do the right
> thing. I then seek to determine and understand that motivation.
> Many liberal individuals I know begin with the opposite
> assumptions and, of course, see every act Reagan does as proof of his
> evil nature. Their goal in viewing the man is to find more evil
> acts,...
What about people like me who didn't vote for him the first time
because we thought he was a warmonger, voted for him the second time
because he didn't seem so bad and we really wanted to vote *against*
Fritz, and are now sorry that we did. And not just because of the
Iran/hostage/arms thing. I think he faked us out during his first term
in order to get re-elected and is showing is real hard-line right
alignment now that he is in the second term. I am disappointed in him
and in myself for being duped. A right leaning hard-liner is just as
bad as a left leaner. (Try to say *that* three times.) I suppose he is
still better than Fritz. But probably not much.
--Brian
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Saturday, 28 Feb 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 26
Today's Topics:
Soviet Politics &
Freedom in Wartime &
Centrism (2 msgs) &
Wages &
Employment
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 22 Jan 87 22:27:27-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: SU revolution
To: Hank.Walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU
From: Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu
...there is a reasonable chance that in a free election, Gorbachev
would win...
By the same token, Deng would get elected in China by a landslide
because of the popularity of his economic policies. However Botha
would not be elected in South Africa. His (Botha's) National Party
could not even win the English-speaking white vote (it got only one
third of that vote) in the last election. It would interesting to see
how the National Party would perform in the coming election.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri 23 Jan 87 00:35:06-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Favoritism, Soviet Union
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
We should give up our freedom so as to defend freedom?
Depending on the type of stress that the society is subjected to, it
may be necessary to give up some freedom TEMPORARILY (can be
voluntarily too) so that the society can defend itself and be free
later. E.g. Can your arms manufacturer still have the freedom to
trade with anybody (e.g. the enemy) during a war? What about your
computer or automobile or tire manufacturers?
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 87 21:53:55 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
You realize that it is possible to describe any position as a
compromise between two extremes. Being a compromise between
extremes is no virtue, as I explained in my previous message.
Any position includes the libertarian position. See my last
message.
Of course. It IS possible to describe a free society as a
compromise between extremes. But describing it as such does not prove
its desirability. Nor have I ever made any such argument for it.
Neither does being a compromise between extremes mean that a
position is NOT a virtue, as you seem to be implying now. Each idea
has to be accepted or rejected on its own merits, not on whether it
falls between two other ideas.
... those who believe in a future world of obedience (e.g.
to the libertarian philosophy only) ...
"Obedience" to the libertarian philosophy means no more and no
less than "obedience" to the idea that people shouldn't have
to obey others.
That is, to obey not to obey others. Sounds contradictory.
Of course. I was trying to point out how silly it is to speak of
being compelled to obey the dictates of a free society. One might as
well argue that if there is no draft, a person is compelled to freely
decide whether to enlist or not, therefore we should have a draft to
remove this source of compulsion.
and unity (since only libertarians need apply (or deserve
to live)).
Aren't we getting a little ad hominem here? When have I ever
said anything like that?
It is only ad hominen if I said that you said that which I never
did.
Then what was the point of saying it?
That whole paragraph was delimited by a "(-:" and a ":-)".
I see. Any part of a message can be shielded from comment by such
delimiters? Regardless of how serious the subject matter is? After
all, it's all just a joke, right?
Let me try it. (-: In WLIM's ideal society, all exponents of
freedom will be shot on sight. :-)
In my last message, you'll learn what I mean by state control of
the economy. By that definition, as long as there is at one state
body like the Fed/central bank or least one regulation affecting
the economy (market), there is state control of the economy.
Agreed, given that we agree on the difference between a law and a
regulation. What do you see as the difference?
I don't advocate a highly centralized government just sufficient
government to make the market "free".
Same here. Except I wouldn't put the word free in quotes.
But this seems to contradict other things you have said.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 24 Jan 87 01:51:27-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Then what was the point of saying it?
Perhaps to communicate to you my impressions of what you said i.e.
the rather uncompromising tone of some of the things you said (e.g.
taxation is robbery and if you don't think it is then something must
be wrong with you).
I see. Any part of a message can be shielded from comment by such
delimiters? Regardless of how serious the subject matter is?
After all, it's all just a joke, right?
Oh no, you can always comment however you like. A joke is just a
joke, you can still comment on it. Some people have a good sense of
humour some people don't.
Let me try it. (-: In WLIM's ideal society, all exponents of
freedom will be shot on sight. :-)
Fortunately that's not my ideal society but it is still a good joke.
I would inquire if you hold that opinion. Let me return this. (-: In
KFL's ideal society, all opponents of his brand of freedom will be
shot on sight since he would conclude that they are against all
exponents of freedom. :-) (Of course I don't believe it.)
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 87 22:36:05 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Minimum wage
To: Hank.Walker@GAUSS.ECE.CMU.EDU
Most lower income people rent an apartment rather than own a house,
anyway. Property taxes are passed on to them in their rent. This is
another "hidden tax", i.e. the renters are more likely to blame the
landlord than the government for the size of the rent.
Do you intend to reply to the rest of my message? Property taxes
were only one of many things I mentioned.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon 19 Jan 87 23:59:21-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Poli-Sci Digest V7 #6
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Cc: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Some employers come to view women and blacks as trouble-makers,
and may avoid hiring them or paying them as much because it is
always easier to justify in court not hiring them in the first
place or not paying them as much as others, than it is to justify
firing them or reducing their salary later.
Fortunately for the real market (and unfortunately for you since it
invalidates your point), employers are now trying to make working
conditions better for women (e.g. have day-care support, etc.) so that
they can keep women workers because of their good work record. (See
Fortune, June 86 I think.)
Similarly I would avoid shopping at new stores if at all possible
if I was not allowed to later stop shopping there without
justifying it in court, unless its prices were significantly lower
than at other stores selling similar merchandise. This is exactly
the situation we see in the employment market.
Incorrect (see above) the data do not show this. So how did you come
to such a conclusion?
Also, employers often have the perception that women will resign
suddenly to get married, or if already married, to have a child or
to move when her husband finds a better job in another city.
Please look up some data on the real market.
The more likely a person is to suddenly resign, the less valuable
he or she is to the company. Laws that say that a woman must be
given her old job back after taking off several months or years to
have a child reduce her perceived value even more so.
A working woman tend to have no more than 2 children in her lifetime.
Such a reduction in her perceived value is exaggerated.
Some high schools and colleges are careful to give blacks the same
average grades as whites regardless of their performance, either
to avoid trouble or out of a misguided sense of fairness. The
result, of course, given that blacks on the average do worse in
school than whites, is that a high school diploma and a college
degree are worth less in the hands of a black than in the hands of
a white.
Unsubstantiated statements that border on racism. (Keith, I am saying
this because we have been e-mail pals for quite a while and you would
perhaps prefer to hear it from me than from somebody else. To give
you the benefit of doubt, I'll call it insensitivity. I am getting a
little tired of this kind of insensitivity i.e. all negative talk and
no solutions.) At least one study has shown that whites and blacks
from low income families have essentially the same drop out rates.
Academic performance is sensitive to family income, family support,
expectation and not race. Such racist attitudes are damaging to our
"free" market for they support the non-nonsensical perception that a
particular group are inferior participants of the "free" market. The
"free" market does not discriminate, people do and until people
change, we can't have a "free" market. To advocate letting the "free"
market handle it is absurd for there was never a "free" market to
begin with. You can't use something you don't have, you have to make
it first.
Meanwhile, black leaders tell blacks that they don't have to
personally excell, that not using drugs is the highest attainment
to be expected of them, that white employers and white taxpayers
owe them a permanent subsidy, that somehow lifting up the whole
black race is important and individual black success is
unimportant, that if a black individual does become successful
that he is morally bound to invest or donate all his money into
black groups, and that anyone who objects to any of this is a
racist.
It is selfish and mean spirited to object and not say how a past
injustice (e.g. slavery) can be redressed. The "free" market has had
ample opportunities to solve this problem but didn't. George Will, a
conservative commentator, who calls his brand of conservatism, a
government conservatism and not libertarian conservatism, when asked
about conservatives being labelled as lacking compassion said:
"That's the other cliche (the other cliche is conservatives are
warmongers), and there's a grain of truth in that one. There has been
a kind of logic-chopping conservatism that says that if you attend to
economic growth, that's enough. That a free market allocates not only
wealth and opportunity, but justice. Proper conservatism says, `No,
the free market is a marvelous allocator of wealth and opportunity,
but it's rough justice, and the government has a legitimate role in
taking the edges off the roughness.'....."
In other words the real market is not free enough yet and the
government (guided by a proper system of constitutional checks and
balances) has a legitimate role to make it freer (see for example, the
Philippines).
There are three markets that did very well over the last 10-20
years---the US, Singapore and Malaysia. All have affirmative programs
(for the Malay minority in Singapore and for the Malay majority in
Malaysia). All three markets have expanded and become more stable
despite all the hot air about not tinkering with the "free" market.
Malaysia (with the most aggressive affirmative program) has had very
impressive economic growth rates but it also has laws requiring that
all new companies have Malay participation (at one time it was 50%)
and a constitution (which I don't agree with) that gives special
privileges to Malays so that they can move up the economic ladder. A
more libertarian approach would have meant a lot of racial strife and
a crumbling economy. (I am intimately familiar (in fact too familiar)
with all the mumbo-jumbo against affirmative action i.e. it's unfair,
it's a crime, somebody but me should redress the past injustice, let
the "free" market get rid of racism, etc.) I have also heard a lot of
predictions of economic chaos---collapse of the economy, unemployment
among the non-Malays, loss of wealth, loss of businesses, etc.----due
to "inferior" people being unfairly favored. Well none of them
happened. Instead people of all races proper.)
Voluntary contributions you say. Well, there were no laws barring
voluntary contributions to help blacks but yet there had never been
sufficient voluntary help. So to have a libertarian system right now
would not solve the problem since voluntary contributions are not
going to miraculously increase. Hence you don't have a fee market
which means you don't have a libertarian system.
Things are improving, slowly. More and more individuals of all
races, nationalities, creeds, and genders are realizing for
themselves that while they cannot save their group singlehandedly,
that the only thing limitting their own personal attainment is how
valuable and productive they can make themselves.
This is most effective in a color-blind market where people don't
stubbornly adhere to a point of view despite being given evidence to
the contrary. A free market assumes some level of competitiveness
among its participants i.e. they have the minimal means to compete, be
it job skills, educational background, purchasing power,
opportunities, desire, motivation, greed, etc. Discrimination
(racism/sexism) forces some participants to fall below the minimal
level of competitiveness. That means they are no longer effective
participants. Thus they are locked out of the "free" market. Which
means the "free" market favors some over others i.e. it ain't a "free"
market, no more.
The sooner we fix the problem of discrimination, the better. It is
one of those problems where either you pay now or you pay later with
interest (look at Northern Ireland, Lebanon, South Africa, Sri Lanka,
Southern Philippines.) Don't expect to have a libertarian system
without fixing it first.
Willie
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 2 Mar 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 27
Today's Topics:
Centrism (3 msgs) &
Labor and Libertarianism &
Education
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat 24 Jan 87 03:29:36-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I was trying to point out how silly it is to speak of being
compelled to obey the dictates of a free society.
In a libertarian society, if you don't believe that (involuntary)
taxation is evil you are out of luck i.e. you have no choice but to
obey that dictate. It is not that I am for involuntary taxes but
rather I don't see any convincing evidence saying that there will be
enough voluntary taxes to pay for the minimal government.
Each idea has to be accepted or rejected on its own merits, not on
whether it falls between two other ideas.
That is obvious. All along I have been trying to get the merits (and
demerits) of the libertarian philosophy from you. I have concentrated
on the assumptions as they can make or break a theory.
Agreed, given that we agree on the difference between a law and a
regulation. What do you see as the difference?
Since you are trying to "sell" us libertarianism, I as a potential
buyer would like you to answer this question. That has been pretty
much the attitude I have been taking. I would really want to test the
product as much as I can before I buy it. So comparing it to some
products (like Nazism or Communism or Totalitarianism) that are known
to be bad is not going to convince many buyers. I would like to know
how the product would be an improvement over what we have now in the
US (which I consider a very good product).
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 87 12:04:30 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Grammar
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
You realize that it is possible to describe any position as a
compromise between two extremes. Being a compromise between
extremes is no virtue,...
You said this when you were flaming about moderates. Then when I
replied with: "Any position includes the libertarian position,"
you said:
Of course. It IS possible to describe a free society as a
compromise between extremes. But describing it as such does
not prove its desirability. Nor have I ever made any such
argument for it.
Neither does being a compromise between extremes mean that a
position is NOT a virtue, as you seem to be implying now.
No you got it wrong, you implied that any position can be a
compromise between two extremes and as such is no virtue (see top
of this message). Then when I made the observation that any
position includes the libertarian position, you said that a
compromise between extremes does not mean that a position is NOT a
virtue. Both are your statements and they are contradictory. ...
Perhaps you should get a book on grammar. "Being a compromise
between extremes is no virtue" means that something is not necessarily
a virtue simply because it is a compromise between extremes. It does
not mean that something that is a compromise between extremes is
necessarily NOT a virtue.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 27 Jan 87 11:28:07-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Grammar
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Perhaps you should get a book on grammar.
Having been brought up in a tri-lingual multi-racial society, I do
welcome such advice (especially when it comes from someone who perhaps
speak only English). (-: When you have to speak three languages (and
two dialects), you are bound to make grammatical errors in at least
one of them (no matter which one). :-)
"Being a compromise between extremes is no virtue" means that
something is not necessarily a virtue simply because it is a
compromise between extremes. It does not mean that something
that is a compromise between extremes is necessarily NOT a
virtue.
All I did was brought up the fact that "any position" includes the
libertarian position and did not say that it has no virtue. I did mean
to say that the libertarian position is a compromise since it a
position and given that you said "it is possible to describe any
position as a compromise between two extremes." I did mention some
reservations about the libertarian system (i.e. its implementation and
not its ideals). However these reservations are certainly not due to
the fact that the libertarian position is a compromise. We agree on
this. However you did make the error of saying that I implied
something else. Unfortunately I made an error (sorry) too by allowing
myself to be confused by what you subsequently said. (Since I didn't
imply what you thought I implied and you went on to debating that
implication, I thought then perhaps you know better since English is
your native language (-: I assume :-).) My first reading was as you
intended but my second reading was more like: "[It,] being a
compromise between extremes[,] is no virtue" (i.e. virtueless which
according to the Webster dictionary means "devoid of excellence or
worth" or "lacking in moral goodness").
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < ASPDMM%UOFT01.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: 27 January 87 09:55-EDT
From: ASPDMM%UOFT01.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: Libertianism????
to Libertarians in general and
Keith (I believe it was) in particular
Do you really think that the reason all those "hundreds
of resumes" failed to yield jobs is that government red tape
prevented employers from hiring?! Do you think that
employers fail to hire needed resources out of dread for the
complexity of withholdings?! My god, where did you get
these ideas??? I have read the notes on this service for
about a year now and this is the most preposterous thing I
have seen here.
People get hired or don't get hired based upon their
qualifications, with certain limitations not germane to
this issue. A local law firm receives enough applications
DAILY to paper the reception area walls. It is not fear of
red tape, nor dread of withholding, nor Big Brother which
keeps all of those splendid resumes from materializing into
new associates, it is supply and demand.
Libertarianism, like most absolutes in political thought,
is a concept to be applied in an abstract sense. Even the
greatest Libertarian of them all, Ayn Rand, eventually
abandoned the cause of a Libertarian revolution. Like
similar concepts; Communism, the pure vision of which is
being eroded in the USSR and China, Democracy, whose Greek
foundations bear little resemblance to modern day
implementations, ad infinitum... Libertarianism cannot be
taken seriously as a functional form of government in a pure
form for today's world. The economies of scale required to
produce even the infrastructure upon which this note will be
delivered CANNOT grow from private sources. Our world would
not function without government, our standard of life could
not exist, and, frankly, I don't see any way to accommodate
4 and a half BILLION Libertarians on the same planet without
the Absolute Freedom of each citizen trampling that of
another.
Dave Massey
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 87 22:32:25 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Education
To: WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
... They (the torturers) did it because they were told (and
believed) that the torture was for the torture victim's own good.
No, because they were told (and believed) that the torture was for
the good of "Science", i.e. society in general.
There are limits to how long a teacher or a class should "help"
the lone individual especially if he/she just didn't get it.
True. But that doesn't mean that a student should never speak up.
If only because other students are likely to misunderstand in the same
way.
Should a whole class fall behind just because someone didn't get
it?
That is how today's public schools seem to work. Tell them, tell
them again, and tell them what you just told them. Then have them do
enough practice problems that they get completely sick of the subject.
And spend the first half of the following semester reviewing it.
Does anybody have a "right" to understanding the material being
taught?
Of course not. Only the right to try one's best to understand it.
If it is a private school where everybody pays the same fee,
should the teacher devote equal time to all the students?
That is up to the school.
So asking questions (just like not asking questions) have their
limits and faults.
I never said otherwise. But I do believe that the great majority of
students ask too few questions, not too many, and that the public
school system encourages this.
Teaching more things isn't of much use unless they are
understood.
Not exactly true, some things can be understood a lot better after
the students do some thinking or experimenting on their own.
Your statement does not contradict mine in any way, so why do you
say "Not exactly true"?
I don't see memorizing as the only alternative to asking
questions. Independent thinking, research, and group discussions
are better alternatives.
How about "all of the above"? Do you think you are disagreeing with
me?
Anyway we have digressed significantly from the main point which
is that there exist good public school systems.
True. Not that that justifies their existence, as I have explained
in previous messages.
... the majority opinion of how to educate someone does not
necessarily coincide with the parents idea of how their child
should be educated.
True for private schools too, viz. no private school of sufficient
size can cater to the individual needs of every parent.
But with private schools, if you object to one you can choose
another. And you don't have to pay for any school except the one you
choose to send your kids to. With public schools, if you object to
one, all you can do is try to convince other parents to argue the
bureaucrats into changing it. And you have to pay for it whether you
make any use of it or not. Even if you send your children to a
private school. Even if you don't HAVE any children.
Parents have to do their job at home to supplement what is being
taught in school.
Of course. Which has nothing to do with the issue.
We need to understand the causes for [government incompetence and
overpayment] better before we know what the cure is.
Not true. If you had a deadly disease for which there was a cure
that worked, would you refuse to take the cure until you were sure
that there was no way to go on living WITH the disease, and until you
were certain of exactly what had caused the disease in the first
place?
... We may have to (1) develop a better understanding of
economics, (2) acquire a better sense of ethics, (3) be less
apathetic, and (4) be prepared to take the necessary actions (e.g
impeachment, vote him/her out of office, recall, firing, etc.)
should the government screws up.
Your solutions are collectivistic. They involve the majority of
people taking some action. My solutions are individualistic. Once we
have a free society (which I agree only a majority or a sizable
minority can implement in the first place) a person can make
individual choices rather than simply having one vote in making a
collective choice for all of us.
But there IS a simple solution. Make it all private.
Sounds simple. You need to change the government which means you
have to convince enough people. That's hard.
True. But if it IS the one right way we had better get started,
instead of saying this other way is wrong - but quick and easy - so
lets do it wrong.
It might become even harder if there is a major economic calamity
as people will tend to look more to the government then.
Also true. Which is doubly unfortunate since economic calamites are
nearly always due to government monkeying with the economy.
...Keith
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 9 Mar 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 32
Today's Topics:
Arming the People &
Protecting the State &
Centrism &
Economics
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < @MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:zrm@CCC.MIT.EDU>
Date: 30 Jan 1987 14:48:16-EST
From: zrm@MIT-CCC
I think you misread that clause of our Constitution. Look closely at
the phrase "the right of the people." That phrase indicates to me that
a well regulated militia would be bolstered by the right of the people
to keep and bear arms.
One might argue about the relevence of an armed populace to a militia,
or even a militia to a well defended nation, but quoting that clause
of the Constitution is a shopworn flase argument. It simply does not
say that the bearers of arms must be in a militia. It does say that
the framers of the Constitution intended an armed populace to be
somehow beneficial.
-Zigurd Mednieks
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 87 14:10:58 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Preserving freedom
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
I was trying to find out what makes a libertarian state robust
given that it has no control over nature or the behaviors of the
other states in the world and that it can't force its citizens to
do things even if it is for their own good ...
That depends on how devoted the people are to preserving their way
of life. If there is a war, will there be enough volunteers? If not,
maybe we shouldn't have the war.
The Roman Empire is the classic example of a state that fell apart
mostly because its inhabitants couldn't be bothered to preserve it,
for whatever reason. Clearly, this can befall non-free states as well
as free ones.
The Vietnam war is an example of a state action that many
inhabitants didn't understand the point of and didn't want to support,
at least not at risk to their lives. While the communist Vietnamese
had the opposite attitude toward the war. Despite losing every major
battle, they won the war, since so many of them regarded no sacrifice
as too great if it was for the good (as they saw it) of their country.
This is one of the main things wrong with the mixed economy and
mixed political system we are in. It doesn't really inspire much
support. How could it? What sane person really wants to risk his
life to further Reagan's foreign policy? Or Carter's?
Why get halfway involved in a dozen wars that will certainly result
in considerable loss of life, almost certainly not lead to any benefit
to the United States, and possibly start World War III?
A true free society is something a person can really believe in.
Can anyone really passionately believe in this year's shifting
Republican and Democratic platforms? To the extent that millions of
people world wide passionately believe in Marxism?
Our problem is that our ideals are not well defined. People even
come to believe that man's rights inherently tend to contradict
eachother, which is ridiculous. We implicitly accept many of the
bogus axioms on which Marxism is predicated. We shouldn't.
Yes, a free society is no more likely to fall apart than any other.
Less so, as long as people believe in the importance of freedom. If
they DON'T believe freedom is important, if they believe it is better
to be red than dead, then nothing can save them. They will end up red
AND dead.
Of course if we ever end up with only the choice of red or dead,
then our foreign policy and our national defense will have failed
catastrophically. But the point is, unless the communists believe
that we ARE really willing to fight for our freedom, if it ever comes
to that, they will simply call our bluff and take over. And why would
they expect us to fight for our freedom if we are voluntarily giving
it up? If we are actually voting it away? This is a very dangerous
game. Paradoxically, the more like the Soviet Union we become, the
more hostile the Soviet Union will be to us. Just look at the
millions of Soviets who died fighting the Nazis, whose totalitarian
system was virtually indistinguishable from the Soviet's own.
We cannot impose our will on the rest of the world by force.
Attempting to do so only gets a lot of people dead, and a lot of
people vehemently anti-American. We can lead best by example. And
following the latest hairbrained trend in Sweden or France is not the
way to lead. Whenever you read in some newspaper that "The United
States is the only major western country that ..." you might as well
stop reading. The only point they are making is that we ought to play
follow the leader, with us cast as follower, for no explicable reason.
... If a libertarian system is losing and the rest of the world is
willing to help, the libertarian government would have difficulty
accepting help from the other nations since its power ... would be
severely restricted ...
Why would it have to be the government which accepts help? Why not
individuals or corporations? I can see why a free society might make
little sense if you simply view the world with your current notions
with a libertarian facade stuck on the front. You have to start from
the beginning, with what your first grade teacher led you to believe.
Not that I think there is much chance of a free society losing.
Plenty of countries need help. Always the non-free ones. Several
countries offer help. Always the mostly free ones. When socialist
Ethiopia and Cambodia start bailing out Hong Kong, Japan, and the
United States, I will take your argument more seriously.
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 29 Jan 87 02:01:26-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
A free market exists whenever people are free to trade with
eachother without restrictions.
Except, of course, that the trading partners do not break laws that
protect individual rights (whatever they are). When something that is
ok now becomes illegal later (as society evolves and "discovers" new
individual rights) restrictions are placed on your existing free
market. The resultant market is then less free. Remember that your
free market is the result of a market evolution that goes back to the
days of the law of the jungle. In terms of the number of restrictions
(however reasonable) placed on what individuals (as owner of
resources) can do, your market is less free than earlier ones (e.g.
those that did not have laws against slavery). (It is a lot easier to
denounce something like slavery or the murder of your competitor as
evil in hindsight than to determine what should be denounced now, for
in the future these denounced things will prove to be universally
accepted as evil.) Hence to say that "a free market exists whenever
people are free to trade with each[ ]other without restrictions" is to
say that the free market will cease to exist as we evolve, unless of
course you can show that no new individual rights will be
"discovered."
There is no requirement for ~rperfect flow of complete
information, which would of course be impossible.
There is such a requirement if you want to determine if a trade is not
voluntary (e.g. fraudulent) at the instant the trade is made.
It is not a voluntary trade if you are cheating or robbing
someone.
It is not a voluntary trade only if your victim can, at the time the
trade is made (or later), determine (or prove) that you are cheating
or robbing him/her. Very often hindsight is used to prove such things
i.e. something has to happen (or not happen) first before you can
determine if a trade someone made with you is fraudulent. If you have
perfect flow of complete information and you make the assumption that
individuals are rational (i.e. will never voluntarily allow themselves
to be cheated), fraud can never happen in the ideal free market and
thus laws against fraud are unnecessary. But if you accept the
necessity of laws against fraud, then you are accepting the fact that
your free market is one of incomplete information. If so, you are
accepting the fact that at least some laws are necessary to protect
individuals from being cheated as a result of an imperfection of the
actual market (i.e. imperfect information flow and/or incomplete
information). If you accept one imperfection, how then can you be
sure that that is the one and only one? Until one can prove this one
cannot claim that all other laws (present and future), and hence
restrictions, are bad for the market.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < brian%sequent%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
From: Brian Godfrey < brian%sequent%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Date: 30 Jan 87 17:28:39 GMT
Subject: Re: Sorry, but you can keep it.
> A recent set of articles in US News discusses the problems we
> are having with the trade deficit. Both the state of the
> Union address and the Democratic response touched on the
Did anyone catch the statistics in one of the response speeches?
New York Harbor is one of our highest volume harbors. The biggest
export from New York Harbor is scrap metal which, I presume, gets
turned into Hyundai cars and microwave ovens. The second largest
export is paper trash which the speaker said gets turned into
cardboard boxes to package products being exported to America from
Southeast Asia.
Our biggest export is garbage. (Yes, I know you can show anything
you want with statistics, but this is still grim even if it isn't
really our biggest export.)
> problems of international trade. While much of the deficit
> is attributed to the higher cost of American goods, many
> people seem to think that the *quality* of foreign goods is
> better. I'd like to relate a series of incidents.
>
> [Gives some examples of the following Japanese products
> crapping out after this much time:]
>
> Age of VCR ... < 3 mos.
> Age of CD ... 2 weeks
> Age of TV ... < 2 years
>
> I think that alot of the Japan scare is caused by the way we
> think rather than the ability of the Japanese to outdo us.
> I for one, am alot smarter now ... I'll never buy Japanese
> again. I'm in the market for a new car, anyone hear anything
> about those new Hyundais ??? ;-)
Actually, I think this gentleman had some unusually bad luck. The
Japanese do build very reliable consumer products. But they are made
to be as cheap as possible, so there are going to be problems now and
then. He just got the short end of the probabilities. Americans could
build just as good or better quality than our Japanese competitors,
but not so that the American public could afford it. That is the real
key to the Japanese success. They have determined that the public will
accept a certain level of quality for a given price. We can't make the
same level of quality for the same price. That's why we make
high-tech computers and state of the art stuff here in America. People
will pay extra for it. But there aren't many of those kind of
customers so the Japanese clean up on our volume markets. When we try
to make something to compete price-wise, we lose out on quality. When
we try to make something compete in quality we lose out on price.
--Brian
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Monday, 9 Mar 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 33
Today's Topics:
Racism in the Marketplace (4 msgs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 87 01:31:04 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Racism?
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Some employers come to view women and blacks as
trouble-makers, and may avoid hiring them or paying them as
much because it is always easier to justify in court not
hiring them in the first place or not paying them as much as
others, than it is to justify firing them or reducing their
salary later.
Fortunately for the real market (and unfortunately for you since
it invalidates your point), employers are now trying to make
working conditions better for women (e.g. have day-care support,
etc.) so that they can keep women workers because of their good
work record.
Please explain how this invalidates anything I have said.
Similarly I would avoid shopping at new stores if at all
possible if I was not allowed to later stop shopping there
without justifying it in court, unless its prices were
significantly lower than at other stores selling similar
merchandise. This is exactly the situation we see in the
employment market.
Incorrect (see above) the data do not show this. So how did you
come to such a conclusion?
The data DO show this. Or do you deny that women earn less than
men?
Some high schools and colleges are careful to give blacks the
same average grades as whites regardless of their performance,
either to avoid trouble or out of a misguided sense of
fairness. The result, of course, given that blacks on the
average do worse in school than whites, is that a high school
diploma and a college degree are worth less in the hands of a
black than in the hands of a white.
Unsubstantiated statements that border on racism.
Do you deny that blacks on the average do worse in school than
whites? Do you deny that courts have forbidden employers and colleges
from hiring/admitting people based on written tests on the grounds
that the tests "discriminate" against blacks? Or do you simply assert
that it borders on racism to notice these facts?
... I am getting a little tired of this kind of insensitivity i.e.
all negative talk and no solutions.
I have described no solutions?? Perhaps you mean I have described
no solutions that require government coercion, which seems to be the
only kind of solution that you will accept.
At least one study has shown that whites and blacks from low
income families have essentially the same drop out rates.
So? This would contradict what I said only if either:
1) Blacks families have the same economic distribution as white
families, or
2) I had said that blacks on the average did worse in school for
genetic reasons.
Academic performance is sensitive to family income, family
support, expectation and not race.
Given that family income is correlated with race, and academic
performance is correlated with family income, then academic
performance is correlated with race. What's your point?
Such racist attitudes are damaging to our "free" market for they
support the non-nonsensical perception that a particular group are
inferior participants of the "free" market.
What racist attitudes? I could understand your accusation if I had
asserted that blacks were genetically less able to do well in school.
I do not believe that they are. Even if I did, that still woudn't
make me a racist. Is it racist to claim that blacks are genetically
prone to darker skin than whites? Is the lack of racism simply the
refusal to see any differences?
Racism is the belief that a different set of laws and rights should
apply to members of different races. South Africa is racist. The
United States was racist before the 1870s and has been racist since
the 1960s, which is ironic since individual's racism has decreased in
the period (1950s-1970s) when government's racism has increased. (I
refuse to use the ridiculous term "reverse racism".)
The "free" market does not discriminate, people do ...
That is their right. Malcom X told fellow blacks that they should
spend money only in black businesses, and work only for black owned
companies. Was he a racist? Some wealthy people have donated large
amounts of money to found all-black universities. Were they racist?
To advocate letting the "free" market handle it is absurd for
there was never a "free" market to begin with.
I see. If something has never existed, it must never be produced?
It is a good thing not everyone reasoned like that, or we would still
be living in caves.
You can't use something you don't have, you have to make it first.
Right. But you keep arguing that we should not make a free market.
And this isn't the first time you have argued that its current non-
existance is a good reason never to make it.
It is selfish and mean spirited to object and not say how a past
injustice (e.g. slavery) can be redressed.
No black alive today was a slave in this country. No white alive
today was a slaveholder in this country. So who exactly is to redress
whom, and for what?
If injustices of our ancestors should be compensated for in the
present, where do you draw the line? Should we give Texas and
California back to Mexico? Should we give the whole continent back to
the Indians? My distant ancestors were British. So am I responsible
for the Norman conquest? For the sack of Rome?
I am sure that some of my ancestors were slaves. Should I be
compensated? I am sure that some of my ancestors were criminals.
Should I be punished?
But many blacks in the United States are NOT descended from slaves.
Why should they be compensated? And even more whites in the United
States are NOT descended from slaveholders. Why should they be
penalized?
Or is it not ancestry, but race that is important? Am I then guilty
of everything any white person has ever done? And is each black
person guilty of everything any black person has ever done? If you
think so, then it is YOU who are racist, not I.
And if so, then we ALL certainly deserve to hang.
There are three markets that did very well over the last 10-20
years---the US, Singapore and Malaysia.
There are more than three.
All have affirmative programs ... All three markets have expanded
and become more stable despite all the hot air about not tinkering
with the "free" market.
Your comment would only make sense if I had asserted that ANY
interference with a free economy will inevitably cause that economy to
rapidly collapse. I have made no such claim.
I don't suppose we will ever know if they would have done even
better if they didn't have affirmative action plans.
You didn't mention Japan, whose economy has expanded fastest of all
over the last 20 years. And which has no affirmative action laws, and
several minority groups.
Malaysia (with the most aggressive affirmative program) has had
very impressive economic growth rates but it also has laws
requiring that all new companies have Malay participation (at one
time it was 50%) and a constitution (which I don't agree with)
that gives special privileges to Malays so that they can move up
the economic ladder.
Do you think that that is justified?
A more libertarian approach would have meant a lot of racial
strife and a crumbling economy. (I am intimately familiar (in
fact too familiar) with all the mumbo-jumbo against affirmative
action i.e. it's unfair, it's a crime, somebody but me should
redress the past injustice, let the "free" market get rid of
racism, etc.) I have also heard a lot of predictions of economic
chaos---collapse of the economy, unemploymentN among the
non-Malays, loss of wealth, loss of businesses, etc.----due
to "inferior" people being unfairly favored. Well none of them
happened. Instead people of all races proper.)
Apparently you DO consider it justified. Do you believe that any
government action which does not result in "collapse of the economy,
unemployment among [some groups], loss of wealth, loss of businesses"
is ok? Regardless of what it does to INDIVIDUALS? Is it ok to take
any amount of money from any individual just so long as he doesn't go
out of business or starve?
I am bothered by your statement "due to 'inferior' people being
unfairly favored" which you attribute to the generic opponent of
affirmative action. Are you saying that only people who believe that
Malays are inferior oppose affirmative action? Are you saying that it
is ok to "unfairly favor" any group so long as it is NOT inferior?
This is most effective in a color-blind market where people don't
stubbornly adhere to a point of view despite being given evidence
to the contrary.
This is self correcting in a free market. Those who persistently
make irrational economic decisions go out of business.
And how are we to have a color-blind market when we have NON-color-
blind laws, i.e. affirmative action?
A free market assumes some level of competitiveness among its
participants i.e. they have the minimal means to compete, be it
job skills, educational background, purchasing power,
opportunities, desire, motivation, greed, etc.
No it doesn't. There is no minimum - or maximum - amount of
competence or ambition an individual might have, and there is no
minimum - or maximum - amount that he might earn or accomplish.
Discrimination (racism/sexism) forces some participants to fall
below the minimal level of competitiveness.
Not true - see above. And even if it WAS true, you are begging the
question as to whether a free market or coercion is best at
eliminating said discrimination.
The sooner we fix the problem of discrimination, the better. ...
Agreed, but it isn't for "us" to fix. Each individual has to fix it
in himself.
Don't expect to have a libertarian system without fixing it first.
We mustn't establish a free society until we have abolished the lack
of freedom? How's that again?
...Keith
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed 28 Jan 87 10:13:37-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Racism?
To: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Cc: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
There are three markets that did very well over the last 10-20
years---the US, Singapore and Malaysia.
There are more than three.
The context for my statement is established in the statement following
that. I should have said something like "There are three markets
(with affirmative programs)..." just to take care of the petty minded.
Your comment would only make sense if I had asserted that ANY
interference with a free economy will inevitably cause that
economy to rapidly collapse. I have made no such claim.
The way you advocated a laissez-faire market, it sounds as if that it
(laissez-faire market) is the only and most effective way for
achieving a more stable and expanded economy. That is only true if
you start with the proper initial conditions e.g. a color-blind
(existing) market.
You didn't mention Japan, whose economy has expanded fastest of
all over the last 20 years. And which has no affirmative action
laws, and several minority groups.
Japan is considered a homogenous (in terms of race and ethnicity)
market. My 1975 data say that only 1% of its population is of Korean
origin and they (Korean-Japanese) are still not reaping the fruits of
the economy. The ethnic group is too small for the effects of any
affirmative action programs (or the lack of) to show up in the
economy. Perhaps you have more recent data.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 27 Jan 87 14:37:13-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Racism?
To: KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Cc: testa-j%OSU-20@OHIO-STATE.ARPA
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Please explain how this invalidates anything I have said.
It invalidates your statement:"Some employers come to view women and
blacks as trouble-makers,..." Since employers are prepared to go out
of their way to provide day-care support, it means that they don't
view women as trouble-makers.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < TESTA-J%OSU-20@ohio-state.ARPA>
Date: Wed 28 Jan 87 00:13:15-EST
From: ~joe testa~ < testa-j@OSU-20>
Subject: Re: Racism?
To: KFL%AI.AI.MIT.EDU@OSU-EDDIE
Cc: WLIM%XX.LCS.MIT.EDU@OSU-EDDIE, testa-j@OSU-20
> From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
>
> From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
> Academic performance is sensitive to family income, family
> support, expectation and not race.
>
> Given that family income is correlated with race, and academic
> performance is correlated with family income, then academic
> performance is correlated with race. What's your point?
I don't think mere statistical correlation is the issue here. What is
relevant is *causes*, not correlations. Perhaps, if Willie had used
"dependent on" rather than "sensitive to", this might be clearer.
I think you, and others, tend to get in trouble when making statements
such as "blacks do more poorly in school than whites" because many
people will think that this implies that you are saying that the
difference is inherently DUE TO race, rather than just a reflection of
some other relationships.
> What racist attitudes? I could understand your accusation if I
> had asserted that blacks were genetically less able to do well in
> school. I do not believe that they are. Even if I did, that still
> woudn't make me a racist. Is it racist to claim that blacks are
> genetically prone to darker skin than whites? Is the lack of
> racism simply the refusal to see any differences?
No. It is racist to claim that race is the cause of something which
is not.
> A free market assumes some level of competitiveness among its
> participants i.e. they have the minimal means to compete, be it
> job skills, educational background, purchasing power,
> opportunities, desire, motivation, greed, etc.
>
> No it doesn't. There is no minimum - or maximum - amount of
> competence or ambition an individual might have, and there is no
> minimum - or maximum - amount that he might earn or accomplish.
Therefore, it is OK to trample on those who are unable to compete?
Bring back the Roman gladiators!
~joe testa~
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Wednesday, 18 Mar 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 34
Today's Topics:
Centrism (2 msgs) &
TV or not TV &
Zoning Laws &
Taxation
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue 3 Feb 87 00:17:59-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
2) By decreasing the optimality of the economy, they (laws) make
everyone slightly poorer.
An optimal economy does not necessarily mean that everyone are better
off, but rather that the people as a whole is more wealthy than in the
case of a non-optimal economy. The optimal economy may be a "corner
solution" i.e. some people get $0 for their services/goods/skills.
Thus an optimal economy does not necessarily mean that there is no
poverty nor starvation.
4) They fill hundreds of lawbooks. How can people hope to obey
the law when they can't hope to KNOW the law? The necessary
laws for a free country could fit in an ordinary size paperback
book.
The number of necessary laws for your idealized free country may be
small but the number of court cases may be high. Instead of studying
the laws, the people have to study previous court cases every time
they want to have something resolved by the courts. If the cost of
filing such cases is low, the number of cases may turn out to be very
high and you might end up with a massive court system. You might also
end up introducing some laws to reduce the number of frivolous court
cases. For example an individual observing that the outcomes on
certain type of cases vary from case to case depending on the judges,
may go to court simply to play a game of chance i.e. the potential
payoff from a favorable decision may be worth the try, however
frivolous it may be.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed 4 Feb 87 23:50:09-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
There is also the MORAL argument for a free society. Such a
society is RIGHT, regardless of the financial consequences.
Being right alone is not sufficient, the society has to be preceived
as being fair and just. Such a society is right only when a
significant portion of the people see it that way i.e. the society is
indeed free for them and not just in theory. If a significant portion
of the people see it as unfair (e.g. as a result of market
optimization, these people find that their skills/products are
worthless) then the consequences can be very serious. People, even
those who now vehemently espouse the free market, may not necessarily
nor willingly accept an unfavorable outcome (e.g. severe loss of
income due to legitimate market forces) when they find that they
themselves are the big losers. They, being rational individuals, may
look outside the (legal) market for solutions to their problems. If
they are desperate enough, wealth redistribution through crime or
communism may appeal to them more than the moral rightness of a free
(market) society.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < brian%sequent%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
From: Brian Godfrey < brian%sequent%tektronix.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Date: 4 Feb 87 00:37:10 GMT
Subject: Propaganda, Capitolist Style (was: Re: "Mommy Disease")
Reply-to: brian@sequent.UUCP (Brian Godfrey)
I don't have a TV. Sometimes I visit people who do. I have noticed
something interesting about watching TV. I watch everthing. I think
about what I see. This includes commercials. I also watch those who
are watching with me. I have noticed that they have been trained or
trained themselves (I doubt that you could make the distinction) to
ignore many things. Especially commercials. Commercials are generally
on such a stupid level that intelligent people find them revolting, so
they try to ignore them. They see them and I doubt not that they
absorb the message, but I think it happens on a semi conscious level.
What got me started on this subject was this excerpt from a
posting:
> > Upon calling any office, you will find that a woman's voice
> > over the phone will bring the word "secretary" to mind, wheras
> > a man's voice will bring the word "manager," or "executive."
> > You are therefore a fanatic and notoriously unbalanced.
...and the memory of a commercial I saw while visiting my brother. It
was for a lightweight phone that you wear on your head like a walkman
headphone. They were showing all of the superfantisticextremelyhandy
ways to use this phone. Secretaries (female) could use it while they
type, professionals (male) could use it while they entered important
things into computers. There were many uses for housewives: while
cooking, ironing, vacuuming, etc. (all female). I couldn't believe the
exaggerated stereotypes. This was one of those commercials that went
from one image to the next about every two seconds so you can see that
there were many examples in the 60 second commercial. And all of them
were of this kind of stereotype. I asked my brother and his wife what
they thought of the commercial and they said they thought it was a
stupid idea. The phone. I asked them if they thought the commercial
was a bit sexist and they admitted that it was, but they had seen it
enough times that they don't notice it anymore. Didn't *notice* it
anymore? Wow. Sounds like that commercial did a good job of lowering
their resistance to whatever message the advertiser wanted to teach
them. Including the stereotypical social roles of men and women.
I am sure glad that I don't have a TV. But even so, one cannot live
in a vacuum. I try to use many different means for learning, gathering
news, and entertaining myself in an attempt to remain critical enough
to be able to evaluate it with my own mind. I would recommend those of
you with TVs to try to remain aware of the underlying messages (not
always deliberate) in both advertisements and editorials (including
the "editorial comment" built into such innocuous programs as sitcoms
and sports and so on). And to read more. There are inherently more
varied points of view in written media. Of course you have heard this
before and are fully aware of the situation, but a reminder can't hurt
now and then.
--Brian
------------------------------
Return-path: < @wiscvm.wisc.edu:bh01@clutx.BITNET>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 87 05:47:28 EST
From: Russell Nelson < bh01%CLUTX.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: zoning laws vs Libertarianism
It seems to me that in any country with open borders (going out),
nobody is being coerced to do anything, by libertarian standards.
So you can try to persuade us (please do) about your philosophy, but
you need not expect much sympathy for the taxes you choose to pay.
-- Zhahai Stewart {hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai
*Sigh*. I think we're all having fun arguing and ignoring the fact
that there are always other considerations, like family, friends, job,
climate, etc.
About a year ago, I saw a poli-sci digest in which good old kfl (whose
list is this anyway? :-) was arguing the dismerits of zoning, and
similar laws. Well, rather than make up some example that no one will
believe, like "What if my neighbor decided to grow dandelions instead
of grass; isn't he intruding on my freedom to grow grass?", I'll
describe the situation as exists between my "neighbor" and I.
The house has apparently been vacant for twice the four years that we
have lived here. The chimney is falling down, the paint is peeling,
and the grass is so overgrown that it comes up to my waist. There is
no electrical power, no phone lines; a tree brought them down five
years ago.
The house looks like crap, and the law against such things isn't
working because the Mayor of the village lives down the block.
My wealth is being stolen by my neighbor. My house has a decidedly
lower value because of the (non-)efforts of my neighbor. Ask anyone
who sells houses and they'll tell you that a house in a good
neighborhood is valued higher than an identical house in a bad
neighborhood.
Would I, were I a Libertarian:
o Burn the house down (the inside, I am told, is as bad as the
outside)?
o Get together a neighborhood work crew and trim the shrubs, paint
the house, etc?
o Jump up and down and yell and scream about having the existing
laws enforced?
o Grin and bear it?
------------------------------
Return-path: < KFL@MX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 87 13:22:29 EST
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Taxation
(Not to say that I favor the current system of taxation.)
-CWM]
What would you favor in its place?
[ Hey, we're arguing about what you favor, not what I favor!
I thought we were arguing - discussing - what is right. I have told
everyone on this list exactly what I favor, though some persist in
misunderstanding. I would like to hear what ideas other people on
this list believe in. It is much easier to criticize someone else's
ideas than to defend an alternative set of ideas yourself.
Regardless of the arguments for or against a free society, I don't
see how anyone on this list can "vote" against it, if it is the only
idea on the Poli-Sci "ballot". Lets hear some alternative consistent
ideas, if there are any.
In any event, I find your reasoning rather circular - which makes
it easy to 'prove', I suppose.
This is in reference to my saying that a proper tax (if there could
be such a thing) is one where the money would go to pay for the same
things as the person taxed would voluntarily have spent it on, which
was in reference to your contention that a tax probably wouldn't be
spent on the same things as the person taxed would voluntarily have
spent his money on. It is true that this would be circular reasoning
IF it was intended as a proof. It isn't. I don't think the idea
NEEDS any proof. If money is taken from individuals against their
will and spent on projects they would NOT have spent it on, that is
not a free society. That isn't even a true democracy, since the
collective wills of the people are simply the sum of their individual
wills.
Unfortunately, I have no dogma to fall back on in this regard.
You seem to be using "dogma" to mean any system of ideas as opposed
to sheer range-of-the-moment pragmatism. My ideas are not dogmatic.
I will assume your ideas are not dogmatic either. So lets hear them.
Or are you saying you lack, not a "dogma", but political ideas of any
sort?
I think some form of government revenue-generation (yes, taxation)
is required, though not at levels even approaching 10% of income.
Ok. That already makes you a libertarian by the standards of
Republicans and Democrats.
Why do you think it is needed?
I favor considerably less government, but ... I don't beleive that
hell-for-leather profit-making will solve everything, or even
most of everything.
Neither do I. I think there will still be drug addicts, robbery,
poverty, and car wrecks. I don't think any system can totally
eliminate those except by totalitarian controls, which is a cure far
worse than the disease.
I think there's a middle ground. -CWM]
I don't see how, from profit-making not solving everything, one can
draw the conclusion that it is ok for some amount of people's wealth
to be taken from them against their will. One could ask whether doing
so would "solve everything". It is obvious that it wouldn't and
doesn't.
Also, if a tax rate of, say, five percent is morally acceptable,
i.e. you concede government's right to take five percent of what each
person earns regardless of his wishes, what is to prevent it from
changing to six percent because of the urgent energy crisis, and then
to eight percent because medical care is too important to be left to
the greedy capitalists, and then to twelve percent because we can't
abandon our inner cities to cocaine addicts, and then to sixteen
percent because our farmers need aid, and then to twenty percent
because some old folks folks have no heat, and then to thirty percent
because of the slowing economy, and then to fifty percent because of
the depression, etc...
Where, if not at the very beginning, does one draw the line between
your right to your property and the government's "right" to your
property?
...Keith
[ Well, lets see: There are lots of consistent alternatives, they are
in political science books. That you don't like them doesn't make
them inconsistant. Democracy, socialism, communism, facism, etc.
That some have failed in practice doesn't necessariily say anything
for or against their ideals - after all, pure libertarianism hasn't
ever been put through the crucible. We're arguing ideals here. Your
ideals, specifically.
I am not at all interested what a Democrat or Republican would call
me (some of *them* call me a facist), and you may paint me any way you
like, too. It doesn't make me a libertarian.
I have heard a version of your taxation speech used by most
political 'purists' (that is, those that espouse a pure, and only a
pure application of whatever it is it they are pushing). In sum, it
goes that any deviation from their radical solution is an excuse for
the solution failing, and further that ANY other solution is
'obviously' doomed to fail. That pure applications of any political
theory is virtually impossible doesn't seem to enter into their
thinking. Well, I don't buy it. - CWM]
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************
Poli-Sci Digest Thursday, 26 Mar 1987 Volume 7 : Issue 35
Today's Topics:
Education &
SDI and Stability &
Centrism &
The Meese Porn Commission &
Controdorism
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 5 Feb 87 23:49:04-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Education
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Teaching more things isn't of much use unless they are
understood.
Not exactly true, some things can be understood a lot better
after the students do some thinking or experimenting on their
own.
Your statement does not contradict mine in any way, so why do you
say "Not exactly true"?
Your original statement seems to imply that the things being taught
must be understood there and then. All I am saying is that your
understanding of what is being taught can be developed "off-line" i.e.
sometime after the material has been delivered.
I don't see memorizing as the only alternative to asking
questions. Independent thinking, research, and group
discussions are better alternatives.
How about "all of the above"? Do you think you are disagreeing
with me?
You didn't mention the alternatives in your original message. So I
couldn't tell if you were aware of them. Moreover I would think that
if you were aware of them you would have mentioned them in the first
place since there are valid alternatives.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 87 09:20:46 PST
From: Steve Walton < ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: cit-vax!rutgers.rutgers.edu!pyramid!kontron!cramer
Subject: SDI and Stability
In Poli-Sci Volume 7, Issue 16, Clayton Cramer asks why the Soviets
should be worried about SDI if they apparently believe that the US
will never launch a first strike, and cites some quotes from Gorbachev
to that effect. Here is a partial response, an article which appeared
in Arms-D Volume 7 Number 83, dated 12 December 1986:
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 86 22:31:15 pst
From: Dave Benson < benson%wsu.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: "Deterrence versus Defense"
Authors:
Steven J. Brams D. Marc Kilgour
Dept. of Politics Dept. of Mathmatics
New York University Wilfrid Laurier University
New York NY 10003 Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3C5
Canada
Title:
Deterrence versus Defense: a game-theoretic model of star wars
Abstract
A game-theoretic model of the Strategic Defense Initiative, or
"Star Wars", is developed based on a deterrence model founded on the
game of Chicken. In this model, two players can choose any level of
preemption, and threaten any level of retaliation against preemption,
whereas in the Star Wars Game they are constrained in these choices by
the defensive capabilities of an opponent.
Nash equilibria, or stable outcomes, are dervied in this game
and illustrated for three different scenarios involving various
postulated relationships between the first-strike and second-strike
defenses of the players. Unlike the deterrence model, mutual
preemption emerges as an equilibrium in the Star Wars Game,
underscoring the problem -- particularly if defensive capabilities are
unbalanced -- of deterrence's being subverted by the development of
Star Wars. Ramifications of this model for avoiding preemption and
preserving crisis stability, especially in superpower relations, are
discussed.
> From the conclusion:
Our major concern is that, short of being leakproof, Star Wars
is probably more destabilizing than stabilizing. For one thing, it
inevitably introduces MPE (Mutual Preemption Equilibrium) into the
Star Wars Game, which did not crop up in the Deterrence Game. For
another, it shows, especially in the third scenario, that the
unbalanced development of Star Wars capabilities by both sides is
preemption-inducing, and becomes more so as the Star Wars defense of
the superior player approaches perfection.
Commentary by David B. Benson:
Games such as Prisoner's Dilemma and Chicken illustrate many
aspects of real-life negotiations, international affairs, and
politics. The Star Wars Game is complex, and the analysis requires a
42 page (double-spaced) paper. But the conclusion of destabilization
pervades the game. One might argue with the premisses -- or rather
their validity to actual affairs. The premisses appear plausible to
me, however. Now the results of this study suggest to me reasons why
the Russians might be strenuously opposed to SDI, even SDI research.
The study suggests why everyone concerned about stability in the
affairs between the two superpowers might be opposed to SDI, including
SDI research.
The paper is recommended to those who enjoy precise
rationality in the never-ending arms debate...
Me again: Remember that Star Wars is a registered trademark of
LucasFilm Limited.
Steve Walton
------------------------------
Return-path: < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu 5 Feb 87 00:23:20-EST
From: Willie Lim < WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Middle of the road
To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: "Keith F. Lynch" < KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
A person who nobody wants to pay what he thinks he is worth is
going to have to either convince people to pay him what he thinks
he is worth, accept lower wages, learn new skills, or move
elsewhere where his current skills are worth more. He cannot
change his circumstances except in those ways, since it would be a
violation of other people's rights to force them to pay him more
than they think his time is worth.
Sounds great in theory. A rational individual would look at all the
alternatives including crime and choose the best. The wages that the
market is prepared to offer may be so low that he could not possibly
survive on them. So get new skills or relocate, you say. The costs
to be incurred in these alternatives may be higher than say resorting
to crime.
My point was to show that your comment that a person has to accept
the laws of the countries available for him to live in is not
reasonable. There is nothing inevitable about the laws and
customs of the countries that happen to exist. They can be
changed, and often should.
My point was that unless you get the laws changed you have to obey
them. That doesn't mean you can't work to change them. Sometimes
moving out of a free country to another free country may be a viable
alternative. It may be a lot easier than trying to change the laws.
If enough highly skilled people emigrate, laws might have to be
changed to attract them back. This competition for skilled labor (or
those who are wealthy) among free countries can be a very effective
way of changing laws. E.g. some countries (like Belize and Canada) in
trying to attract the wealthy (e.g. the tycoons in Hong Kong or the
Middle East) have modified their immigration laws (in Belize, you can
become a citizen by buying a government bond while in Canada you can
get permanent resident status and citizenship in 3 years by investing
a few hundred thousand dollars in some Canadian funds). Another
example, many states in the US tinker with their labor, tax and
pollution control laws to attract more investment.
Willie
------------------------------
Return-path: < ee173wav%sdcc3@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu>
From: ee173wav%sdcc3@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Tod Kuykendall)
Subject: The Ed Meese Porn Report - the ugly truth about it
Date: 9 Feb 87 18:51:45 GMT
There has been some general discussion about the Meese commision
report on pornography recently, so I thought for all those people out
there who don't know the scoop I'd post some of the details.
Ed Meese assembled a commission to, supposedly, study pornography
in America. What actually set out to do was to find evidence to
support his notion that porn was ruining America. He assembled a
commission made up of 10 people who had long histories of attacking
"porn" from whatever positions they held and three fairly neutral
parties. (These last three protested much that was concluded in the
final version of the report)
After assembling this unbiased collection he instructed them to:
" determine the nature, extent, and impact on society of
pornography in the United States and make specific reccomdations to
the Attorney General concerning more effective ways in which the
spread of pornography could be contained." Which sounds fine until
you realize that in their stated objective these people are out to
stop the "spread of pornography". They haven't determined it's
effects yet, but they are so convinced it's bad from the outset that
they're out to stop it. (You can see where all this is leading)
The commision then set out to define porn. In the report they
actually state "The best course may be [to decide] that definition
is futile." But that didn't stop them from doing it, of course.
According to the commission they are as follows:
1) Sexually violent materials
2) Nonviolent materials depicting degradation or humilation
3) Nonviolent and nondegradating materials ("We are convinced
that only a small amount of the highly explict material is niether
violent or degrading." With no supporting evidence or proof to back
up such a "belief".)
So, the government wants to decide if porn is bad. They assemble
a group of anti porn people, define porn as bad listen to a lot of
anti-porn testimony and guess what they are going to decide.... At
this point the commission could have saved $500,000 of taxpayers
money, but instead decided to forge ahead and spend it in support of
this terrible industry by thje purchase of 4,644 porno magazines,
3916 books and 3571 video cassettes. (Over 12,000 pieces total)
Some of the titles listed in the report of magazines:
"Anal nieghbors, Best of Foot Whorship, Chubby Cheeks, Hefty Mamas,
Latex Annual, Wham Bam Window Washers, The Wonderful World of Feet,
etc. etc." The report is then filled with descriptions of the acts
contained in these magazines. i.e. "One photograph of a naked
caucasian biting and pulling on the back straps of another caucasian
males athletic supporter." etc. etc.
As two commission members point out in their dissent of the report
"We do not know if what the commission viewed during the
year....mirror[s] the taste of the majority of the consumers of
pornography."
The commission then listened to "testimony" including hearsay,
unsubstantiated anecdotes amd anonymous letters none of which could
be confirmed, but was taken as evidence. The statements of thos
interviewed ran 77% against porn and only 19% in favor of mataining
the current laws or loosening them.
But now comes the REALLY scarey parts...
The commission links pornography to rape and violence despite
lack of direct evidence and even the results of a 1977 study that
"mild erotic stimuli had an inhibiting effect on aggresion levels
and stronger stimuli had no effect."
The commission reports that "Obscenity offenses often appear to
judges and probation officers as less serious to violent crimes."
(What a suprise...)
They labeled porn as ogranized crime. Their reasoning
1) Porn is criminal. (Their view)
2) It's organized.
there for 3) It's organized crime....
-Again dissention from three members of the commitee.
On this basis they encourage the following steps:
1) Enact laws of forfiture. (i.e. If 7-11 sells PLAYBOY and it's
obscene then they are arrested and the 7-11 ownership switches over
to the government.)
2) Creation of an "Obscenity Law Enforcement Data Base" with no
real plans on how it's run, if it's confidential or not or how you
get on it. (Big Brother who?)
3) And they encourage people to set up picket lines, monitor
rock lyrics, pursue censorship in schools and libraries and to
bother law officers, the courts, and the FCC.
The commission states that "law enforcement cannot entirely
compensate for or regulate the consequences of bad decisions if the
majority consistenly chooses evil or error." That is, if the
majority of the people in the United States choose to read whatever
they want to, or let other people read what they want to, you can
still try to stop those people from doing things that aren't illegal
because you know it's wrong and bad. I thought majority being right
was called democracy. (I guess it is unless they don't agree with ed
Meese and then they're obviously wrong and need to be censured. Is
this, or is it not America?)
There you have it. It's the Meese Commission in all it's
glory. If you want any details i.e. the dippy and somewhat pyscho
nature of many of the panel members, the dippy and somewhat psycho
nature of the testimony I'll be happy to supply the quotes I have.
Sorry it's so long, but it's hard to encapsulate 1960 pages of
rampant stupidity and demogoguary in one article.
thanks for listening,
-tk
P.S. Feel free to flame me. If it's the price I pay to attack this
kind of stupidity in a public forum it's ok by me.....
------------------------------
Return-path: < hoptoad.UUCP!pozar@cgl.ucsf.edu>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 87 10:50:18 PST
From: hoptoad.UUCP!pozar@cgl.ucsf.edu (Tim Pozar)
Subject: Controdora
I am posting this for a friend...
* ACTION * ACTION * ACTION *
CENTRAL AMERICA: AN OPPORTUNITY
=============== ==============
Write, telephone, talk, educate... but do SOMETHING! Urge every
United States official and everyone you know to say "no" to war and
"yes" to negotiated resolutions in Central America. We need to:
1. SEND NO MORE MILITARY AID TO CENTRAL AMERICA.
2. SUPPORT AND CHAMPION THE CONTADORA PROCESS, the best and only
viable alternative to general war in Central America!
The Contadora Group of 8 Latin American heads of state stands on
principles that are totally congruent with American goals. Contadora
proposes the:
-- prohibition of any intervention by foreign military or
paramilitary forces, including Cuban and Soviet.
-- control of the regional arms race.
-- improvement of social and economic conditions in the region.
-- promotion of democracy and national reconciliation, with full
respect for the principles of self-determination.
More war is unacceptable in Central America. The United States is
determinative. Every one of us must champion the way to negotiation
in Central America and create a model for the world.
* TIME IS SHORT. MAKE CONTADORA WORK! *
Len Traubman, DDS
1448 Cedarwood Drive, San Mateo, CA 94403 Phone (415) 574-8303
------------------------------
End of Poli-Sci Digest
**********************