From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Newsgroups: or.politics,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.elections,ba.politics,co.politics,ne.politics,nj.politics,ny.politics,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Ignorance - Was Re: VOTE, BABY, VOTE!
Date: 13 Nov 92 23:51:23 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

In article <BxMwz5.Lo6@slipknot.rain.com> robert@slipknot.rain.com.UUCP (Robert Reed) writes:
>You may think it was stupid, but it was viewed at the time as a necessary
>measure (along with bank regulation) to raise people's trust of the banking
>system following the great depression.

In which case, it is an obsulete institution which should be eliminated.
  
>|Companies that provide a safer work environment will be able to 
>|attract more workers than those who don't, assuming workers value
>|safety.

>That assumes that there are competitive businesses within a particular job
>market that would choose to differentiate themselves to draw a work force from
>the local job pool.

Or that the employees can form unions. They are quite capable of this.

>|It is composed of individuals who have vastly different opinions about what
>|is right and what isn't.  It is not the place of government to impose the will
>|of a majority on minority groups.

>We still live in a country of majority rule, a fact which is a direct
>contradiction to your statement.

We are not a country of unlimited majority rule: The majority is limited
(or should be, if the government actually obeyed the Constitution) by
the Bill of Rights and by the limited powers of government. The last is
especially important: To prevent repression by the majority, the government
may constitutionally get involved in certain, specific areas (listed out
in Article One, section eight of the Constitution.) That is, those
powers that an overwelming majority of the people (as measured by the
3/4th requirment to ratify and amend the Constitution) think are 
vitally and unaviodable concerns of the nation in general. If you look, you 
will see that social programs do not, honestly, fall into any of the
government's legidimate powers (they are currently justified as "necessary
and proper" to regulate interstate commerce. The kindest thing you can
call that is intelectual dishonesty.) So only in certain limited cases
are we a single nation ruled by the will of the majority.

  
>Surely you don't think Bush supporters don't
>feel imposed upon by the election of Clinton?  The majority set standards of
>behavior that are imposed upon the minority in many ways.  Break the law and
>you might go to jail.

Only if Clinton exceeds the limits set by the Constitution. The majority
can't set _any_ standards of behavior and impose them on minorities; nor
can they make anything they like illegal and send dissidents to jail.

>The problem with this simplistic view is that there is no free market for
>charity.  The incentive to give is only remotely related to the need, and the
>altruists are left to foot a disproportionate amount of a bill which serves the
>common good.

That presumes the altruists are a minority: How would government charities
be enacted if the people didn't really care? Further, why is this a subject
that the government can legidimately use force to _make_ everyone 
adopt the majority's moral views (of how much charity is appropriate?)

>There is evidence that government can't solve ALL of our problems, but it
>certainly has solved more problems than the alternative.

Debatable, but without getting into that, the government has also _caused_
more problems than the alterantive (in the field of economic and moral
ledislation, at least.) It seems that the idea of limited government,
confined to a few narrow areas of legislation, is a good one: Only in
a few cases do the government do more good than harm, and it should
be strictly limited to these areas.

                                Frank Crary
			        CU Boulder
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