From: silva@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Holly Silva)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: To the Clinton supporters
Date: 11 Nov 1992 03:37:55 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>
>>You sound as though you believe most income to low income people is
>>unearned...
>
>No.  Most of it is earned from jobs, but every penny that comes from the
>government is UNEARNED.  It is a pure and simple matter of injustice
>to take money from someone (rich or not) and give it to someone else without
>their consent.
>
	No. Wrong. Incorrect. It is not a 'pure and simple matter of
injustice to take money from someone and give it to someone else without
their consent'. Not when the taker and giver is the government.
	As a citizen of this nation, you benefit from the existence
of the government. You have in the past benefitted from the actions
of the government. In all probablity, you would not be here today if
it were not for the existence of the American government.
	You use government-sponsored, government-run facilities on a
daily basis. You drive on government maintained freeways, utilize 
computers that conform to government determined standards (in re:
electrical power, etc.). You make use of tangible and intangible 
government 'goods' continuously throughout the day. You have, therefore
participated in an unwritten sort of contractual agreement with the 
government. You have 'cashed the check' so to speak. The relationship
between the citizens of this nation and the government cannot be 
adequately, accurately modeled in the way that you attempt to model it
above, using the language and imagery of individual interaction. The 
government is _not_ some guy coming by and taking your wallet in order
to give it to his friend down the street.


>>>>IMNSHO, the "trickle-down" theory allowed the upper few percent to gain
>>>>about 60% of the income growth throughout the 80's.  
>
>>>Indeed, they were alolowed to MAKE that money.  They didn't steal it.
>
>>None of it?
>
>There are certainly criminals in any population, but I happen to think that
>people (even *GASP!* rich people) ought to be considered innocent until
>proven guilty.  Your disregard for justice and irrational hatred for people
>with more money than yourself disgsuts me.
>
	You are babbling Mr. Yoder. There is nothing in the previous
poster's statement that smacks of irrational hatred of the 'rich' or
disregard for justice. He rather gently made the point that ill-gotten
gains are hardly the province of the poor alone. High-profile rich
men such as Mike Milliken for instance, have admittedly broken laws
in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and Milliken is only the 'tip
of the iceberg' as far as violation of securities laws  -- there are
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of less flamboyant, less powerful white
collar thieves still running free in this country.

>	You can't condemn a whole class for the crimes of a few
>individuals who commit them, and I would say that as a whole, the rich are
>MUCH less likely to acquire their income by criminal means. 

	If by criminal you mean only 'actions in violation of the law'
I'd be inclined to agree with you. The rich have much less need to 
actually go out and violate laws in order to satisfy their needs and 
desires. If you equate 'criminal' with immoral, or detrimental to the 
greater good of the nation, however, I'd beg leave to differ. The 
past decade has been marred by grotesque displays of short-sighted,
ill-bred immorality on the part of those among us who've wielded 
power in the automotive (chairman Smith of General Motors), banking
(Charles Keating) and finance (see above) industries.

>I'll take
>this one step further...the property rights of people are a PRECONDITION
>of their being productive and gaining wealth.  They are not a check on
>wealth, they are it's source.

	Yes. But this statement of fact does not take anything you'd
said previously 'one step further'. You were babbling about the virtues
of the rich, not expounding upon the need for property rights.
>
>>In many cases, of course that would be true, i.e., many
>>professions (but can we name counterproductive professions or practices
>>that bring individual reward but a net bad to society?  Does that enter
>>the equation for you?).  
>
>Sure, there are professional thieves, con men, etc. who have a net bad effect 
>on society, and I think those folks ought to be punished.  
>

	I think he was referring to personal injury lawyers and their
ilk, not merely to the easy targets who actually break the laws.

>>But on the other hand, some portion of those
>>gains came because we deregulated or encouraged financial speculation
>>that have nothing to do with this country's productivity.
>
>Do you think that the abolition of slavery gave wealth to the former slaves
>according to changes in laws unrelated to the country's productivity?
>By deregulating an industry, the government isn't doing it any favors, it is
>merely allowing them to keep what is already theirs.
>
	Yoder, the economy of the ante-bellum South went down in ashes after
the slaves were emancipated. When the Union government deregulated the
'Peculiar Institution' it decimated the industry(ies) which relied 
upon slave labor. If you're going to throw in a red herring, at least
find one that works!

>	I don't think that you or the
>government have any business even considering the question of who should
>be rewarded and who shouldn't.  That's for the same reason I don't think
>you or the government has any business considering the question of whether 
>I ought to be allowed to write this message, or sleep with whoever I choose.
>It is none of your business whether I trade with Donald Trump or the 
>supermarket down the street.
>

	Then you had better stop _immediately_ engaging in any actions
which involve your dependence upon the aforementioned government. Yes.
If you have any intellectual intergity vis a vis this subject, you 
had better turn off the screen right now.

>Actually, we are getting down to the (false) principles behind the idea of
>state control of private matters.  Not only is progressivity a bad idea, but
>it is not even an issue that ought to be able to be considered by the
>government.  That's in the same way as whether I ought to be allowed to live 
>or speak ought not be a matter of majority vote.  They are my RIGHTS, as is
>my right to own property and dispose of it without asking permission from
>some bureaucrat.

	You do not have a right to completely unregulated, unconstrained
ownership of property. Nor do you have the right to dispose of property
completely free of constraint. This 'right' you claim is not real,
not an uninalienable right of man. You have a 'right' to the pursuit
of property, as ennunciated in the Preamble of the Constitution. You are
insofar as I can tell, a net.lunatic who reckons he should be able to
whatsoever he pleases in those areas which interest him. Bzzzt. WRONG.
You are a participant in a society, one of many. You therefore owe
certain things to the other participants in that society. And you really
don't have to like it, because net.babbler or no, you're going to tow
the line anyway.
--
======================================================================
|| Holly Silva			I have nothing terribly clever to say||
|| Applied Earth Sciences	today.  You're in luck.		     ||
|| Stanford University						     ||
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,talk.politics.misc