From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Bill's Billy, Roger (was Re: Some anonymous posts)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:55:04 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.184201.26193@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mjharris@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mike Harris) writes:

}Humm .... I wonder then why there is more people on welfare per capita here
}than in Great Britain and at least 10 times more violent crime here than
}there.

Probably because the UK doesn't have a large, historically oppressed minority
like african americans (don't worry, I'm not turning statist - they were
oppressed by the state, not by the free market).  Excluding this group from
US crime rates and welfare rolls yields roughly comparable figures to those
of England and Canada, according to Kopel's The Samurai, the Mountie, and
the Cowboy.

Why do some people worry so much about not getting their fair share
}of the pie (actually having to give less than 1 percent of your income too
}those lazy poor people). We should all hate them like Rush Limbaugh. (-:

Out of an annual US Federal budget of about $1.5 trillion, transfer payments
(called "welfare" by statists) constitute about a third, with military
spending coming a close second (but the deficit is still bigger than the
military budget).  Given that the US GNP is about 5 trillion, and that about
75% of transfer expenditures never get to their ostensible recipients, many
who are familiar with these figures think that there's more to be concerned
about than you seem to.

}Seriously though when one considers the social and economic costs we have
}been paying for drug prohibition,

According to the Drug Policy Foundation, the total budgets of the Federal
agencies enforcing drug prohibition since Reagan got elected is about $50
billion, if I recall correctly.  Actually, this would be a good research
project: what are the economic costs of drug prohibition?

>underfunded education,

Average national expenditures per student twice those of the 1950s in real
terms is underfunding?  By what standard?  New Jersey spends the most per
student per year of any state in the USA: about $12,000.  By what measures
are New Jersey schools/students the best?  California spends about $5,200
student/year, and the average private school tuition in CA is less than
half that, about $2,500.

Ever since the teachers' unions took control in the late 1960s and early
1970s, education expenditures have been rising and performance falling.

and the whole
}military industrial complex thing the total cost of the welfare budget
}seems to me to pale in insignificance.

While military spending should be cut, lets have a sense of proportion, shall
we?  Transfer payments exceed military spending.  The deficit exceeds
military spending.

My mother's father died when she
}was about 2 years old. Her mother raised 2 small children in Utah. In the
}winter she remembers not having coal to heat the house or have warm water
}to bathe in. They often lived on bread and milk but they survived.
}Fortunately the democrats were in power at the time.

When was this?

}Drugs don't cause people to go on welfare. They're the symptom - not the
}problem.

Agreed, but you seem to think the problem is the absence of totalitarianism.

}I say (impending flames not withstanding) irresponsible drug use would decline
}significantly if we really seriously addressed some other problems in this
}society. Giving those unfortunate enough to be stuck in a bad place enough
}help so that they have a chance to get out strikes me as a good place to
}start. Every other developed country in the world does this better than the
}U.S.

Why don't we follow Sweden's example, and introduce a school choice voucher
system?

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.drugs