From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: The World
	<BZS.93Jan8034450@world.std.com> <C0JwnI.L6I@news.rich.bnr.ca>
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:49:13 GMT


From: rbeckham@bnr.ca (Rick Beckham)
>>Well, for starters there's the Exxon Valdez...I hear Exxon makes quite
>>a bit of money. But one can quibble that I suppose, so how about the
>
> Exxon made millions by dumping? Did they dump on purpose? Who paid them
> the millions to dump?

It's called willful negligence, you can save a lot of money cutting
corners, millions...

>>organized crime types who were picking up toxic waste and dumping it
>>off on road sides when no one was looking? I hear they made millions
>
> You've defined them as criminal types. Dumping on land other than their
> own would be criminal even under a lib society.

Ah, so at the very least libertarian society will have at least the
govt network of crime-fighting and criminal management we have
today...no doubt more since they just shift so much more to the
criminal side of the equation.

>>I assume you missed the recent Savings and Loans scandal that's
>>costing the US around $500B?
>>
> This has been covered time and again.

Yeah, and judging from what I see around me almost no one has bought
the libertarian view...

>The govt removed regulations on
> S&L's, but continued to insure. At that point, people with money in
> the S&L's should've inquired about the type of investments being made
> with their money. Or do you believe that everyone who takes a risk
> should be reimbursed by the govt if the risk doesn't pan out and they
> lose their money? Get real.

Well, they did pay for the insurance, right?

>> Enormous amounts of what you
>>see around you in terms of laws and regulations is because there seems
>>to always be a certain ruthless type of human being who insists on
>>living right at the edge of what is absolutely forbidden and what is
>>questionably legal. So you have to firm up that edge lest they prey on
>
> Two things: what happens if these ruthless people migrate to the govt?
> Where's your protection. Second, if there are always people living on
> the edge, what's your solution? Outlaw everything, so no one can walk
> the edge?

No one said that, you're creating straw men.

The libertarians propose to get rid of much of the regulation that at
least tries to prevent much of what I describe. They don't understand
how corporations work, not in the slightest.

>>people who run their lives based on reasonable common sense. You can't
>>posit a world based on reasonable and honest people, reasonable and
>>honest people rarely go near the edge.
>>
> So you propose a big brother govt to protect you? Is this govt made up
> of reasonable people?

Who the hell proposed a big brother govt?

Hey pal, *you're* the one doing the proposing!

Do you have anything else in that kit-bag of yours other than straw
men?

>>What gives ``the electorate'' the right to decide if you murder, rape
>>or steal that you can be held in a cage at gunpoint?
>>
>>It's the same "right".
>>
> Sorry, not even close. The first situation is that a gang (the govt) is
> stealing from you, but is declared legal by a majority.

Hey, you steal from thieves, you kidnap criminals and lock them away
in cages, two can play this silly semantic game.

>(or is it? what
> if a vote tomorrow showed that the majority of the people didn't believe
> they should pay taxes? would the govt recind taxes based on the majorities
> wishes?)

Of course they would, they would have to. Your entire view of govt and
the dualism you have invented (within a democratic society) is so
artificial you're being tripped up by your own rhetoric.

It's like saying "families are bad, but you can't blame the people who
are in them, they're good people, but families are bad, now if we
could just get rid of families then the people would be fine..." The
distinction, in this case, is so vague. You are using a word like
"families" (or actually "government") for rhetorical effect as
separate from people and then you are believing yourself and getting
hopelessly confused. It's almost comical.

Art Buchwald once wrote a very funny satirical column based on the
ludicrous assertion that anyone actually believes this kind of
rhetoric: He's walking past the White House one day and hears a
voice...psst...(huh)...psst, hey you...huh? who is that? it's the
white house...the white house? you can talk??? sure, don't you always
read in the paper "the white house announced today...", whaddya,
stupid or something?

The sad thing is that you seem to have your reality mired in this
fallacy!

>The second situation, murder, rape, or steal, all three are
> violating someone's person or property. So in the first case you claim
> it is okay for the govt to steal if the majority wishes it, in the second
> claim that it is okay to lock someone up who stole. Which is it?

Steal? STEAL? What cheap rhetorical excess. Do you actually expect to
be taken seriously with this crud?

People voted, they entered into a contract with each other, that's
all. But it's so blindingly obvious that it's insulting to explain
because you know just how full of it you are.

>>I suppose that is why they are so pugnacious, anyone who doubts them
>>is at least something to push against. It must be frustrating shouting
>>at the air most of the time.
>>
> Believe me, it is

As a friend says: Nail, head, bang...


-- 
        -Barry Shein

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