From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: The World
	<BZS.93Jan7192644@world.std.com> <1993Jan8.033524.24065@athena.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 08:44:50 GMT


From: hhuang@athena.mit.edu (Han-Young Huang)
>>From: pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt)
>>Some guy who made a few million dumping toxic waste or raided people's
>>savings etc may not have done his planet any good, but he's living it
>>up somewhere on the money and probably thinks it all worked out pretty
>>well! No doubt such evility would be a huge fan of libertarianism,
>>these guys slip thru the currently regulated environment.
>
>I seem to have enormous difficulty seeing how someone can make a few
>million dumping toxic waste (unless citizens do not sue that person
>for ruining theirp property -- hardly likely).

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
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
posing as legitimate toxic waste removal services.

>Or how someone can
>make a few million raiding people's savings, when a crucial point of
>libertarianism is that one's property cannot be taken without one's
>consent, whatever the circumstance.

I assume you missed the recent Savings and Loans scandal that's
costing the US around $500B?

Or is the plan that under libertarianism there will be no one pushing
the envelope of what they can get away with? A lot of the folks who
made money off the S&L crisis technically didn't break a law, perhaps
they used "poor judgement" or caused others to do that by loaning on
property of questionable value, but hey, all the way to (or is it
from?) the bank...

You are talking about idealized behavior. 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
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.

>Perhaps you are assuming that
>people are stupid and cannot be counted upon to protect what is
>theirs.  It's a rather malevolent notion.

Yes, so stupid as to hand their money over to banks for deposit who
then go belly-up after loaning all the deposit money to their
brothers-in-law. You must have an amazingly naive notion about
punishment and accountability. Even if these scum are caught do you
think they ever have the money? Do you think victims get paid back? Do
you think punishing them pays people back?

>>Other than when the electorate acts "irrationally" and imposes taxes
>>on themselves soas to pay for the common weal.
>
>What is ``the electorate''?  What gives ``the electorate'' (i.e.,
>other people) the right to decide if I should be held at gunpoint to
>pay my taxes?

I assume "what is the electorate" to be a rhetorical question since
you seem, by the next sentence, to know who they are.

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".

>The whole problem with a democratic society is that at any time, 50.1%
>of the society can vote to wreck the livelihoods of the remaining
>49.9%.  Do you consider this good government?  Does sound quite
>dictatorial to me...

You will never escape the will of the mob, about the best anyone has
ever figured out to do is herd them into voting booths. That's hardly
an opinion.

In the end that's the pathos, it's impossible to understand who
libertarians are appealing (complaining) to? Is your point that people
should democratically vote what you assert they will not? Or are you
going to force them into libertarianism at gunpoint, or what? (And
don't repeat the catechism about coercion to me, what are your plans?)

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.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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