From: jc@sppip7.lkg.dec.com (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Subject: Re: Libertarianism (was Who pays for schools?)
Date: 16 Apr 92 22:06:48 GMT
Reply-To: jc@sppip7.lkg.dec.com (John Chambers)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

In article <1992Apr15.164428.27753@alliant.com>, werme@alliant.com (Ric Werme) writes:
> 
> The biggest impediment to a Libertarian system is  that  we've  lost
> the  sense  of  responsibility  that  comes when there are no safety
> nets.  You can't be trusted to provided for your retirement,  so  we
> have social security.  ...

One major thing that keeps getting missed in such discussions  is  the
very real likelyhood of fraud and theft.

Even if I try to provide for my own retirement (which I  have),  there
is  a very good chance that I will fall prey to someone who will steal
my savings.  We've seen a lot of Americans who have recently lost most
of  their  life  saving  in  the S&L scandal.  As I understand it, the
Libertarian answer when this happens to me is "You shouldn't have been
such  an  idiot as to invest with them." Well, maybe, but I don't have
the resources to find out which of those institutions will be  solvent
30  years  from  now.   There's  a  very  good  chance  that I'll lose
everything, and I have few practical defenses against them.  If I keep
my savings in my mattress, then a buglar or a fire may get them.

If society just says "Tough luck, sucker!", I probably won't just keel
over and die of embarassment. I'll probably find a way to survive, and
you might not like the way that I'll do it, especially since I'll have
a  lot  of thoughts about revenge for the folks who put me into such a
state.  There are a lot of suckers out there now who are thinking such
thoughts.  Stay tuned; the S&L scandal isn't over yet.

Another thing that's a very real worry for Americans these days is the
medical system.  For most of us, we know how we will end our days.  We
will have a medical emergency of  some  sort  (heart  attack,  stroke,
cancer,  etc.),  and  will go to the hospital.  The bills will totally
exhaust whatever insurance we managed to  have  (which  probably  will
turn  out to have fine print that excludes coverage for the thing that
happened to us).  Next to go to pay the bills will be all our savings.
After  that, we can sell our house and any other belongings to pay the
bill. Then we will be destitute, homeless, and totally at the mercy of
society.  We don't have to think about it much, because unless we have
an accident that kills us outright, we KNOW that it will happen.

Once you go to the hospital, you are effectively a prisoner until they
decide  to let you go, and they can legally decide what to charge you.
You have no legal say in either matter.

(This is probably at the heart of the recent raging discussion of  the
subject  of  suicide,  which for most Americans is now the only way to
leave anything for your children.)

> You  don't  have  to  seek  out  an  education for your kids so that
> they'll be ready to leave home - the schools will do everything they
> can to get them.

If my parents had had control over my life, I would have been  working
at a very early age, and I wouldn't have had a chance at an education.
The only reason that I made it to college was that the government told
them  that they couldn't act in their own financial interest; they had
to send me to school.  At age 18 I was on my  own.   They  contributed
absolutely nothing to my college education, and wouldn't even fill out
financial-aid statements, on the grounds  that  the  colleges  had  no
business  knowing  such  stuff.  It was only with the aid of some nice
folks in two state universities that I got the  scholarship  aid  that
allowed me to attend.

Saying that a minor  child  should  be  responsible  for  his/her  own
education  is  one  of  the most cynical things that anyone could say.
Minor children are in fact slaves to their  parents,  and  they  don't
stand a chance in life unless someone steps in and says that they must
or must not do certain things.  Yeah, I know that  parents  should  be
nice  to  their  kids.   My  parents were the sort that consider "book
learning"  to  be  effete  intellectual  snobbery.   I  was  nicknamed
"Einstein"  because  I  did  well  in  school,  and the term was quite
definitely an insult.  Their culture was watching the tube,  and  that
was  pretty  much  the  end of it.  They are not happy with my current
educated, yuppy status here in the suburbs of Boston.  (If  they  knew
that  I  recently played the violin in Pachelbel Canon at two friends'
wedding, they'd hoot in derision.  ;-)

Yes, there are people like that in the world.  A lot of them live here
in the USA.  I'm pleased that the government protected me from them.

(Not that I consider the crowd of bunglers in the government to be any
paragons of anything, mind you.  But they do have their uses. ;-)
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