HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ash@acm.rpi.edu (Arthur Hyun)
Subject: Question: drug non-control
Keywords: drug control
Distribution: us
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 22:17:12 GMT

I have a question about the Libertarian position on drug laws.

I understand the rationalle behind abolition of most control laws, and
by my understanding, it would seem that the abolition of drug laws would
make drugs cheaper and of higher quality.  Wouldn't this encourage more
people to experiment with narcotics and therefore become addicted?

This might not, of course, be precisely a problem, given that drugs could
be of higher quality and better availability, sort of like caffeine, I
suppose.  But I'm curious what the party line has to say about it, though.

--
           ash@acm.rpi.edu                    9 Linden Avenue, #3
  ah7929@rachel.albany.edu    Arthur Hyun     Troy, New York  12180-4703
        ash@gnu.ai.mit.edu                    +1.518.273.5295
            Chair, RPI-ACM Systems Administration Committee
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: gjones@csi.compuserve.com (George M. Jones)
Subject: Colorado school choice issue ?
Reply-To: gjones@csi.CompuServe.com
Organization: CompuServe, Inc.
Distribution: alt
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 14:14:19 GMT

This is not strictly a libertarian issue, but I suspect someone here
will know, so....I heard something of a ballot issue in Colorado to
allow vouchers for public/private/religeous schools as well as home
schooling.  Anybody know the outcome ?

---George Jones
--
CompuServe, Inc., 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd, Columbus, Ohio, 43220, USA
Email: gjones@csi.compuserve.com
 "Sex is like politics,  you don't have to be good at it to enjoy it"
		-Barry Goldwater
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,rec.arts.startrek.current,alt.politics.bush
From: cs202144@umbc8.umbc.edu (cs202144)
Subject: Picard's Heart (was Clinton's Inauguration Speech)
Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County Campus
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:39:39 GMT

>> "I am Clinton, of Borg. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this moment
>> foreward, those of ability... will service... those of need."
>>
>> Though the media has pronounced resistance to be futile, do so with your
>> last ounce of strength. (no smiley here)

> Why is it that so many computer types are libertarians?
>
> At least Picard has an artificial heart, better than none at all...

Where did you hear or who told you that! Picard has a REAL heart. Nothing
artifical about that...He was given a parthenogenic replacement which is the
equivalent of donating a hear to yourself for transplant purposes. In other
words they cloned a heart for him from his own cells. So it is a real heart 
that is his heart. Just not the one he was born with.
From: damiens@cco.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: What's GNP, anyway?
Keywords: GNP
Date: 10 Nov 92 21:38:48 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandman.caltech.edu

>>In article <37569@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu>, jfh@reef.cis.ufl.edu (James F. Hranicky) writes:
>>
>>Something I've been meaning to ask the econ majors about for a long time:
>>What is this per-capita income, anyway?  I know it's defined as GNP/population,
>>but some things about the figures disturb me.
>>
>>We've all heard of countries with per-capita income in HUNDREDS of US dollars
>>per annum.  I assume it's safe to say, if you treat lodging in homeless
>>shelters or meals in soup kitchens (or other relief efforts) as income; that
>>anyone would LITERALLY starve to death in the United States with an "income"
>>of, say, less than $2000/yr. (which I think is a very low guesstimate).
>>
>>It seems obvious to me that the, say, $500/year that a third world country's
>>per capita income might be quoted as, is failing to account for SOMETHING.  So
>>what is this something?

	GNP includes goods that get to market.  Any barter is not included in
GNP; also things like housework generally are not counted. (Although I think
a few Scandinavian countries have put out 'modidied' GNP accounting for house-
work.)  Most important in the Third World case is that food you produce & then
consume directly never hits the market and is not counted as GNP.  A country
with per cap. GNP of a few hundred $ could consist of city dwellers and big  
farmers generating $1000's of dollars GNP, and lots of subsistence farming
peasants busy keeping themselves alive and contributing nada to the GNP.
This is probably simplified but that is the basic idea:  much of 3rd world 
subsistence is non-market & thus non-GNP.
			-- Damien Sullivan
	42	AIXELSYD	Kiljoy  X-)
Bill Gates is twice as rich as Ross Perot.  Any ideas....?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: haynes@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Carl W. Haynes III)
Subject: Re: where are the totals?
Organization: Purdue University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 15:18:45 GMT

(Chad Edward Brown) writes:
>Does anyone have any idea how we're really doing?  I called
>Associated Press who said we have 2,048 votes with 48% of
>the votes counted.  This is obviously wrong.  Hopefully, it's
>more like 2,048,000.

According to the 11/5/92 USA Today (page 4A), The Libertarian Party
received 278,528 votes.

This seems awfully low to me, I was under the impression (from where,
I don't know) that we were aiming for 1,000,000 votes.

--
Carl W. Haynes III             ||  "She'll see through me like Grandma's
haynes@mace.cc.purdue.edu      ||   underpants." 
hcs@applelink.apple.com        ||                  -- Bart Simpson

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,talk.philosophy.misc
From: jcc@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jeremy Caplan)
Subject: Re: Clinton's Inauguration Speech *Flames*
Keywords: Rand
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 23:28:50 GMT

In article <1dpcrnINNl5g@news.aero.org> foy@aero.org (Richard Foy) writes:
>
>People are all different. I know of high paid union workers who don't perform
>very well. I know of lower paid nurses who work much harder than most other 
>people I know. I think if you will look around you very carefully at the 
>different people you know you will find that most people seem to be working
>for the money, but that the best performers are the ones who seem to have some
>other main motivation. Things such as the work I am doing is important, it
>is interesting, people respect me for the work I do, etc.
>
>Richard Foy  Redondo Beach, CA

"There is no job so low that a better, more skillful performance of it would
pass unnoticed and unappreciated; not in a FREE society." -- Ayn Rand

Jer


Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: x551_003@ccvax.ucd.ie
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Date: 6 Nov 92 13:32:55 GMT
Organization: University College Dublin

In article <1992Nov3.205302.11073@bradley.bradley.edu writes> 
> I am saying that the statements I responded to were pretty much Marx in a
> nutshell, that which would occur after the dictatorship of the proletariat
> whithered away.  The main problem with such an idea is that since people
> differ in their abilities, talents, and motivation, classes will eventually
> reappear.  Some people, because of these differences, would not be able to
> meet all of their needs, and everyone has different self-perceived needs.
> How can these practical deviations are then accounted for depends on the
> government surrounding the economic system.  The Soviet Union chose strict
> statism and still failed.  Under anarchy or minarchy, society has 
> continually returned to free market capitalism.

  
I can not think of one example anywhere where an anarchist society returned to
free markert capitalism. In fact there has never been an anarchist society
actually established, Spain was a society trying to make that transformation
during a civil war but it only got so fat along that path before it was
physically destroyed by the communist party and the fascists.  I do not know
what minarchy means, perhaps you could explain it.

Its also worth pointing out that the Anarchists in the Soviet Union pointed out
that it was going to fail as early as 1918 because not despite it was trying to
introduce statist socialism. Anybody who has actually studied the Soviet
economy can notice the fat that the biggest weakness was the fact there was no
control over it at all.  Under market capitalism competition forms some sort of
control (although a pretty crap one).  In the Soviet Union the state was unable
to control the economy at all.  One of themajor functions of the KGB for
instance was to attempt to find out what was actually happening in the
factories on the ground but they were unable to accuratly do so. Planning was
not possible unless the working class were in sole control of the economy.

They were not so the soviet union was just another form of class society, you
could call it state capitalism if you liked.  The promotion of the soviet
ruling class like any other was not on the basis that they were the brightest
and best in society.  Rather it was a product of two factors
1) A willingness to stab other people in the back, and make gains at their
expense.
2) Being 'lucky' enough to be in a position where you could make use of (1).

There was of course another way too which is also common to western class
society
....be the offspring of somebody who is already in a position of power.

All in all the soviet union had far more in common with capitalism
then anarchism.  Perhaps it actually demonstrated how capitalism doesnt work!

Andrew

e_mail anflood@irlean.ucd.ie
Post   Andrew, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland

My views are my own and do not reflect those of my employer

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: ash@acm.rpi.edu (Arthur Hyun)
Subject: Re: Question: drug non-control
Keywords: drug control
Distribution: us
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:34:51 GMT

In <1992Nov8.125803.24672@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:

>Surveys show that only 5% of those people who haven't tried prohibited drugs
>would if they were legal.

I might try smoking, if I weren't already so propogandized by *gov't required*
warnings as to the health effects of cigarette smoking.  My feeling are such
that even if surveys and studies were published to the effect of saying
"The surgeon general's a fool; there is no danger to tobacco", I still don't
think I could overcome the brainwashing.  This applies equally to the hordes of
illegal drugs that I've heard of.

I don't, however, know how I'd react to a drug I've never heard of before.


>Study of alcohol prohibition shows that alcholism went up during it, and
>came back down afterwards, along with violent crime (including wifebeating,
>which is significant, because prohibitionists argued that husbands would
>spend more time at home with their wives instead of at saloons).

I admit I've never seen any data on the subject, but my guess on the subject
of prohibition is that alcoholism went up because alcohol was pushed by
criminal orginizations.  Due to the illegality, alcohol was unlegislated
and lucretive, and therefore a criminal org could do well by addicting as
many as possible without regard to the long-term effects of the addiction.
The legality (or lack thereof) is secondary here, since the criminal mind
could have just as easily increased the use of cinderblocks instead (although
they wouldn't have made quite as much money on it).

Legalizing drugs would change that only in that drug pushers would be motivated
to keep their users alive.  Indeed, it seems to me that research would go into
private addiction research not to prevent addiction, but rather to find ways to
addict people.


>Crack and heroin wouldn't even be marketed on a free market because they
>wouldn't be able to compete with powder cocaine and morphine or opium poppies.
>And hemp would be preferred to these.

I'm mostly trying to conjecture on some imaginary drug that is relatively safe
to use and highly addictive--the sort of drug I'd suppose a company would want
to invent and market.  This ties back to a comment someone else made about
"who said you get addicted to everything you try?" or something similar.

--
           ash@acm.rpi.edu                    9 Linden Avenue, #3
  ah7929@rachel.albany.edu    Arthur Hyun     Troy, New York  12180-4703
        ash@gnu.ai.mit.edu                    +1.518.273.5295
            Chair, RPI-ACM Systems Administration Committee
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: goldm@rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold)
Subject: Re: Election results
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:25:50 GMT

In article <1dohfuINN37n@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray) writes:
   The Perot theory seems to be the favored one.  Libertarian candidates set
   records all across the country at every level except the presidency.  For
   example, the LP had Senate candidates in 20 states, and those candidates
   collectively received about 900,000 votes.  It seems defensible to state
   that, in the absence of Perot, Marrou would have pulled in excess of one
   million votes, and might have topped two million.
--
So should we be worried about United We Stand? In many race results I saw
where there were Republican, Democrat, Independent and Libertarian candidates,
the Independent almost always outpolled the Libertarian, including Washington
State's "Absolutely Nobody".

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Stephen M Conley)
Subject: Single Transferable Vote (was: Libertarian Strategy)
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 04:39:59 GMT

Can someone please list some sources for further information on this
topic?  Books, magazine articles, whatever.

Steve
sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
"I will liberate you for food!"
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: gak@wrs.com (Richard Stueven)
Subject: Re: MIT Survey.
Reply-To: gak@wrs.com
Organization: Wind River Systems, Inc.
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 17:15:43 GMT

In article 1d9h8sINNjmp@sixgun.East.Sun.COM, reid@sunpix.East.Sun.COM (Reid Judd - Sun NC Development Center) writes:
>
>   However, not to worry, I have fixed the survey by going through and 
>   adding a choice for Marrou where appropriate.
>
>   Please take a few minutes and fill out this "new and improved" survey
>   and return it to:
>			
>                 Surveys@Campaign92.Org

I did, and here's the response I auto-received...

> From Mail-Server@LEX-LUTHOR.ai.mit.edu Thu Nov  5 09:16:34 1992
> Subject: Survey Receipt
> To: gak@wrs.com
> 
> Thank you for your survey submission. Your submission was successfully processed.

It worked!

gak

---
Richard Stueven        gak@wrs.com         attmail!gakhaus!gak        107/H/3&4

        I'm always more outspoken after a few pints of Guinness.
                - Mrs. E. Slocombe

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: smcguire@nyx.cs.du.edu (Scott McGuire)
Subject: Re: Environmental laws - in principle.
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 00:24:32 GMT

jefft@chirality.rsa.com (Jeff Thompson) writes:


>I was trying to explain that honest people should be free to do
>whatever they want.  If it turns out that using a CFC emitting
>refrigerator in the privacy of my own home really does help wreck the
>planetary atmosphere that everyone depends on, then libertarianism has
>no problem with making this illegal, right?  Don't flame about CFCs.
>I know about the ozone layer and global warming hoaxes, etc.  I'm
>talking in principle:

>Libertarianism has no problem with enforcing laws like laws against
>murder.  If using some envirnomentally damaging product "X" in my own
>home really does have a victim, which is your air, then there's no
>problem with making it illegal. No?


I have no problem with it.  But I think we should look into private ways
of dealing with these problems first, like free market environmentalism.

Scott McGuire
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:1747 alt.society.anarchy:689
From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.marrou
Subject: Re: Why????
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:21:25 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <BxBqnK.1FJ@cscns.com>, burger@cscns.com (Keith Hamburger) writes:
> > I think there's
> >a big difference between what people perceive us to be and what we
> >actually are.  Once it's clear what people's perceptions about us as a
> >party are, we can act to dispell people's mistaken ideas.
> 
> Specifically, what perception do non-
> libertarians have about libertarianism?  

Libertarians flatter themselves if they imagine they are perceived at all.
I had absolutely no perception of the party before getting onto the net.
If I mention the party to friends or family, their unanimous reaction is,
"What?"
-- 

cdt@pdp.sw.stratus.com      --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR cdt@vos.stratus.com        write today for my special Investors' Packet...
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: NPR, Marrou and the U.S. Constitution
Date: 5 Nov 1992 19:50:51 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <Bx971L.Bpw@wrs.com> gak@wrs.com writes:
>In article Dw8@beach.csulb.edu, sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes:
>>Sorry, one just has to accept civic responsibility over
>>personal preference and self-interest on some things.
>
>Why?

Because you're not the only person in the entire world.  The alternative is
conflict.

Mike Huben

"Enough of acting the infant who has been told so often how he was found under
a cabbage that in the end he remembers the exact spot in the garden and the
kind of life he led there before joining the family circle."   Samuel Beckett
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:1693 rec.arts.startrek.current:17754 alt.politics.bush:13439
From: edwardl@freddyk.uucp (Edward Langenback)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,rec.arts.startrek.current,alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Clinton's Inauguration Speech
Date: 6 Nov 92 17:12:26 GMT
Reply-To: freddyk!edwardl@engr.uark.edu
Organization: NightMares R Us

thant@void.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman) writes:

> 
> In article <1992Nov4.194241.7609@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, watanabe@milton.cs.uiuc.edu 
> 
> > I understand there's a joke about Volcker and Carter:

[political talk deleted]

> 
> Tightening up on the money supply only raises interest rates temporarily

[MORE loads of political talk deleted]

  one question, is it really nessasary for this to be cross posted to 
  rec.arts.startrek.current ?  personally, i don't see it.



/===========================================================\
|                freddyk!edwardl@engr.uark.edu              |
|===========================================================|
|Sysop: Springwood BBS 10:00 PM - 7:00 AM (501)-582-2519    |
|-----------------------------------------------------------|
|"Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night,       |
| I can see paradise by the dashboard light"--MeatLoaf      |
| "He's dead Jim." -- 'Bones' McCoy                         |
|===========================================================|
From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Date: 13 Nov 92 00:19:44 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <1992Nov8.232622.26405@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>, corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley ) writes:
> Egalitarianism is the belief
> that all humans are created equal (PC version of Dec. of Indp. :)
> and therefore their rights, responsibilities, and thus their
> priveleges should also be equal.  Before we address the practical
> aspects of egalitarianism, I hear a voice from the back of the
> room objecting: "But all people are NOT created equal! Some are
> smarter or faster or better at one thing than another person!
> What about them?"  Philosophically, the answer is clear: natural
> aptitudes must not affect social position in a negative way
> (that would be unfair to the person with the aptitude), but
> neither should those aptitudes lift the person above the rest
> (that would be unfair to the people WITHOUT the aptitude).

Why Diana Moon Glampers -- you've had a sex-change, how TRENDY!

(For the reference, read Kurt Vonnegut's short story, "Harrison 
Bergerson," which I highly recommend to anyone who could spout
the nonsense in your last sentence with a straight face.)
-- 

cdt@pdp.sw.stratus.com      --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR cdt@vos.stratus.com        write today for my special Investors' Packet...
From: helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Fort Wayne, IN is Libertarian HOTSPOT!!!
Date: 6 Nov 92 19:23:57 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network

In article <1992Nov4.231959.17663@netcom.com>, feustel@netcom.com (David Feustel) writes:
|> Election Results for Allen County, IN:

|> 
|> Bush/Quayle	50,453
|> Clinton/Gore	36,524
|> Marrou/Lord	24,522 <===
|> Perot/Stockdale	   552
|> -- 
|> Dave Feustel N9MYI <feustel@netcom.com>
|>  
|> Security Classification: *** TOP SECRET ***

:-)  Yeah, I was heartened by the Tippecanoe county results from Indiana too.
It showed that the Libs got over 9,000 votes to perot's 185.

I wonder why so many Indiana districts got those confused?
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:1596 alt.society.anarchy:659
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Objectivism and Libertarianism
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 10:36:55 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.075927.16770@reed.edu> rseymour@reed.edu writes:
}	The main line of the Objectivist argument to Libertarianism is not that  
they use the methods and knowledge of others, as does the mechanic, but that  
}they do not seek to define the reasons for using these methods. Mechanics do  
}not seek to plaiguarize and engineers design. To plaigarize is to take credit  
}for another's work without proper reference. A mechanic does not claim to have  
}created the vehicle's design, but seeks to improve, refine, and restore the  
}actual vehicle to the concept upon which it is based.

Plagiarism?  Nonsense.  Rand didn't even have priority on the non-initiation
of force.  Auberon Herbert did.  Did she plagiarize Herbert?

Furthermore, what political party has ever gone into ethics, epistemology, and
metaphysics in explaining its position?

}	Unlike this, the Libertarian does not seek to improve, refine, or  
}restore the ideas and arguments of the Objectivist. The Libertarian merely  
}asserts that liberty should be exercised through individual choice and freedom.  

Nonsense.  Libertarians do seek to improve, refine, and restore Objec-
tivist ideas and arguments.  Are you completely ignorant of the work of
contemporary libertarian political philosophers?

}
}P.S.	How are Objectivists dumb as rocks? How are Objectivist comments  
}	ridiculous? What is a political party if not the actualization of a  
}	philosophical theory? You assert and assert, but do you really say  
}	anything? I thought the point was to *argue* the statement on	 
}	mechanics?

They're obtuse in advancing such false, nonsensical, and silly objections
to Libertarian politics.  That's how.  You should be able to draw your
own conclusions about the rest.


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." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian