From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections,misc.taxes,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: What keeps me from being Lib. (was Re: FW: news release: abolish IRS)
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:27:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: cancun.rdippold.702689236
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA

frazier@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Frazier) writes:
>rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
>>Yes, notice all those "requirings" and "forcings" and "mandatings?"
>>Vaccination and child labor are the responsibility of the parents.
>>What you do with your own body parts is your own choice.  Whether you
>>want to work for someone at their wages is your choice.  Whether you
>>help at an accident is your own choice.  Whether you use air-bags or
>>seatbelts is your own choice.  Whether you deal with someone else or
>>another country is your own choice.

>I agree with almost everything up above, with a major exception
>being "vaccination... [is] the responsibility of the parents."
>We all suffer if people don't vaccinate there kids.  In a "perfect"

If everyone suffers if these kids aren't vaccinated, it should be no
problem to get financing for it, eh?  Do ou think a vaccinate the
children campaign couldn't raise any money?  Let the people decide
the level of suffering, rather than the government.  I seriously
believe that there are enough generous people out there who would give
to such a worthy cause, especially if the government was no longer
taking as much of their money or acting as such a drag on the economy.


>Another example is pollution legislation.  Ron, in the message from
>which I quoted an extract above, went on to suggest that pollution
>legislation was useless and currently ignored, and that major corp'ns
>can bribe there way around it.  Well, I must disagree - the environment
>has improved in many areas of the country, and I believe it is due
>to environmental legislation.  Libertarianism seems to revolve around

I believe it's due to environmental awareness.  People actually care
about the environment now.  It's profitable to be seen as green, and
harmful to the bottom line if you're caught polluting, in terms of
public spending.


>the notion of individuals taking co's/corp'ns to court and suing if
>they feel that the co. in question is polluting too much.

Why sue?  If you can show they're damaging your property, they need to
pay you restitution or go to jail, just as if they'd taken a crowbar
to your car or house.


>If there was a little less "purity" in libertarianism and a little
>more interest in taking the current system and, by small modifications,
>gradually make it more libertarian, I'd be into it.  Trying to
>re-structure society in one fell swoop just doesn't cut it for me

Who says this is what we're doing?  On the net we're discussing
visions, ideals.  We can talk about the "perfect" libertarian society,
we can talk about ideological purity.  And libertarians have a lot of
it, as it's based on a few basic principles which allow one to
extrapolate how a lib society should operate in many situations.  So
where Ds or Rs would base their policy within a vague framework and on
what they thought would get them votes, and you don't know what that
is till you get that situation, Ls would look back to the basic
principles.  It doesn't work in all cases (abortion), of course.

In real life, however, we're working on reducing taxes and government
spending and defending freedoms as a good starting point.  Rather than
simply eliminating public education we're working for the voucher
system.   We can't stop all government waste, but we can certainly
start with things like the Rural Electrification Administration or the
Omnibus Farm Bill.
-- 
He who hesitates is a damned fool.   -- Mae West