From: pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: Advocates for Self-Government - Davy Crockett Chapter
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 13:34:27 GMT

ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis) writes:
: PBH> == Patrick B. Hailey <doctor1@cbnewse.cb.att.com>
: 
:  PBH> Er, perhaps not germane to the current discussion, but this brings to
:  PBH> mind something Dick Boddie once wrote.  To paraphrase:
: 
:  PBH>   Equality in the garden would mean chopping the tops off of the
:  PBH>   healthiest, fastest growing plants; geological equality would
:  PBH>   mean leveling mountain ranges.
: 
: All analogies are suspect, USENET analogies doubly so.
: 
: To use the second part of that analogy, if Beacon Hill were as high as it
: once was, a walk through Boston's Back Bay would require a wetsuit.  The
: "equality" generated by filling it in created a fairly large amount of real
: estate, now home and/or workplace for many people, in a good example of how
: creating infrastructures can facilitate the creation of wealth.
: --
: Christopher K. Davis      | ``Usenet seems to run much like the Kif (or,
: <ckd@eff.org>   EFF #14   |   for the TV generation, Klingon) high command.
: System Administrator, EFF |   Whoever takes action and can be heard wins.''
: +1 617 864 0665  [CKD1]   |   --Peter da Silva <peter@ferranti.com>

I want to facilitate the creation of wealth.  How much did it cost to create 
the infrastructures?  I am assuming you are alluding to the call for a
rebuilding of infrastructures by government.  (If I am wrong, please
correct me.)  If government can create an infrastructure that is better
than facilitating wealth than voluntary cooperation, we must come to
some cynical conclusions about life.  Government creates no wealth of
its own.  It gets all its wealth in the U.S. by collecting taxes --
using guns, if necessary to collect them.   What makes the governemnt
different than any other gang of robbers?  If government could create
more wealth using these tactics, we would all be better off if other 
groups used this tactic too.  The EFF obviously is a well needed
organization with a good, well meaning staff that wants to help other
people.  What is morally different from the staff of the EFF going out
and demanding that people pay for the EFF to create an infrastructure
and the government doing it?  Will people overall be better off if you 
took this approach?  If no, what quality does the government have that
the EFF doesn't that makes it so that they can create an infrastructure 
that benefits people using forced funding?

I believe that their are certain things that the government is needed to
supply an infrastructure.  I think a government should supply a police
force, a judicial system, and a common defense against foreign invaders.
These are all necessary functions of government.  Filling in bays,
supplying electricity, or building a national computer network are 
services.  I think that we can have more of an abundance of these things
through voluntary cooperation than demanding payments and using guns, if
necessary, to collect such payments.
-- 
Paul Schmidt: Advocates for Self-Government, Davy Crockett Chapter President
706 Judith Drive, Johnson City, TN 37604, (615)283-0084, uunet!tijc02!pjs269
"Freedom seems to have unleashed the  creative energies of the people -- and
leads to ever higher levels of income and social progress."  --  U.N. report
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