From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: The World
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:32:24 GMT


From: pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt)
>I don't want big companies to be responsible to repair damages they
>make.  Currently the government taxes us, using guns if necessary, to
>pay into environmental clean-up funds.  Libertarians would have wanted
>to have Exxon to pay for all the clean-up of their actions.

Huh?

>If they
>were forced to pay their own insurance (instead of tax money going into
>a super fund.), the whole accident may never have happened.  It would
>have been likely that they would have been more careful as required by a
>private insurance company that promised them lower rates for certain
>safegaurds such as a double hulled ship and sobriety testing.

Wake up and smell the coffee, there would BE NO INSURANCE in the world
you want. At least none like you seem to think there will be.

That's the wonder of libertarianism: We're going to play chess, only a
little differently. There's no board, there are no pieces, instead we
get a gallon of water, some tin horns, funny noses and a big block of
cheese, but trust me, it is chess, there's checkmates and en passant
and all that, you just don't understand yet, wait and see...

The insurance industry doesn't exist in a vacuum, only your
oversimplified view of the insurance industry exists in a vacuum.  It
is intricately woven into the fabric of the society, the govt as it
is, etc. Change those fundamental assumptions and you have absolutely
no idea that any insurance industry will exist, none whatsoever, it
only sounds good.

>The book "Healing Our World" again gives an excellent overview of what
>happened.  The S&Ls are insured by a federal agency rather than a private
>insurance company.

Why? Because evil statists could not conceive of doing it privately?
Or because they considered both alternatives (private vs public) and
came to the conclusion that private worked best?

That's the beauty of all this, once you assume your opponents are
anything but rational, once you assume they are either total idiots or
universally malevolent, it all becomes simple. Do the opposite! What
better way to deal with idiots?! It's so simple...clearly their stuff
didn't work out absolutely perfectly, so the opposite must be better!

>All banks pay the same rate on their insurance no
>matter how questionable their loans and investments are.  This
>encourages more "poor judgement" and does not reward "good judgement."
>No private insurance would insure bad risks the same as good risks.  

That's a nice generalization, have you actually ever asked someone in
the insurance business whether they would provide FDIC-like insurance
even if they could make up the rules?

>Many libertarians agree with you that punishing aggressors is not the 
>solution but restitution, making the criminal compensate the victim,
>will lead to a world of less crime and aggression.  "Healing Our World" 
>deals with this topic inn more detail.

How in the heck are you going to do that? I rip off your $100K life
savings, lay waste to your property, kill your children, and you catch
me, a drooling drunk sleeping in an alley who doesn't seem to have a
nickel left.  Now how do you plan to get restitution??? I mean, who do
you think criminals are? Productive people?

Anyhow, enough, I'm tired, I've made my point and you've presented
yours...


-- 
        -Barry Shein

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