From: gallo@almira.asel.udel.edu (Andy Gallo)
Subject: Re: the so called cure all libertarian party
Organization: AI duPont Institute
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 00:47:28 GMT



*> In article <1992Oct7.231852.8545@sunspot.noao.edu> you write:
>How so what could be more chaotic then the current administrations
>policies. You should read and examine more closely.
*>> Somebody else said:
>>sorry for lack of dead content, but this party gets to me.
*> In article <1992Oct7.231852.8545@sunspot.noao.edu> you write:
>Obviously because you know little about it and are unwilling to
>examine their platfom with an objective mind.
>And you need to learn to think, before you speak.

	Your post sounds like: "You fail to see the beauty of the
Libertarian position.  I think you should read it again until it sinks
into your thick skull".  I hope I am mistaken.

>But the basic point of The Libertarian Platform is to get Big
>Government out of our personal lives and business's. And to
>reestablish the peoples control over the government, not to have
>the government excerting control over the people.

	But who controls the government now?  Not the government, but
instead the economic elite, the top 1% who run the big corporations
and flood Washington with lobbists anytime a non-business-friendly or
environmental bill is proposed.  I believe that in a "government by
the people for the people" system, the government is not the enemy - I
am the government, the government is me.  
	The problem as I see it is "influence for sale" - business
able to buy government and manipulate it for their own best interests.
When this influence is removed, government will be free to serve our
interests.  We must always be vigilent to the power hungry (this is
the price of freedom), but reducing the government to a shadow
institution (as the Libertarians suggest) does not serve the interests
of the people.
	I have read the Libertarian position (the 1990 version), and
have engaged Libertarians (including our local state assembly
candidate) in scholarly debate (although from my spelling you'd never
now I was capable of it). 8-) I find that I agree with their positions
on civil liberties (no unlawful search and seizure, drug legalization,
the draft, etc) but disagree on issues involving the public sector
(business, environment, transportation, health care, education, etc).
In theory I think the Libertarians on are onto something, and at least
they can say their platform is *consistent*, which is more than a lot
of parties can say.  But in order to enforce this consistancy they
have to be extremist and support several (what I consider to be)
rediculous positions, such as the privitization of local fire
departments, the educational system, the post office, the elimination
of environmental protection, etc.  Some Libertarians, admittedly a
minority, favor private roads, police, and even courts - this from a
group of people who say that all the battles that used to be fought
with legestlation should be taken to the (already clogged) courts.  
	The implications are strange.  You own a house and did not pay
your "fire bill" and your next door neighbor (who did pay his bill)
has his house catch fire, and the fire spreads to your building.  Will
the fire department service your house even though you didn't pay your
bill?  Will you have to sue your next door neighbor for damages?  Its
a rediculous example, I admit, but not nearly as bizzare as some of
the logical corners the Libertarians have boxed themselves into.
	As I see it, Libertarianism is a return to Social Darwinism.
Dog eat dog, may the best man win, the market as the great
battlefield.  If the poor fall through the cracks, too bad - they had
a "fair" chance - and they can expect no health care, no welfare, no
education, and no public support except that which they can get from
private charities.
	For a group of people that consider "fraud" so seriously (its
one of the only "crimes" a business can do worthy of government
intervention), how dare they promise liberty and justice to the same
population that will be ground underfoot if their policies ever find
their way to Washington.

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> Andy Gallo   | gallo@asel.udel.edu  | U. of Delaware/Applied Sci & Eng Labs <
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>     "Odd things happen in even numbered years."  - Brit Hume, ABC News      <
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