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: Mon, 11 Jan 93 13:52:08 GMT

bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
: 
: >When
: >those that are held accountable for their actions are made to give
: >proper restitution, there will likely be much less lawsuits. 
: 
: Ok, again, HOW will they be held accountable? By what force of law or
: nature or ???

This is a valid function of government.
: 
: >Also,
: >government processing of lawsuits would likely be more costly than
: >private, so many could be handled outside the governmental court systems.
: >(Arbitraters are one example of how two parties would settle a
: >dispute.)
: 
: And what power would arbitrators have to enforce decisions? Do you
: think unscrupulous people (and there are a helluva lot of them) will
: just voluntarily do what arbitrators decide???

Arbitrators are brought in when both sides sign a contract saying they
will abide by the arbitrators decision.  So they operate off of the same
power that any party operates from that signs a contract.
: 
: Let me tell you something that perhaps you don't know: If you win a
: settlement against an unscrupulous person, not even a horribly
: unscrupulous person, just some pissy landlord or whatever, your next
: adventure will be collecting. Go ask an experienced lawyer what it
: takes to collect on a judgement if the other party just kinda ignores
: the judgement. IT'S A PAIN IN THE ASS, at best. In fact, it's not hard
: for a determined jerk to make it more expensive to collect than is to
: be collected! What a deal!

This can occur in any system.  Is there a system that fixes this
problem?
: 
: That's why, for one example, there's so much trouble with fathers who
: won't pay child-support. They ALL have judgements against them, but
: they just don't pay it.
: 
: And somehow it's nearly impossible in many cases to make them pay it.
: 
: You can dream up mechanisms, garnish paychecks (they work off the
: books), seize property (they don't have any, or none in their name),
: they disappear and it will take you thousands of dollars to find them,
: etc etc etc etc etc etc.
: 
: So what o what o what magic bullet do you have to resolve all these
: problems. Don't tell me how you expect reasonable people to be dealt
: with, tell me how UNreasonable people are to be dealt with!
: 
Many libertarians agree with you that their are people that are no good.
David Bergland writes about this in his book "Libertarianism in One
Lesson."  HE describes a simple chain of logic that supports libertarian
ideas, rather than diminish them with this assumption.  It goes
something like this:

	People Are No Good (PANG) therefore all people should be 
		controlled by government.
	This makes the government more powerful than the people.
	But people make up the government.
	People that are no good can get into office.
	Those in office that are no good can do more harm because they
		are more powerful than the people they rule.

The libertarian solution is to hold government to the same standards
that you hold individual citizens to.  This reduces the power of
government to the point where a person that is no good cannot benefit by
using the governments power.

Another experiment:  Who were the biggest mass murderers in history?  If
you include governmental leaders, how do the number of victims that they
killed compare to the number of an individual or gang?

(As a side note:  people that are no good will be naturally drawn to a
more powerful government because they can personally gain from the
power.)
-- 
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