From: keithl@klic.rain.com (Keith Lofstrom)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: The New Education President
Date: 10 Jan 93 19:10:30 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits

In article <1il8qcINN7po@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.174047.735@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> jrmo@volta.att.com (J.R.Moore) writes:

>>It is the whole notion that all kids regardless of desire
>>or parents' acceptance of responsibility are entitled.

>You sicken me.  Children should be entitled to proper nurturing: food,
>shelter, education, care.  This is the biggest failure of libertarianism,
>...

While you were asleep last night, I got appointed God.  I agree that
all children everywhere on the planet are entitled to whatever YOU say they
are.  However, I decided that YOU, personally, are going to pay for it,
for everybody else on the planet;  nobody else has to.  Fair, shmare.
I'm god, I'm omniscient, and I know that it is a lot less trouble for
you than anyone else to do this.  You just have to work very hard, that's
all.  You're a genius, right?  You'll think of something, I just know it.

I bet you a cookie that if you can really wrap your head around this idea,
that you personally, and nobody else, is responsible for paying for what
you demand for other people, your ideas of what you demand for other people
will modify rather radically.

You would LIKE to have a trillion dollars, and spend 99.9999% of it helping
other people.  Well, I've got news for you, fella.  I'm a libertarian,
and so would I.  As it is, I've got only a moderate income, I bust my ass
to get it, and I spend about 20% of the after tax income on helping others.
I know a lot of non-libertarians who spend less than a percent helping
others, with net incomes twice mine.  These pinheads like to lecture me on
how selfish and greedy libertarians are, while they buy their new cars and
new houses and take trips to Europe.  Feh.

What's really going on is libertarians have MAJOR disagreements with most
non-libertarians about the VALUE of the things bought by the government.
The state spends my money making it easier for wars to happen, and 
children to be born into broken homes, and the wilderness to be cut
down, and farmland to be paved over for unneeded roads.  That same state
uses this vast hoard of loot to force people to stop producing, and
stop trading, and stop enjoying themselves.  That same state uses it's
power to enforce it's version right and wrong thinking, through the
schools, through control of the broadcast media, and through control
of the election process. 

I am not an anarchist.  I do see the need for a government, whose sole
purpose is to keep people from beating each other up.  That's IT.  If
you want utopia, go ahead and build one, YOURSELF, and with whatever 
help you can get by convincing others.  It will never get built by 
proxy.  It will never happen if you shirk your personal responsibility
to improve the world, and expect Jesus Christ or Karl Marx or Ross Perot
or Bill Clinton to do if for you, and some nebulous "undeserving rich"
to pay for it.

Yes, I want to see kids educated.  The kids that come out of MY schools
would know that there is no such thing as a free lunch - and might have
missed a few in pursuit of more important goals.  They would know that
1+1=2 even if you desparately want 3.  They would know that great minds
think great thoughts, regardless of class and ethnic origins, and would
be able to track down the works of the great minds even if they were
banned from all the libraries.  They would know that action speaks louder
than words.  They would know that their lives are their own, to do with
as they want.  They would know that they must make up for their own
mistakes.  And they would know they have a responsibility to help others,
with their own wealth and efforts, in ways they themselves must choose,
and which no church, business, or government can absolve them of.


Keith
-- 
Keith Lofstrom         keithl@klic.rain.com       Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Power ICs
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