From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism (was Legalizing drugs)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 08:42:47 GMT

In article <Bz9BnI.4E2@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> ivaliote@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Lotus ) writes:
}starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}>}>Then the whole class is blamed for the crimes of a few, and those who aren't
}>}>guilty are "guilt-tripped" into supporting the victims of the true criminals.
}>}The rich defend themselves *quite* well, thenk you.
}>Then how do you explain how they're the main financiers of redistrbution
}>schemes promulgated by "environmentalist" organizations?  This is in their
}>self-defense?
}Nope.  It is their way of covering their butts.

Could you please elaborate?  Are you referring to some anti-competitive
capture of regulations?

}>}I do not agree with you at all. Helmsley didn't pay her taxes.  She suffered 
}>}for it.  Her drive was greed.  I don't feel for her at all. 
}>I have no doubt that you don't care about the poor woman.  So much for your
}>vaunted compassion.
}Poor woman.  Poor criminal.
}
}>How much taxes did she not pay?  How much should she have?  How come Alan
}>Dershowitz disagrees with you?  Could it be because he's a man of principle?
}It could be that he is a lawyer (hers, I think?)  It is his job to say such 
}things.  Doesn't make him dishonest.  It makes him a good servant of his client.

Do you know who you're talking about?  A man who takes controversial positions
on principle a whole lot!  He didn't have to take he case.  Why do you think
he did?  For the money?

}>(about Michael Milken)
}>}Never once was he denied food, medical care, ability to enter a restaurant or
}>}bus, or life.  He was not beaten, shot at, or vandalized.  Golly, how *did* he
}>}handle all of those nasty press stories.  They may have been going after him 
}>}because he was Jewish.  That would be wrong.  I doubt they went after hjim 
}>}because he was rich.  In this country, that is stupid.
}>What?  So, he can have any food or medicine he wants in jail?  He can go to
}>whatever restaurant he wants or ride whatever bus in jail?  Sounds like a
}>great jail.  How do I get in?
}No.  He was never denied any of those things prior to conviction of a felony
}offense.  Blacks in this nation were.  Some still are.

Gee, that's funny, I point out that your claim is false, then you change
your claim without acknowledging your mistake.  How convenient for you.

How is the suffering of others relevant?  Does the fact that the differently
financed suffer different offenses from different prejudices somehow mean
that they don't suffer and that the prejudices don't exist?  No.

Now we have yet another prejudice: one is only a victim of prejudice if
the prejudices are in the canon, and the forms of offense are as well.  Who
sets this canon?  What is its justification?

}>They went after him because he made a killing by financing overthrows of
}>establishment CEOs and members of the boards of directors.  They were also
}>able to scapegoat him for the alleged "greed" of the 1980s at the same time.
}>Ironically, the corporate establishment is far more guilty of the offences
}>Milken is popularly thought guilty of.
}I'd like substantiation of all of those claims, if possible.

Not at the moment, sorry.  I'll see what I can do.

}>With the tool of civil seizure and forfeiture, going after the rich is now
}>as easy as going after the poor in the American Empire.
}Hogwash.  Utter crap.  You go after some of the daddies and mommies of my high
}school classmates.  They'll chew you up, because they're not doing anything
}illegal (well, not all, but most).

Utter crap?  Tell that to the heir to the Scott paper forture - oops, you can't.
He's dead, murdered by the Ventura county police for defending his home from
what he thought must have been a gang breaking in and waking up himself and
his wife!  Tell it to his surviving wife!  Tell her that the civil seizure
and forfeiture papers carried by the murderers of her husband were meaningless
because he was "rich."

Tell it to the investment community, who've all moved their assets out of
the country if they've got any mental acuity at all.  Tell it to the real
estate industry, who're worried sick because their assets are highly immobile.
They're currently working to put together an anti-forfeiture coalition, but
with your good news, they can now spare themselves the expense!

}>}Unbelievable that you can make this analogy.  Totally off base, in my view.  
}>}Still, I understand where you are coming from.  I just come from the other side
}>}of the globe.
}>Why don't more people make these sorts of analogies?  Because they've bought
}>into the systematic prejudice against "the rich."
}No.  They don't make those sorts of analogues because they are sensible enough
}to know that if the rich all felt the way you did, they easily have the power 
}to put a dead stop to the things going on around them.  Milken was felled by
}other rich guys.  He was only scorned by the poor.

They have all this power?  Lemme pass on a rumor to you: a libertarian lawyer
named Jim Ostrokowski tried to get a couple of millionaires, Charles and
David Koch, to finance an group called "Citizens Against Prohibition."  He
had flyers printed up that looked great.  The DEA threatened to seize their
assets and subject them to forfeiture if they went ahead with the deal.
The group died in the water.

If they have all this goddamn power, then explain that!

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:64251 rec.humor:36410