HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Dr. Norman J. LaFave <lafave@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: voting for the enemy.
X-Xxdate: Fri, 18 Dec 92 09:28:16 GMT
Organization: Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Company
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:31:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.102246.19368@news.DKRZ-Hamburg.DE> Bakayaroo
Banzai, k206027@smog.DKRZ-Hamburg.DE writes:
>Nice try at changing the point Doc. I never mentioned the Clinton 
>campaign, nor did I did I infer much in the way of partisanship
>when talking about the Bank Scandal other than to compare it to
>Sununu's hardships (whose activities were also determined to be 
>legal BTW) and to indicate that it was having an impact on those
>Congressmen who initiated a lot of this bogus fault-finding in 
>the first place. Bill ran his campaign admirably, Bush and many in
>Congress did not.

My apologies for not understanding who you 
were attacking. I agree with you if you say that there has been alot
of abuse, mudslinging, and unethical behavior on both sides of
the aisle. I am personally disgusted by most of it.

By the way, Sununu's use of governemt airplanes and limos for
personal trips may not have been illegal, but given the deficit,
it is still unethical and definitely cost the taxpayers.

Norman

Dr. Norman J. LaFave
Senior Engineer
Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Company




When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
                               Hunter Thompson
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: rcollins@ns.encore.com (Roger Collins)
Subject: Lysander Spooner (was Re: Overwhelming responses...)
Reply-To: rcollins@encore.com
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:27:55 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.121100.9916@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
|> In article <1gb2jpINNcqi@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
|> }I also notice almost a conspiracy among libertarians not to criticize each
|> }other even when your counterarguments to my posts placed next to each other
|> }would be mutually incompatible.  I don't object to this: I'm just surprised
|> }to see that much agreement within a group founded upon rejection.  :-)
|> 
|> I merely presume that my fellow libertarians are able to draw the conclusion
|> that I disagree with them on their own.  I presume that they can and should
|> do their own thinking.  Roger seems bright enough to do this.
|> 
|> }For example, when I criticize Spooner's "No Treason", people like Roger
|> }Collins say "I agree that many of Spooner's arguments were 'rhetorical tricks,'
|> }or legal mumbo jumbo."

My quote taken out context might give the wrong impression.  While I
would not try to defend all Spooner's legal arguments about the
Constitution not being a binding document, I would defend Spooner's
arguments based on natural rights, human nature, etc.  One of my
favorite quotes is from Spooner's essay:

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new
master once in a term of years.
	--Lysander Spooner (1808-1887)

Is it true that congress passed a law banning anyone from competing 
with the US Post Office, because of his company?  What legal grounds
did they "claim" to do that?  Was it ever "checked" by the Supreme Court?
Know any good books on the subject?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Overwhelming responses...
Date: 11 Dec 1992 21:52:57 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

Considering that in the past day I've gotten at least 15 responses to my
postings (most of them rather poorly argued), I hope you'll understand that
I won't be able to respond to many.  I've filed them away to run past the
faq I'm constructing.  I'd rather spend the day or two that would be required
to answer them properly working on the faq (which will answer most of them.)

I also notice almost a conspiracy among libertarians not to criticize each
other even when your counterarguments to my posts placed next to each other
would be mutually incompatible.  I don't object to this: I'm just surprised
to see that much agreement within a group founded upon rejection.  :-)

For example, when I criticize Spooner's "No Treason", people like Roger
Collins say "I agree that many of Spooner's arguments were 'rhetorical tricks,'
or legal mumbo jumbo." but Tim Starr responds "Your descriptive claim is
simply false.  Discredited?  Support this.  By whom?  When?  Where?  Which
argument?"

I have to say I much prefer Roger Collins' responses.  They're much more
rational and much harder to argue against than most other posters here.
Even when he disagrees with me.  :-)

Mike Huben

"One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls
and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with
each other than with the players.  Suddenly one loses all interest in who will
be champion."  Anatol Rapoport in "Strategy and Conscience" 1964.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:32:51 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.060845.5092@mr.med.ge.com> gorney@picard.med.ge.com (Felix Gorney Mfg 4-6983) writes:
>: >}	I think this is topic worth discussing.  Why are so many
>: >}libertarians opposed to feminism?  
>: >
>: >I wouldn't say that it's that we're opposed to feminism per se, but that
>: >we don't do enough to emphasize the individualism in feminism, and spend
>: >all our time attacking the statism in it.
>: 
>: 	But why not emphazide the individualism.  In other words, why is
>: that magazines like liberty do tend to target feminism; and take the
>: anti-feminist position on zillions of issues.
>:
>Possibly because feminist see govt. intervention, and intrusion in
>peoples lives as a method of bringing about "fairness and equality".
>The feminists beleive in using govt. to mold society into the form
>they beleive is proper. This sounds very socialist to me. 
>
Actually, not all feminists are interested in using government power,
though a lot of them are. Even some of the ones who want to use laws
can be good about undoing one's old conditioning.

Nancy Lebovitz
nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Irish Election 
Distribution: world
Organization: Keristor Systems
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90c (ka9q DIS 1.18, CC 1.18c)
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 19:57:00 +0000


In article <1992Dec10.191825.12193@wam.umd.edu>
           gharry@next09cville.wam.umd.edu writes:

>In fact, I can tell you. My interest in Ireland and things Irish has
>been sparked again recently. I flipped on CSPAN late one night to find
>a roundtable discussion, from Dublin, with one of CSPAN's usual
>moderators and three Irish journalists,  about the election. They
>showed some Irish political TV commercials too, including one from
>the Greens that was absolutely riveting. It weirded me out at one point
>when the narrator (an Irish woman) switched from English into Irish
>for about two sentences - you can really hear where the "Irish" accent
>comes from.

I spent two weeks camping in Southern Ireland (Eire), and the radio gets
*really* weird.  RTE (Radio-Televis Eirann) does a complete mixture of
Irish and English in programmes.  Some of the presenters switch from one
to another within a single sentence, not just complete paragraphs!

I like the Irish - true libertarians at heart <g>...  If the government
passes a law that they don't like, they'll just not obey it.  Of course,
they're not perfect ("utopia is not an option")...

Thanks for the explanation of how they do the Single Transferable Vote -
I didn't know about the 'excess' redistribution.  It's my preferred
method as well - I'm generally put in the position of having one person
/ party that I really want to vote against, but don't really care about
the rest.  In the STV system it wouldn't matter if my #1 vote didn't
make it, as my vote would just go to the #2, but would never go to the
one I really don't want, as he wouldn't be on my list at all...

***********************************************************************
*  chris@keris.demon.co.uk      *                                     *
*  chriscr@cix.compulink.co.uk  *  FIAWOL (Filking Is A Way Of Life)  *
*  100014.3217@compuserve.com   *                                     *
***********************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: voting for the enemy.
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 20:22:30 GMT
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

gorney@picard.med.ge.com (Felix Gorney Mfg 4-6983) writes:
: : >     Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich:
: : >          He is the proud owner of 22 rubber checks. 
: : Tilt.  There were no rubber checks or bounced checks.  What people have
: : been complaining about is that a number of Congresspeople took advantage
: : an overdraft protection provision that their bank provided them.
: Lets not forget that this "overdraft protection" amounted to thousands of
: dollars in many cases.

Yeah, so? All paid back from their own salaries, not from additional
taxpayer funds. What's the problem?

:                        Also, interest free loans must be reported to the IRS.
: If any of us little people did what our imperial Congress has done, We'd be
: audited, and be forced to pay hefty fines. All the more for our Imperial
: Congress to spend.

I invite you to post any part of the tax code that supports this nonsense.
American Express lends me some money almost every month, and I pay no
interest on it when I pay it back to them. Are you claiming that both
American Express and I should live in fear of being audited?

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

.. one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking
zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.
	- Robert Firth
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Views? :
Date: 14 Dec 1992 15:18:41 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <11339@prijat.cs.uofs.edu> bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.221200.20158@athena.mit.edu>, cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>|> 
>|> also, if your statement #2 is true, why did gold go up in value by
>|> an order of magnitude after the gold standard was *removed*?
>|> 
>
>You are assuming the value of gold went up when it is much more likely that
>the value of the pieces of paper actually dropped once they were no longer
>tied to anything of real value.

Gold went up in value because its price had been artificially maintained
very low for quite a while by the US government.  That was one of the reasons
why we went off the gold standard: it was impossible for the federal government
to keep saying an ounce of gold was worth (approximately) $20.  This sort
of deflation was very harmful for foreign trade, and threatened to depelete
US gold reserves.

Some paper money was backed for quite a long time after we went off the gold
standard: silver certificates were printed until well into the 50's, and
were redeemed for silver until the late 70's or early 80's.

The value of US paper money did not drop upon removal of the gold standard
(with respect to goods and services in the USA): that would have been an
inflationary event as dramatic as the inflation due to OPEC in the 70's.

Mike Huben

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
						George Santayana

"Those who misremember the past are pleased to repeat it as `proof'."
						Mike Huybensz
From: bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Views? :
Date: 11 Dec 92 20:26:52 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing Sciences

In article <1992Dec9.221200.20158@athena.mit.edu>, cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
|>
|> i believe you have got it backwards. currency is supposed to represent
|> something of intrinsic value. the term "pound" as applied to british
|> currency originally meant that a 1 pound note could be exchanged for
|> a pound of gold. (think about that in light of the current value of
|> a pound).
|> 

Right idea, wrong comodity.  It was silver, thus The Pound Sterling.
Put the concept remains the same.

bill

-- 

     Bill Gunshannon          |        If this statement wasn't here,
     bill@cs.uofs.edu         |  This space would be left intentionally blank
                              |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>   
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:2715 alt.politics.elections:24630 alt.president.clinton:1127
From: mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.elections,alt.president.clinton
Subject: Re: voting for the enemy.
Date: 16 Dec 92 18:13:58 GMT
Organization: NCR Engineering and Manufacturing Atlanta -- Atlanta, GA

In <1992Dec15.102552.23694@news.DKRZ-Hamburg.DE> k206027@smog.DKRZ-Hamburg.DE (Bakayaroo Banzai) writes:

|What are you talking about? If I want to bash Congress for abuse of
|office I can find a lot of things worse than the House Banking Scandal.
|Care to talk about Franking? You sound more than a tad paranoid here.

|Try not to knock yourself out with that furiously jerking knee...

I've had long discourses with the good doctor in the past.  You have hit
the nail on the head.
-- 
Mob rule doesn't become any prettier, just because the mob start to call itself
a government.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
Mark.Wilson@AtlantaGA.NCR.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: N-C abortion
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 11:52:46 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.044415.8467@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> avr@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (adam.v.reed) writes:
}As Rand herself put it,
}the category "man qua man" would include a hypothetical
}"intelligent spider from Mars", but cannot include a fetus or an
}idiot. Thus a fetus or an idiot cannot have rights, in the sense
}in which Rand derives that concept.

Where did she say that idiots wouldn't have rights?

This seems to confuse the actual with the potential.  One doesn't lose property
rights because one is temporarily mentally incompetent!  The basis for rights
is man's potential for rational action, his capacity for it.

I think Rand's exclusion of unborn children from having rights was inconsistent
with her principle, and that it was unnecessary for the case that abortion
should be permissible.


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." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Non-consensual force and abortion
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 10:16:44 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.220525.13767@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> wchen@beirut.berkeley.edu (William Chen) writes:
}Would a reasonable summary of the libertarian position on abortion be that 
}most are not against it, and the vast majority thinks there should be 
}no law against it (which is really the pro-choice position), but that
}someone could reasonably be pro life and still argue that they were consistent 
}with libertarian views?

Yep.

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." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: Views? :
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:34:48 GMT


I'm not copying your message to keep the lenght down.  However I'll
address the points:

1 - Remember were talking commodities of Oil.  Oil will still be in the
same places (tankers, storage tanks....) it always has been, thought there
might be a little increase in the storage level.  The government would
hold Commodity options.

1b - Oil in very large quantities iis stored in salt mines not large oil
tanks.  I'm not sure why everyone keeps talking about multi-billion gallon
tanks.  Of course that's impracticle.  Just to give you an example of how
much a slat mine can hold though:  the US govt currently holds 90 days
worth of US oil consumption in one salt mine!

2 - For a currency to be backed in oil.  You must have the right to trade
both ways.  As one of the gold standard people said:
$35 - gets a barrel of oil.
a barrel of oil - gets $35.

3 - What's burning in Kuwait is mixed with natural gas.  NOBODY ever ever
ships oil long distances in that unstable a condition.  No, gas trucks
don't count; there not holding much in the way of gas (from an economic
perspective).  Otherwise oil spills would be no bid deal.  We'd just set
the oil on fire and poof the whole spill goes up in a puff of flame.

4 - Unbacked currencies are more suseptable to fluctations is value then
backed curriencies.  When's the last time a country wouldn't except a
commodity as payment.  Yet all the time you hear of people not taking
certain currencies.

5 - As for a disater with an unbacked currency.  Check out the USSR.


Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: rcollins@ns.encore.com (Roger Collins)
Subject: Re: Federal Indictment Against Bobby Fischer
Reply-To: rcollins@encore.com
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:22:59 GMT

He *was* indicted "for engaging in a commercial transaction in
Yugoslavia."

[Quote from Investor's Business Daily.]
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: gold
Date: 15 Dec 1992 20:24:35 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <BzBEyt.GC4@encore.com> rcollins@1.com writes:
>In article <1gitt6INNhpo@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>|> There's a real question of whether any nation could compete any more with a
>|> gold-based currency.  No matter what the exchange rate, the other nations of
>|> the world could simply print currency to buy out all the gold of the GS
>|> nation.  I suspect that is the reason why no nation now has a currency based
>|> on any real commodity.
>
>Would you sell your gold for currency that was becoming less valuable
>every day (because it was being printed by the nonGS nation to buy
>gold)?  I would call it stupid.  Then who would sell them gold for
>depreciating currency?  In short, only the holders of the nonGS currency
>would be screwed.  We could also speculate that people would start
>trading evenly their houses for VCRs, but I wouldn't.

Funny you should mention that last, since that is exactly what's happening
with our balance of trade in the USA.

Few people are really interested in holding onto currency or gold.
Instead, they invest.  Two major purposes of currency are to have liquidity
for transactions and to have commensurate units for comparing values at the
moment.  Stuffing matresses is archaic, and leads to a very lumpy, cold
bed if you use gold.  :-)

Riddle me this, Batman.  If gold is such a wonderful standard, why is it that
no nation (not even Switzerland) has gold backing its currency any more?

Mike Huben

Strephon: "Have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a
	   case brimming with such poetical emotion?"
Chancellor: "Distinctly."
	From "Iolanthe", by Gilbert and Sullivan.
From: bill@triangle.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Labelling laws.
Date: 11 Dec 92 19:56:59 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing Sciences

In article <1992Dec9.080931.4995@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
|> 
|> Wrong.  We can't secede even if we want to and are justified in doing so.
|> The American Empire won't let us.
|> 

Actually, it would be interesting to see what the reaction both within the US
and without if one of the states (I nominate Pennsylvania) decided to secede.

After all, when the former USSR was breaking up didn't we say it was their right
to secede if they so desired??  And what about Yugoslavia??  Hasn't the US made
it their official policy that secession of the various states is their right??

So why not here too??

It would be interesting to see what the Federal response would be and also to 
see what the rest of the world would think of that response.

bill

-- 

     Bill Gunshannon          |        If this statement wasn't here,
     bill@cs.uofs.edu         |  This space would be left intentionally blank
                              |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>   
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan)
Subject: Re: Gold v. Oil: Backed Currency
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 04:29:49 GMT

(Jonathan Scott Haas) proves my point and counters his own when
he writes:

>Yup, you sure do. But the money you had under your mattress in the Sixties
>is worth 1/5 now what it was worth then. If you had it in the bank, you
>earned interest on it, but not enough to quintuple its value.

>...and that couple, who has saved $100,000 for their $120,000 dream home,
>now finds that the price has doubled, and they're in for some more saving.

Jonathan: The people in example one "mattress" would have a bunch of
rotten fruit if they socked away apples also.  They chose to invest in
"currency" futures and any dope can figure out that inflation causes
cash holdings to decrease in relative value.

Similar effect for the "house" couple.  They should have done something
other than storing it in a bank, if they were willing to take some risk
e.g. loan it out, they would have earned substantially more.


>Unfortunately, the government insists that I pay my taxes in dollars, and
>the storekeeper on the corner won't accept a fistful of yen.

You convert some of your assets into something that both parties to the
transaction agree upon.  In the case of the government you have no choice
(well I should say little choice) you can send the Yen to them through
a bank which will make the exchange.  If you think dollars are not worth
owning you wouldn't have owned them.  As for the shop keeper don't
frequent the store or be willing to hold onto a working amount of the
currency that he uses.  It is a concept called "being reasonable".

>If a private corporation
>needs capital, it can go public, print up one billion shares, declare
>each share to be worth one billionth of the company, and sell them. But
>if it later decides it needs *more* capital, it *can't* print up another
>billion, and declare that each share is now worth only one two billionth
>of the company. Once it sets a value (in percentage of the company) of
>its shares, that's it. The government, on the other hand, has absolutely
>no qualms whatsoever about printing up more money.

The "rules" for currency are different and I'll happily drop the "stock
certificate" comparison if it won't hold, I don't usually draw that
analogy anyway.  A finite number of notes representing all the value in
the U.S. was never printed, just a small portion of it which covered
gold reserves at one time.

You don't like the currency market, that's fine but people trade in it
all the time and your demands that it should be locked into something
tangible will go unheeded for that reason.  Nobody really cares what the
current value is (that's why it doesn't need to be backed by gold) they
only care if it goes up or down and then they are only concerned if they
themselves are wrong.

If you're going to stuff your "mattress" by all means do it with something
less volatile than currency.

tom

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,osu.opinion.libertarian,osu.opinion,alt.politics.marrou,cmh.opinion,alt.politics.elections,alt.president.clinton