From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: Negative Income Tax (Was: Social programs)
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 07:15:12 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.004926.27758@athena.mit.edu> cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.075008.11223@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>did you not say "you sir, are not a democrat!" very early in this discussion?
>which is what got this started? i thought so.
>don't start with me.
>
>*this* is the best you can give as evidence of your marvelous argumentative
>skills and consistent philosophy?
>

I have never claimed any expertise in rhetoric or debate.

>>Objectivism adheres to a rigid set of
>>axioms
>
>you mean like your adherence to "popular sovereignty"?
>
>>where the terminology is often redefined from commonly
>>understood denotations to restrict and contort words and ideas to 
>>into an inflexible rulebook structure.
>
>you mean like your "government-guaranteed right to vote"?
>

Well, since you bring this up again, and since you seem to view the
assertion which I have made that you are not a democrat as an 
unjustified personal attack, let us clear up the issue.

Do you or do you not support the right of every individual to
a right to vote in an environment without physical or mental
duress or coersion...for that is what a democrat believes?
A starving human being is obviously under physical duress, and
thus is not able to exercise their democratic liberty and right
to vote. 

From various posts, you have no problem with taxation for courts,
police, prisons, food for prisoners, fire departments, military, etc...
yet when it comes to protecting the democratic liberty of every
individual, you seem to have great difficulty with a little
taxation for a minimal social-safety net so each citizen can exercise
there vote free from physical duress...that sounds an awful lot
like a person who does not believe in democracy.


>>apart from asserting a
>>single principle, that of popular sovereignty, I haven't been advocating
>
>you must be the most dense person on the face of the planet -- maybe even
>worse than Gary Dare, a feat i thought impossible only a month ago.
>(cheap shots get returned, Gary :^)) why do you refuse to address all the
>counter-arguments i have made which blow your moronic position out of the water?
>and how can you continue to claim to know anything about objectivism when
>you clearly don't? how can you not address the totally impossible implications
>of a government-guaranteed right to *anything*? how can you call objectivism
>"fundamentalist" when *by definition* so is yours if it is based on a
>"principle", which is the same as a fundamental?
>

You claim that I don't know anything about Objectivism while at the
same time you advocate publically-funded fire departments...things
that make one go hmmm!

>>any ideology...and the advocation of popular sovereignty is basically
>>asserting the position that everyone is entitled to their personal
>>beliefs and a right to voice them politically through 
>>their right to vote...which is a method more than an ideology.
>
>complete hooey.
>and since you are the one who claimed that rights were not prioritized,
>it is still incumbent upon *you* to explain under what circumstances you
>would put the right to property over the right to vote. the definition of
>right to vote you imply in the preceding paragraph has nothing to do with
>the buffalo biscuits for which you were attempting to argue earlier.
>

There is no prioritization or hierarchy...defined individual rights are
equally important...the constraints on any particular right, since
distinct individual rights have regions of conflict should be based
on the principle by society through its legislature or courts to
maximize liberty.  Courts balance rights so the that liberty in the
space spanned by two distinct rights is maximized.

However, I will give an example of where line-drawing from your
perspective can be construed as placing the right to property above
the right to vote...I don't think you should be taxed to pay for
the political campaigns of others, or that anyone should be limited
in utilization of their property to run their own campaigns...
affirmative action democracy, as I call it, goes to far in restricting
the right to property to improve the perceived fairness of the
elections.  Affirmative action democracy suggests that since some
people are too lazy to exercise the full spectrum
of their other rights, that we should restrict what active
players in the political process can do to make it fairer for
apathetic citizens.  Unfortunately, we have such laws, and I think
they restrict economic rights too severely at the expense of political
rights.

Gerald