HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lando@cirrus.com (Dave Landis)
Subject: Corporal Punishment
Originator: lando@tango
Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc.  Fremont, California
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 00:20:48 GMT


Matthew Conry writes:
In article <1992Sep27.235754.27587@cirrus.com> lando@cirrus.com (Dave Landis) writes:
>
>If a child misbehaves in class and disrupts the educational process, he
>deserves to be spanked/paddled whatever.   
>

MC>This seems quite inconsistant with libertarian ideals...

I am not a Libertarian, however, I believe that Libertarians would
not object to punishment of those who violate the rights of others. 
If student A wants to learn, but student B is disrupting his
learning, student B deserves to be punished.

MC>The child is forced by the state to attend school, and then
MC>is violently attacked by those employed...the child never
MC>agreed to obey any rules, with or without threat of
MC>violence...

I would advocate corporal punishment in either a public or
private school.  If the teacher isn't in control, the students
will be.  The school is for education, not for children to
learn misbehaviour.  I believe it would be consistent with
the Libertarian model to allow the governing institution, i.e.
the school, to handle the disciplining of students, NOT the
government (unless of course, the student broke laws and
not school rules).

MC>I wonder why some seem to feel that individual rights (whatever
MC>those are) do not extend to children.

With rights come responsibilities.  As stated before,  the rights
of a student are violated when other students disrupt his learning
environment.  If children don't learn to behave when they're young,
it will be that much more difficult when they are adults.

MC> (I +really+ wonder about that 'whatever'...)

Matthew,  I think most people know that 'whatever' == 'corporal punishment'.
If you had paid attention to my remarks about excessive force, you would
have realized that.  It is not wise to put words in other people's mouth.
You have done that with me twice now.

It is _still_ ridiculous to equate corporal punishment with child abuse.


-- 
"He is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active
 in promoting pure and undefiled religion." John Witherspoon, signer of the
 Declaration of Independence.
From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:32:31 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.

In article <ISBELL.92Oct4090246@panther.ai.mit.edu>, isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares) writes:
> |This is such an elitist argument that rebuttal is almost hopeless.
> 
> Is not.

Thanks for the lesson in rhetoric.

> |If quality is not giving people exactly what they want, what is it?
> 
> Satisfaction, in real time, isn't defined as giving people exactly
> what they want.

Thanks for the non sequitur.  I assume you can't answer the question 
I asked.

> |Who defines it?  And who made him God?  
> 
> I don't know.  You just defined it, did you not?  Are you God?

I "defined" it to be whatever individuals define it as for themselves.
In other words, I left the definition of it up to them.  You have your
own definition of quality?  Fine -- seek it FOR YOURSELF, not for others.
-- 

cdt@pdp.sw.stratus.com      --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR cdt@vos.stratus.com        write today for my special Investors' Packet...
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
From: galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Greg Alt)
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Date: 1 Oct 92 14:31:56 MDT
Followup-To: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Reply-To: galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu
Organization: University of Utah, CS Dept., Salt Lake City

In article <BvGGqy.7wx@acsu.buffalo.edu>, sulkom@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Mark Sulkowski) writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.091620.6641@hellgate.utah.edu>, galt%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu writes...
>>In article <1992Sep29.223953.26882@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>>>Because libertarians _define_ coercion to just mean physical coercion.
>>>It's certainly true that being in a bad situation economically can lead
>>>to you doing things that you don't want to do.
>> 
>>Cops kicking in your door to search your house is coercion, rent-a-cops
>>kicking in your door to search your house is not.  Oh, yeah, I forgot,
>>you had a choice when you signed your employer's contract--you could
>>sign it and give up rights, or you could starve.  
>
>	Please spare us.  If rent-a-cops had no business kicking in your
>front door, this would be an initiation of physical force and -YES- that
>would be coercion.  BTW, anarcho-capitialists see the likelihood of that
>as being equivalent to a major supermarket installing an electrified
>floor (harassing customers is a great way to do business -- agree?)

In the past, many businesses did this.  Ford is the best example that 
comes to mind.  He wanted his employees to live their lives according to
his set of values, and he enforced it by sending detectives to search
their houses.  A libertarian would say that they agreed to work for Ford,
so they agreed to let people search their houses, but these people had 
little choice.  Besides what is preventing companies from using physical
force?  And what if physical force is mentioned in the contract?

>	Are you a left-anarchist?  Why shouldn't lefties kick down other
>people's doors?  Are they inherently morally superior?  Then why assume
>that the righties are not?

I say that coercion is just as wrong if it comes from a government or a
corporation.  If the government is removed and corporations are left to
perform all of its functions, you still have a government, you just call
it something else.

Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:590 alt.society.anarchy:365
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
From: parvin1@husc11.harvard.edu (Douglas Parvin)
Date: 6 Oct 92 18:12:04 GMT

thant@void.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman) writes:


>In article <parvin1.718327804@husc11>, parvin1@husc11.harvard.edu writes:


>> The argument that any high-profit area will soon be overflowed with
>> competition willing to look for long-term gain ignores the lesser value
>> attatched to future money by all "good capitalists."

>Although future money is devalued, it isn't completely devalued.  In
>fact, it is typically devalued by only 3% a year or so.  So you are
>3% per year right.

>thant

Yes, and this can make the difference whether or not a venture is profitable,
in absolute terms.  The sum of these values, depreciated more the further
into the future we go, may not be greater than the cost of entry.  

For example:  would you give me $100 now if I promised to give you back
$10/year forever, starting in thirty years?  You wouldn't because the sum of the
values of all these apparently large
future payments is less than $100 in current money.  That's all I'm trying
to say.

-- 
===========================================================================
Douglas Parvin
parvin1@husc.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.marrou,alt.individualism,osu.
Subject: MEETING:  Student Libertarians at OSU
From: sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Stephen M Conley)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 19:33:12 GMT
Distribution: oh
Organization: The Ohio State University
Keywords: libertarian,student,osu
Summary: Thurs. Oct. 1, 6: 30 pm Flying Tomato@15th & High near OSU campus

There will be an informal meeting of the Student Libertarians at the Ohio State
University on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 6:30 pm.  The meeting will be held at the 
Flying Tomato at 15th and High, right across from the OSU campus.  The purpose 
of the meeting will be to introduce the concepts of Libertarianism to students 
who have expressed interest in political alternatives, although anyone 
interested in the Libertarian Party or the movement as a whole is welcome to 
come.  Anyone interested in information about the meeting or the Student 
Libertarians at OSU can find out more by sending mail to 
sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu.  It's generally a good idea to include your 
snail mail address if you want lots of general information.  Students wishing 
to contact me about becoming active in the Student Libertarians can find my 
phone number in the Student Organizations listing in the latest issue of the
Independent (Sept. 30-Oct. 13).

Steve Conley
sconley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:563 alt.society.anarchy:348
From: parvin1@husc11.harvard.edu (Douglas Parvin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
Subject: Re: You can't, and shouldn't TRY, to control the economy.
Date: 5 Oct 92 22:38:12 GMT
 <1992Oct3.155910.15598@hellgate.utah.edu> <1992Oct5.194528.9357@netcom.com>

rlglende@netcom.com (Robert Lewis Glendenning) writes:

>So many threads argue that the economy can be controlled, then proceed to
>argue about which direction to aim it.

>The idea that we can make improvements in a natural system such as the economy
>is ludicrous.

>Let me begin with the weather as an analogy:

>	1) Weather is a complex, natural system.
>	2) We know enough of the theory to know fundamental limitations of our
>		predictions.
>	3) the computers used to predict are not part of the weather system.
>	4) The system is completely connected: a change in any part of the world
>		produces changes everywhere. This is the "butterfly effect"
>	5) If we had the technology to make more rain in SF/CA, it would have
>		unpredictable effects everywhere in the world. You can assume
>		these would not all be good.

>Given all of this, nobody would allow serious efforts to change the weather.
>At best, it would be a zero-sum game.

Well, given your criteria, at worst it would be a zero-sum game too. 

Yet we know that certain actions taken (such as monetary policy) do have
certain effects, both short and long term.  Sure, we don't know what they all
are.  But if some policy has more known good effects than bad ones, then
we, by the above logic, can assume a random distribution of other effects,
both good and bad.  So we wind up with a net plus. (You could argue that
all change involves a small minus, to represent costs of transition. I'd
be willing to go for that).

To use your weather analogy: There have been processes whereby small clouds
were charged in some way (Don't flame me on this; I'm not a meteorologist, just
remembering a New York Times article from a few years back) so as to cause
some rainfall on a small, drought-stricken area.  Now maybe this did have
unknown effects around the world, but since there's no way of knowing these,
I'd call it basically a good thing.

Now of course there may be signifiant bad results from an action that we can
predict, and these may outweigh the positives.  This seems to be the main
utilitarian argument of the Lib. party.

Point is, we DO know some effects, both good and bad, of certain policies.
I tend to agree with you insofar as these changes may not be as great or
lasting as they appear.  But to dismiss all of our ability to change the
economy is going a bit too far, IMHO.
-- 
===========================================================================
Douglas Parvin
parvin1@husc.harvard.edu
From: lando@cirrus.com (Dave Landis)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Leon Dickens' Question
Date: 30 Sep 92 00:04:33 GMT
Organization: Cirrus Logic Inc.  Fremont, California
Originator: lando@tango

Leon Dickens wrote:
>>Taxes, I suppose.  (Let us be realistic.  Income taxes are not
>>vanishing in the forseeable future, especially with the huge deficit
>>the bastards have run up on us.)  I have seen estimates on this group
>>that public schools currently cost 6-9K/pupil/year, and private ones
>>are less.  Anyone have a pointer on real data on this?  


I made a few mistakes in the previous posting, plus the multi-billion dollar
figure that I intended to quote was truncated.  Here's the correction.

I have some stats from KGO radio, an  AM station in San Franscico,
with a news/talk show format.

In Iowa, it costs $4400 to educate a high school student.  They have
the highest SAT scores in the nation.


In Washington D. C., it costs $7000+ to educate a high school student
and they have the _lowest_ SAT scores in the nation.


States such as New York and New Jersy spend more than $8000 per student/year
and rank in the bottom 30 range and bottom 40 range respectively.

So, the range that you estimated was resonable.

BTW, this data should be made available to Slick Willie to show him that the quality of
education is not necessarily tied to the amount of funding that goes
into education.   Keep in mind that "Slick" wants to raise taxes by
$220 Billion!



-- 
"He is the best friend of American liberty who is most sincere and active
 in promoting pure and undefiled religion." John Witherspoon, signer of the
 Declaration of Independence.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: rday@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Robert E Day)
Subject: Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 15:02:56 GMT

In article <ISBELL.92Sep30094920@panther.ai.mit.edu> isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles
 L Isbell) writes:
>leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens) writes:
>
>|Currently the teacher's union is an extremely powerful political
>|force, with enormous goodwill among the people in general (naturally).
>
>Beyond that, is your assertion that privatizing or vouchering
>education will eliminate the teacher's union (as it has the GM
>worker's union, presumbably)?

The NEA(teacher's union) is solidly against the idea of vouchers. They are 
activly lobbying against the idea whenever it comes up. To get a voucher system
in place, you are going to have to fight them.

The fear of the union's are the loss of power resulting from the loss in jobs.
The voucher systems will allow the the "public school" students to go to
private schools(taking with them the money the school would have gotten.) This
loss of students would result in the loss of jobs for teachers(in the public
sector) and a loss of income for the union.
-- 
If the price that I must pay to obtain my *  Robert E. Day/Syr Otto von    *
freedom, is to acknowledge that the Gov-  *  Schwartzkatz, Shire Mugmort   *
ernmet was granted the power to infringe  *  Barony Middle Marches,        *
on them, then I am not free. Paul Anderson*  Middle Kingdom                *
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.society.anarchy
From: jimu@orthanc.cs.su.oz.au (James Uther)
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Reply-To: jimu@orthanc.cs.su.oz.au (James Uther)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 00:35:36 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.060245.366@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
|> Don't be obtuse!  Let's list false assumptions here: 1) libertarians support
|> private police kicking in people's doors; 2) Most people will be in the
|> position of accepting such a deal or starving; 3) it's possible to change the
|> fact that an inevitable few people will be in this position; 4) there's some
|> better way to minimize this occurrence than laissez-faire.

1) can't comment
2) starvation is still the rule worldwide (perhaps not in your precious U.S.)
3) Perhaps not, but trying gives me something to do.
4) perhaps there is. It's really big of you to blindly dismiss every view 
	except your own.

	james
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.marrou
From: loosemore-sandra@CS.YALE.EDU (Sandra Loosemore)
Subject: Re: Why should I vote for Marrou?
Organization: staff hacker @ Yale Haskell project
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 16:35:43 GMT

steveg@iplmail.orl.mmc.com (Steve Gabrilowitz) writes:

   How can I vote for a candidate who admits he has no chance of
   winning?  Isn't this just about the same as throwing my vote away,
   or just plain not voting at all?

No.  Even if your vote will have no affect on the results of the
election, you are throwing it away if only you vote for a candidate or
platform you don't really agree with instead of one you do support.

Aside from matters of personal conscience, your vote may affect the
trend of politics in the future even if it doesn't affect the outcome
of this election.  If you vote for the Demopublicans or Republicrats,
the message you are sending is that you don't want a serious change in
the way the government has been run.  How will things ever change if
you don't speak up and say that you're dissatisfied?  A strong showing
by libertarians in this election may not only influence future choices
by the current crop of politicians, but is also likely to help the
libertarian party be taken more seriously in future elections (more
news coverage, for example).

-Sandra
From: adesai@leland.Stanford.EDU (Atit Dinkarrai Desai)
Subject: Re: You can't, and shouldn't TRY, to control the economy.
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 05:54:45 GMT

In article <parvin1.718324692@husc11> parvin1@husc11.harvard.edu (Douglas Parvin) writes:

>
>Yet we know that certain actions taken (such as monetary policy) do have
>certain effects, both short and long term.  Sure, we don't know what they all
>are.  But if some policy has more known good effects than bad ones, then
>we, by the above logic, can assume a random distribution of other effects,
>both good and bad.  So we wind up with a net plus. (You could argue that
>all change involves a small minus, to represent costs of transition. I'd
>be willing to go for that).
>
>To use your weather analogy: There have been processes whereby small clouds
>were charged in some way (Don't flame me on this; I'm not a meteorologist, just
>remembering a New York Times article from a few years back) so as to cause
>some rainfall on a small, drought-stricken area.  Now maybe this did have
>unknown effects around the world, but since there's no way of knowing these,
>I'd call it basically a good thing.
>
>Now of course there may be signifiant bad results from an action that we can
>predict, and these may outweigh the positives.  This seems to be the main
>utilitarian argument of the Lib. party.
>
>Point is, we DO know some effects, both good and bad, of certain policies.
>I tend to agree with you insofar as these changes may not be as great or
>lasting as they appear.  But to dismiss all of our ability to change the
>economy is going a bit too far, IMHO.
>-- 
>===========================================================================
>Douglas Parvin
>parvin1@husc.harvard.edu


There are a number of points to be examined:

1. Some people suffer the good effects, some suffer the bad effects, even
   when there is a net surplus produced. Those who suffer are never
   compensated. So, its O.K. for I.B.M. to get a 5 billion dollar 
   contract from the government, but it may not be so good for me: thats
   my money going to I.B.M.'s profit line.

2. The government is ROBBING me to try this. I didn't consent to them
   using my money. If it said "look we don't exactly whats going to
   happen here, but if you contribute, you might be better off", then
   I may go along.(probably not, what do you think)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.marrou
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Japan, R&D
Organization: TECHbooks --- Public Access UNIX --- (503) 220-0636
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 11:36:24 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.214528.25668@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> sturnbul@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Stephen J Turnbull) writes:

>    I vote we strike "virtual monopolies," substitute "effective
>domestic cartels," and accept that Japan's business success is in
>large part derived from a very libertarian policy of letting big
>businesses contract with each other as they will.

I second the motion.  I've never understood why folks have made
voluntary monopolies and cartels out to be such great evils. 
Socialists, who favor monopoly by force, seem to get a lot of mileage 
out of it.

If a voluntary monopoly does become too ineffective, there is
room in the free market to push it aside and make room for
newcomers.  The two most successful Japanese companies in the U.S., 
Sony and Honda, are both post-WWII startups that operated outside 
the keiretsu system; their very presense revitalized the kereitsus
to improve themselves in reaction.  That can't happen in a socialist 
monopoly, where competitors are put down by force.

Now, one of the silliest socialist myths to make the rounds in
a long time is the notion that Japan's R&D is more government
funded and controlled than in the U.S.  Here are the actual
numbers, from 1985:

			R&D funding sources
			Public		Private
United States		67%		33%
Japan			22%		78%

The U.S. had Japan's proportion back in the heydey of U.S.
consumer products, between Edison and RCA.  Private R&D
gave us the Wright Brothers, the automobile, the telephone,
transoceanic passenger plane service, lasers, transistors,
Seymor Cray's supercomputers, railroads, microcomputers,
light bulbs, radio, TV, electrical generators, and most
of the other useful things in our lives.  Government has
wasted $100's of billions and thousands of engineer-lives worth
of talent on the Clinch River breeder reactor, synfuels, fusion,
and many other $gigabuck failures.   Japan's government
projects mostly fail as well, like the 5th generation project
and their H-2 rocket, but at least they don't waste as
much money on the failures.  Now that the Cold War is over, the 
United States' talent is moving back towards the private sector,
and Japan is running scared.  That's reflected in our stock
market, at an all-time high, and theirs which is 40% lower
than in the late 1980's.  Once we bounce out of the worldwide
recession we'll be leading the pack, unless we blow it by
throwing that talent away on government projects.


-- 
szabo@techbook.COM  	  Tuesday, November third  ##  Libertarian  $$  vote
Tuesday  ^^ Libertarian  --  change  **  choice && November 3rd @@Libertarian 
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:479 alt.society.anarchy:292