From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Perot and Mortgage deduction
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 16:01:32 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Oct12.153822.14047@cbnews.cb.att.com> nrc@cbnews.cb.att.com (N. Richard Caldwell) writes:
>From article <BvvHKo.5Mv@apollo.hp.com>, by nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson):
>> In article <1992Oct9.202212.18241@cbnews.cb.att.com> nrc@cbnews.cb.att.com (N. Richard Caldwell) writes:
>
>>>You mean like people who used social security payments to buy racing
>>>bikes, stereos and camera equipment? 
>> 
>>   No, I mean people who advocated these things.  I wasn't even old
>>   enough to vote when I got my new stero courtesy of Uncle Sam's
>>   Welfare for the Affluent.    As I said, I'm not running a charity;
>>   if some stranger gives me $100 legally I'll take it and feel no guilt
>>   but that doesn't mean I don't think he's a little nuts.
>
>But ultimately, when we get down to assigning responsibility for the
>stranger going broke, you're just as responsible as the rest of the
>beggers.  Worse, because you didn't need it.

   So you're saying if I give you money, no strings attached, that
   YOU are responsible for MY going into debt because you accepted
   it, and not me because I offered it??   Weird.   This isn't even
   consistent with law -- if I took a cash-advance on my Mastercard
   and gave the money to you, and then got into trouble trying to pay
   back the bank they couldn't come looking for you.   How do you
   derive these values?



>>   This is likewise bogus, since it cannot be shown that I or anyone
>>   except defense contractors, army brats, and military personnel
>>   benefitted from this.  And that's *some* of who I mean.  
>
>You are rapidly becoming a parody of yourself.   You've completely
>pegged the denial meter.  Every character you're posting takes
>advantage of a federally subsidized network.

   Right, and I advocate that it be cut!  

   There are people out there who have advocated the creation of all
   these federal functions and those are the ones who are responsible
   for all this.   It would be irrational for me to not take advantage
   of things that are offered me.   I behave rationally but your concepts
   of culpability are a bit like Gary Strand's recent claims that I have
   an obligation to watch TV because if I don't I somehow am responsible
   for the rise of the stupid-quotient on the tube.  


> Every dollar you make at apollo.hp.com contains pennies from the federal till.

   So what?  Some federal bueaucrat made a free choice to buy our stuff.
   This gets back to your weird concept that I go into debt by giving 
   my money to you then, somehow, are responsible.  You've been read-
   ing too many pop-psychology books on co-dependency or something.



>You've already pegged yourself as someone who has lived high off the
>federal hog and that's just the one instance that you've allowed to slip
>out in the heat of another debate.  The mind boggles to consider what
>other federal goodies you've got stashed in your trick or treat bag.

   Again the question is not what benefits we've gotten but whose
   choice was involved.  Who acted rationally and who did not?
   Unless you can explain why my giving money to you makes you
   responsible for my debt you haven't got a case.


---peter