HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Private product evaluation agencies (was: Might be a FAQ)
Date: 27 Dec 92 21:32:17 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

ian@nasser.eecs.nwu.edu (Ian Sutherland) writes:
>In article <KNY=FC@engin.umich.edu> positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas) writes:
>>This already *has* happened. Look at the Underwriters' Laboratories.
>>Look at the Consumer's Union (and its publication, Consumer
>>Reports). How many people base their decisions to buy a product
>>based on what CU says about it in CR?

>It's already happened for the sorts of products that these publications
>cover.  The thread started out talking (among other things) about
>things like drugs and medical treatments.  Can anyone think of any
>problems that would occur if evaluation of medical treatments were
>handled by such private companies?

Time delays, difficulty in gathering information, and cost, to start
with.  How many people really want to fork out large amounts of money
to be told that a drug they took 5 years ago wasn't safe?  Why should
the drug companies themselves pay up, when they'd be better off if
nobody gathered enough statistics to sue them effectively?

Just to diverge onto one of my bugbears a bit, the same problems
apply to evaluating education...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Some ideas are frost giants: pouring cold water on them helps them to grow.
From: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Psephological journals
Date: 29 Dec 1992 18:02:41 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Reply-To: bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brandon D. Ray)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, jbn@photon.com (Joe Naiman) says:

>
>Over the last few weeks, I've gotten into a discussion with some good
>buddies on alt.politics.libertarian regarding the heterogeneity of
>right-to-life activists, noting that Catholics were more likely than
>evangelical Protestants to stomach a pro-abortion candidate and less
>likely to consider certain victimless crimes immoral.  My thesis was
>that anti-abortion blocs shouldn't be written off entirely by 
>libertarian campaigns, but rather subdivided and right-to-life
>"moderates" appealed to on common grounds.
>
As a pro-life libertarian, I think this makes a lot of sense.  I support the
LP and its candidates, despite the fact that the LP and most of its 
candidates differ from me on that particular issue.  Pro-life people
need to be encouraged to take a wider view, and realize that ther eis more 
than just a single issue at stake. 

By the same token (he said, cracking his knuckles), the "mainstream" of the
LP needs to stop treating pro-life libertarians as second class citizens.
How often have I heard people insisting that no "true" libertarian can
be pro-life, and that the pro-life position is fundamentally inconsistent
wiht the libertarian position?  Too often.  Obviously, I don't agree with
this prejudice, and would appreciate a little more respect for my views.

>I thought about explaining this in a libertarian publication.  However,
>this is not the type of material which is normally published in Reason or
>The Freeman.  Can anyone recommend a libertarian journal which would
>publish campaign-oriented articles?
>
>Thanks,
>
>
>Joe Naiman
>
>
How about the Libertarian Party News?

-- 
******************************************************************************
The opinions expressed by the author are insightful, intelligent and very
carefully thought out.  It is therefore unlikely that they are shared by the
University of Iowa or Case Western Reserve University.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush
From: dst@hardy.u.washington.edu (Dale Tanigawa)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 13:15:03 GMT

In article <BzM8BL.DCx@newcastle.ac.uk> Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
>Since many libertarians have nothing against private discrimination,
>that doesn't really surprise me.

Most libertarians that I know have a lot against private discrimination.
They just don't think that it is the state's job to do anything about it,
but rather their own job.  Many get very angry when the government tries
to fix things with their forcibly extracted tax dollars, makes a total 
blunder of it, and continues to claim that only the government (and your
forcibly extracted tax dollars) can "fix" things.

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 03:38:45 GMT

In article <1h89n0INNhnd@transfer.stratus.com> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.140506.16134@samba.oit.unc.edu>, bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>
>>  As for what it can do for libertarians the answer is simple, votes and
>> recognician.  The feminists are unhappy with the democrats because they
>> have split views on many woman's issues.  Parties like the consumer party
>> of people's socialist party are econically rediculous.  
>> 	The LP might very well be able to actract this group.  As a
>> philospophy libertarianism might be both aided by and aid feminism. 
>> Finally the discussion started by noting that there are very lib. females.
>
>Saying that "The LP might very well be able to attract feminists" is
>misleading.  
>
>First off, the title "feminist" is to misused/overused today as to have
>almost no intrinsic meaning.  Both Camille Paglia and Andrew Dworkin
>consider themselves to be "feminists" in that they want what THEY think
>is best for women -- but the only thing they have in common is anatomy.
>
>I would predict that the "feminist" community contains the same ratio of
>statists vs. individualists that you would find in the country at large --
>if anything, maybe even a bit heavier on the statists.  The history of 
>feminism is a chronicle of the attempted harnessing of government power 
>to force social change, which is the antithesis of libertarian philosophy.
>
>In short, I propose that "feminists" as a group have no more in common
>with libertarians than any other randomly-chosen orthogonal community, 
>and may in fact have less.
>-- 
>
>cdt@rocket.sw.stratus.com   --If you believe that I speak for my company,

	Well, I don't know.  Tim Starr and I have been debating this for
about week.  Right now on 14 big issues we've pretty much agreed that the
LP and fems. are on the same side on say 8 of them probably 9 (Tim's
opposed to felony laws).  That's better than the Dems could do.  Finally
there a well orginized group who is ready to jump ship on the 2 big
parties.  That's why there a lot easier to get a good hold of politically,
than say the "Reagan democrats".

--JMB


Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: Japan VS. US
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 02:42:12 GMT

In article <1h85qgINNriq@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> cb926@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Edmund Joseph Ryan) writes:
>
>Bolden:
>
>Well, this isn't scientific, but if you have a declining living
>standard, you will tend have people leave the country provided
>that a superior living standard exists elsewhere. I'm sure the
>average Japanese doesn't like spending fifty dollars in tolls,
>being forced to volunteer for extra working hours, having a 
>bureaucracy instead of a democracy, and having some maniacal,
>brutish police force and if the means would leave.        
>
>In such a situation all of the smart people usually leave first
>and then the rest of the population catches up. Japan will 
>experience a brain drain. On top of that, the corporations
>will no longer have a work force willing to work over time.
>
>As for American military might, we do have some say when we
>target a conflict. When the U.S. focuses on politically
>and econmically popular causes (like freeing Kuwait), it
>does have an effect. But U.S. foreign policy is not 
>consistent and intervention depends upon the whims of the
>people in the executive branch and in the legislative
>branch. In this case, foreign agitants usually can act
>without worrying about U.S. intervention unless they
>encroach on Burundi when we have a president who is of
>Burundi background. (No offense on Burundi. Just using
>an example.) I guess we agree there.
>
>Virtually,
>
>Edmund J. Ryan

	First off, you can clall me Jeff, this is a pretty friendly board
all around.  As for people leaving the country, not that many people want
to leave Japan.  But large emmigration would be very damaging to their
economy.  Actually I've heard that once they assign Japanesse people to
foreign countries (work related assignments) that they tend to stay in
those assinments, as they have trouble reintergrating them.  This may
eventually force the Japanesse to raise their level of consumer spending. 
Hopefully though I don't see how this will help their economy, it seems to
me like it would only hurt it.
	As for foreign policy it seems like agree completely, just a half
full - half empty phrase problem.

--JMB


Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Organization: University of North Carolina
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 15:58:15 GMT

	So a definition for sexual intimidation.  How about something like this:
"1)  Repeated sexual gestures, or words, towards another person after that
person has indicated that such gestures are unwelcome.

2)  Obscenity in the work place place, where at least 2 persons
have:
a)  indicated they disaprove of this sort of conversation.
b)  The conversation is in no way related to the functioning of the company.
c)  The presence of the two people is known.

3)  Threating to commit or indicating a desire to commit sexual assault."

	This probably isn't legalistic enough, but you get the drift.  Now
on to Dworkin's views.  Clearly these aren't held by most feminists so
there not exactly on topic.  But if the argument against pediphilia is not
based upon consesnt, than what do you think it is based upon?

	Finally, for the rape is a crime of violence not sex:
1)  What sorts of sources would you accept.  Last ime you asked for a
source, I gave three major magazines and two respected journalistic
television shows (CNN and C-Span) one of which included an economic
confrence applauded nation wide.  So who's word would you take?

2)  What exactly is it that you want confermed:
a)  Psychologists and Crimonoligists believe this.
b)  The rapists themselves will say this.
c)  Ex-rapists agree.
b+c')  Most rapists are impotent, and don't even neccesarily have a sex
drive (at least not with woman).
d)  Most people who have studied raped believe this.

--JMB
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Japan vs USA
Date: 21 Dec 92 20:15:02 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina

Sean -
	If all your arguing is that the Japan will become the dominant
world economy if they keep up with their current practices, I agree. 
Clearly if you have a country where everyone works 70 hrs. a week a lot
gets done, and your economy grows fast.  As for Japanesse woning American
Buisness...  That's the cost of not being the dominant economy, when you
dominate you don't control.  
	A good analogy is the military issue.  Right now the US controls
macro world politics. We can stop anything from happening if we consider
worth the cost and loss of life.  If we cut our military budget enough to
really help the economy we lose the control / security.  By cutting our
work week, we've done the same thing for our demostic economy.  The people
have clearly voted on the econic issue, they want a good life more than a
productive one.
	
	As you want to wait to discuss the figures regarding average
income, I'll hold off.

--JMB
From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Feminism and Libertarians
Date: 23 Dec 1992 22:25:14 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <1992Dec23.024745.13383@samba.oit.unc.edu>, bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
> In article <1h87cvINNhnd@transfer.stratus.com> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares) writes:
> >In article <1992Dec20.140943.24362@samba.oit.unc.edu>, bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:

> >> >}Rape is very different from most types of assault.  Assult is generally
> >> >}directed against an individual, while rape is a crime directed against a
> >> >}group.  Its the difference between murder and genocide.

> >> Well the group of individuals that this tends to happen to see it as a
> >> crime against their group rather than against themselves as individuals. 
> >> Most crimologists agree.  Commonly rape is directed at strangers.  

> >So is mugging, or burglary.  So what?  That doesn't make them "group 
> >crimes."

> >Feminists are fond of saying, "Rape is not a crime of sex, but of violence."
> >This means that rape (like torture) should be considered a subset of battery
> >crimes.

> 	I don't understnd what you mean by burglery, robbery...  beign
> group crimes, however generally a thief has no interest in harming anyone,
> their interest is in acquiring property.  Harming someone is just "part of
> the job", if they do it all (which many won't).

Your argument was that because rape is directed against strangers, i.e.,
any female will do, that it must be specially penalized, like some sort
of sexual genocide.  My response is that LOADS of crimes are directed
against strangers, and a lot of it targets members of some sort of group 
(e.g., small, weak, drunk, old, uneducated).  We do not, for instance, 
say that "health insurance frauds are very different from most other 
frauds" because they are almost exclusively targeted against the elderly.

In addition, your argument that "generally a thief has no interest in
harming someone" is moot.  25% of robbery victims who do not resist 
are injured anyway (1979-1985 National Crime Survey (ICPSR,1987b)).
The completion/injury rate of rapes is only 36% (1979 US Justice 
Department study of 32,000 attempted rapes).

> 	As for rape being about violence and not sex; don't you agree with
> this? 

Yes.  Therefore I don't buy your original argument that "rape is very 
different from most types of assault."
-- 

cdt@rocket.sw.stratus.com   --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR cdt@vos.stratus.com        write today for my special Investors' Packet...
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Views? :
Date: 28 Dec 92 11:19:35 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina

Charles -
	I've got to agree were getting no where, so I'll drop out. 
However something you should think about.  Unless you are an expert it is
very difficult to tell the difference between an argument that sounds
true, and one that is true.  I could give you mathematical arguments to
prove absolute nonsense with very minor flaws in them, that you wouldn't
pick up.  An economist could do the same to me.
	That's to a great extent why I'm not even going to consider
reading this sort of book.  I'll realy on the experts to analyze the data,
I'm humble enough to realize that I do not have the capacity to tell the
difference between these two types of arguments.
	As for argument that truth is not determined by majority vote,
this is a nice statement but probably leads to very incorrect statements
standing unchallenged.  Generally if you want to convince the majority
that they are wrong the burdon of proff lies almost entirely on yourself,
to prove that there is a contradiction between two of their held views. 
To simply shrug off the opinion of the majority leads very quickly to
philospohical sceptism.
	Now I am neither dense not being stuborn nor for that matter
trying to wear you out.  But your claim that the most people consider gold
more stable than dollars is nonsense.  I don't have any evidence to back
this up, other than that most people "stuff their mattress" before they
"buy gold".  

	Unlike yourself, I could care less about what sort of currency we
have for a disaster, I want a currency that is stable 99% of the time. 
Disasters are disasters,  I don't expect to walk away from them, if they
happen I deal with it then.  I unlike yourself don't see the govt. as some
evil orginization out to rob me, but a slightly misguided group of good
hearted people.  So basically portability might be crucial to you and to
John Haas, but to most people the full faith of the US govt. is enough of
a guarentee.  If it isn't enough for you, then switch to the barter
system, or issue your own currency backed in gold.

	As for my source for SA enourmous gold holdings, I'm not sure what
sorts of sources you'd except.  You seem to reject opinion on vertually
everything.  I haven't seen the hoards myself, SA claims they have them;
it's reasonalby common knowledge, and I've seen estimates to that effect
often.  In fact I think I once saw it in a lib. pamphlet as an argument
against the gold standard (in on of the Q+A session).

	As for me "not knowing what the hell I'm talking about" that may
be true.  However what your describing is something way outside the
main stream of thought.  A conspiricy of economists to hide the truth in
your Banckrupcy 1995 book (and yes you did say this "they have no reason
to tell the truth").  The govt. activly supporting this conspiracy.  The
eminant collapse of the economy.  People fleeing the country, and mass
riots.  But no one steals Charles' gold for some reason.  Your living in a
paranoid fantasy WAKE UP!

--JMB
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan)
Subject: Re: Labor Standard
Organization: Pegasus,  Honolulu
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 19:38:49 GMT

bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:

< in reply to my reply to this message>

>>>>Fix the currency at 1 unit=1 hour of unskilled labor. To keep the system
>>>>honest, the way to produce currency is to have an actual person do 1
>>>>hour of labor (either needed labor or unneeded), and then to give him a
>>>>newly minted currency unit. This isn't as crazy as it sounds:

Jeffrey: I appreciate the clarification but you can understand my getting
mixed up with "either needed labor or uneeded".

So... given the ditch problem, how deep (or wide) a hole does one hour
of unskilled labor produce.  In other words I need to know if hiring
a professional at 3 units per hour is better than an "unskilled laborer"
at 1 unit.

Or is there nothing "skilled" about digging ?

I'm totally against minimum wages and this sounds like it is not only
perpetuated but assigned to certain jobs.

tom
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Might be a FAQ
From: jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner)
Date: 29 Dec 92 23:10:21 EST
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Stefan.M.Gorsch@dartmouth.edu (Stefan M. Gorsch) writes:
>
> Today both entrepeneurs and mass marketers are far too adept at 
> manipulating the media to create consumer demand for a variety of 
> useless (or worse) products. 

"Today the world is such a big, bad place you can't possibly take
care of yourself. Let -us- do the thinking for -you-."

bah. humbug.
jason

--
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`
`,`         "Read my lips: Utopia!" - Bill Clinton paraphrased          `,`
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,` jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu ,`,`,`
From: bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Labor Standard
Date: 22 Dec 92 04:25:45 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina

In article <1992Dec21.193849.5844@pegasus.com> tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>
>< in reply to my reply to this message>
>
>>>>>Fix the currency at 1 unit=1 hour of unskilled labor. To keep the system
>>>>>honest, the way to produce currency is to have an actual person do 1
>>>>>hour of labor (either needed labor or unneeded), and then to give him a
>>>>>newly minted currency unit. This isn't as crazy as it sounds:
>
>Jeffrey: I appreciate the clarification but you can understand my getting
>mixed up with "either needed labor or uneeded".
>
>So... given the ditch problem, how deep (or wide) a hole does one hour
>of unskilled labor produce.  In other words I need to know if hiring
>a professional at 3 units per hour is better than an "unskilled laborer"
>at 1 unit.
>
>Or is there nothing "skilled" about digging ?
>
>I'm totally against minimum wages and this sounds like it is not only
>perpetuated but assigned to certain jobs.
>
>tom
>

	Tom, you cut a bit too much of the debate, and reading your post
I'm having trouble seeing what your exaclty asking.  Please clarify.  I'm
going to take a guess that your arguing this would be a minimum wage law,
and hence a bad thing?  
	First off, note I think your right.  The original proposel wwas
not mine, I just happened to be on the board right after you wrote your
post, and clarified a misunderstanding between yourself and the author. 
However, this does differ from a minimum wage law in that in primarily is
designed to fix a standard unit of exchange (ie. a non commodity based
currency that would have the advantages of a commodity based currency).  
	The difference is that this would be non-inflationary (hopefully
the cost of one hour of unskilled labor wouldn't go down) though it might
be deflationary (the cost of one hour might go up).  I don't know if the
author considered this or not. 
	As for the ditch question.  I think he was assumeing that any
strong man with a shovel (the kind of guy who would be a ditch digger)
would move about the same number of cubic feet of dirt.  So in short there
is nothing skilled.  I actually asked the same question about a guy with a
tractor.  He moves about 50x as much dirt.  Does he get payed 50x as much?
 The author never responded, so I can't answer that.

--JMB
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.guns,talk.politics.drugs
From: cescript@mtu.edu (Charles Scripter)
Subject: Re: RFD: talk.politics.patriot
Organization: Michigan Technological University
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:11:58 GMT

In article <1h2jh7INNmh4@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bu008@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
(Brandon D. Ray) writes:

> In a previous article, brians@atlastele.com (Brian Sheets) says:
> 
> >I would like to propose a newsgroup for the patriot movement in the U.S.
> >This would include discussions on rights violations by legislation, gold 
> >and silver as payment for debts, freedom organizations and many other basic 
> >US Constitutional topics.

How about alt.politics.usa.constitution?  The volume of traffic there
is fairly low, and any Constitutional matter is on_topic (i.e. virtually
all of the examples you posted above).

-- 
Charles Scripter   *   cescript@phy.mtu.edu
Dept of Physics, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931
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