From: zursch@whizkid.wpd.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Statement of President Clinton on Health Care Reform Task Force
Date: 27 Jan 93 22:41:00 GMT
Reply-To: zursch@whizkid.wpd.sgi.com (Jeffrey B. Zurschmeide)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

In article <PA142548.891.728161569@utkvm1.utk.edu>, T. Archer writes:

>I don't want a warm fuzzy, I want control over how the money I've earned is 
>spent.

And like most Libertarians, you'd prefer to spend it on bars over your windows
and a walled "executive community" than to kick in your taxes and keep society
at large going. This is why the LP can't convince any but a few malcontents to
vote for their program or their candidates. 2-3% is about the right number for
the fringe vote...

>> you'll pay for security
>>*from* the poor if you don't pay for security *for* the poor. 

>How does this follow?

Go take a walk through East Palo Alto and you'll figure it out. 

><Louis
><XVI found that out the hard way....   

>Louis XVI is irrelivant here.  He neglected to support his power-base:  the 
>nobility, and angered them.  When they refused to support the monarchy, they 
>lost not only their titles, but their heads as well.

Au Contraire, mon petit-bourgeois cochon, Louis is very relevant indeed. What
you're saying here is that Louis didn't treat his henchmen and muscle well
enough to keep the hungry masses from the door. (This is classic Libertarian
thought, and a really illustrative window into their true motivations...) The real
problem is that Louis lived the perfect Libertarian lifestyle. He felt no obligation 
to even so much as care that the people who made the mechanics of civilization
work had enough to eat, or as decent living conditions as their time could 
provide. "Let them eat cake" is classic Randian thought. I mean, all those 
peasants could have gone out and invented the home computer and made 
millions, right? Then they could have bought Versailles from Louis and Marie
and lived happy libertarian lives thereafter?  I can prove it's possible under 
a libertarian scenario....but unfortunately, this is the real world, and hungry
people tend to eat the rich.  Now, being fairly well-off myself, I see that it's 
to my advantage to see that my neighbors have enough to eat, even if they
eat oatmeal and I eat steak. 

>Drivel?  Why do you dismiss assertions you cannot successfully rebut?

Common sense, Lad. I can successfully rebut them, to a point. 
You see, Libertarians operate under the advantage of never having 
to *prove* anything because they have no track record. Anything I 
can try to point to *as* a track record will be denied. For example: 
"nononononono! the railroad monopolies of the 19th century
weren't *really* free market capitalism because they called in the 
State and the military to break strikes."  You can argue for *any* political
or economic system in a vacuum against any system that has actually 
been tried in the real world and make it look good.  This is how those 
gullible college students who don't get sucked into Libertarianism get 
sucked into Marxism. The two are opposite sides of the same coin. 
 
>I fail to see where expressing an opinion in a public forum consitutes "
>whining."

That's because you lack depth in your education and thought processes. 
This business of "Ew, if we try to get health care under some semblance of
control and provide baseline services for everybody, it'll be indistinguishable
from Stalinism." is whining. George Bush did it, and look where it got him.
Not only that, it shows complete ignorance (a common Libertarian trait) of
what totalitarianism really is. The fact that you can rave on about medical
reform as if it were some kind of Pol Pot purge shows that you haven't 
the first idea of what hardship is, or what terror is. And that, dear boy,
is why you exist on the fringes of political debate while the real work
goes on in the center.    
 
>Someone has to pay for it.  Some of us prefer to decide what, if anything, 
>we spend the fruits of our labors on.  If you are content to let the state 
>make those decisions for you, that's your privilige.  Others would prefer to 
>make those decisions for themselves.

You make it all sound so simple....simplistic solutions make me nervous.
Of course we would all rather have all our money....it's just that some
of us have outgrown the stage of whining about it. And personally, I'd
rather kick in my taxes than live in the kind of society that you propose. 

JZ
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:69350 misc.legal:23145