HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 8 Jan 1993 22:59:38 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1ikte5INNlpt@transfer.stratus.com> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares) writes:
>In article <1ikjvuINN7b0@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>
>> If you were born here, then your parents freely made the choice for you.
>> At any time, you can select another nation to live in.  There is no secret
>> about the fact that if you choose to live here you must abide by the laws:
>> every immigrant explicitly agrees to that.
>
>> A contractual requirement of residing in the USA is paying taxes.  You've
>> entered into the contract freely (as I pointed out above.)  Non payment of
>> taxes is fraud which you have initiated, plain and simple.
>
>Now I remember where I heard this argument before.  It was advanced by a
>greasy-haired fellow with wide lapels in my uncle's drycleaning shop just
>shortly before the unfortunate fire.

Amusing, but stupid.

One purpose of any government (minarchist, anarchist, or our current one) is
to prevent you from having to buy protection from more than one source.
I'm afraid you're going to have to pay for it no matter what under a minarchy,
and if you try not to pay for it in an anarchy, woe betide.

Of course, I can also make a cartoon of libertaria in a similar vein:
you miss a payment on your loan, and your bank shoots you dead for initiating
fraud.

Now, would you like to explain to me how you can do without the protection of
a government in libertaria?

Mike Huben

"An Atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support."
						[Bishop] Fulton Sheen
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:3010 comp.org.eff.talk:8283 alt.amateur-comp:463 soc.culture.usa:9441 alt.activism:20015
From: ag167@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Don Pavlish)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 4 Jan 1993 20:35:12 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Distribution: inet
Reply-To: ag167@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Don Pavlish)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu


>[ Article crossposted from comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism ]
>[ Author was Tristan Riley ]
>[ Posted on 4 Jan 1993 02:33:23 GMT ]

>a wonderful summing up!  libertarianism as the ideology of the
>frustrated children of the elite.  [...DRIBBLE DELETED...] they aren't
>quite prepared to admit that in a libertarian society there'd be
>no school loans, scholarships, etc. for people like them and so
>they'd be preaching the religion of the mighty and asocial
>individual while sweeping up the shit in the rich folks' back yard.
>
>tristan

Actually, as a Libertarian I am quite prepared to admit that a
Libertarian government would -not- offer loans, scholarships, etc.
for college tuition. However, a Libertarian government wouldn't be
stealing and wasting such a huge chunk of my family's income, rendering
government aid necessary in the first place. Cause and effect, see?

don.
-- 
 Preserve liberty:    <<    D o n   P a v l i s h    >>   Cleveland, Ohio
 Vote Libertarian!    << ag167@cleveland.Freenet.Edu >>               USA
  |                    -------------------------------  
  |-> Want more info?  Libertarian Party National Hotline: 1-800-682-1776
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:3031 comp.org.eff.talk:8322 alt.amateur-comp:480 soc.culture.usa:9462 alt.activism:20061
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:07:30 GMT
Distribution: inet
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1993Jan5.083531.3355@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
>In article <1iab94INNsdv@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>
>>My parents were impoverished immigrants.  They, my sisters, and I could
>>never have afforded our educations which propelled us into the middle class
>>without substantial government loans and subsidies.  I defy you to point to
>>a nation that creates and perpetuates a large middle class without such
>>subsidies.
>
>Wasn't America in the 50's such a society?  Even my father, who went to 
>collage in the early 60's, could earn enough to send himself to collage
>at Michigan State University during the summer.

No it wasn't, as you would notice if you read your own words: Michigan
STATE University.  State Universities are mostly LAND GRANT COLLEGES, and
most are heavily state subsidized so that they can charge fees that can mostly
be afforded.  The Morril land grant program (a federal program) was instituted
in 1868 (I think) for the express purpose of creating state universities to
make college education more widely available and affordable.  Thus, America
in the 50's was already almost 100 years into large educational subsidies
on the college level.

[Assorted ranting about Purdue omitted.]

Mike Huben

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
						George Santayana

"Those who misremember the past are pleased to repeat it as `proof'."
						Mike Huybensz
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: Quake Public Access
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 09:16:16 GMT

In article <1ihiguINN57b@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>There has never been a minarchist or
>anarchist libertaria, and I don't believe anyone knows where the chips will
>fall if one is instituted.

I am astounded at your lack of historical knowledge.  The United States of
America for the first 100 years (or even 150!) was fairly close.  The
results were consistent with what various capitalist and semi-capitalist
theoreticians predicted (and predict today)...tremendous increases in 
material wealth, vast improvements in technology, sweeping improvements
in the quality (and length) of life.  

In additon, if you look around the world today, the most prosperous,
inventive places are also the closest to pure capitalist, and the poorest
are the furthest from it.  Does that maybe imply a little something?

>>I was attempting to point out that Demopublicans make many pie in the sky
>>claims as a matter of course (we are discussing *politics* after all :).

>Yup.  And with 200 years of experience to judge them by, we can probably
>guess better about those claims than we can about claims made about
>non-existent libertarias.

200 years?  The currently fashionable ideologies in the Republican and Democrat
parties would have been thoroughly unacceptable 200 (or even 100, or even 50)
years ago.  200 years ago, the government was pretty serious about individual
rights (with a few notable exceptions).  Now it's an almost alien concept
for the politicians.  (And much of the public.)

>>Unfortunately, the two party system currently seems to be fostering the idea
>>that government *control* is always a good thing....

>Unfortunately, libertarians seem to be fostering the idea that government
>control is always a BAD thing.  Like the sheep in "Animal Farm", many of them
>bleat "Private goooood, government baaaaaad."

I agree.  That's why I'm not a Libertarian.  I'm an Objectivist.

--Brian

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 7 Jan 1993 14:26:18 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1993Jan7.025741.4810@athena.mit.edu> cmk@athena.mit.edu
(Charles M Kozierok) whines (when presented with real numbers):

>these numbers are misleading. i don't think they imply any "major
>deficit reductions".

Please explain then.

>>According to the same article, 8 balanced budgets were passed since 1931.
>
>irrelevant. most of them were far closer to 1931 than to 1993.

If you had the attention span of a gerbil, you'd remeber that Bob DeBula wrote:
"Or a demopublican promising deficit reductions?"  These balanced budgets were
all passed by "demopublicans".  Any year where growth of GNP exceeds growth
of the deficit, the deficit as a percentage of GNP is reduced.

>they were both very bad. but they share the blame with their predecessors,
>particularly Johnson, who initiated the entitlement programs which
>are now responsible for the major part of the current mess. and the $6B
>surplus occurred in '69, which was actually the first year of Nixon's
>reign, no?

No.  The '69 budget was submitted by Johnson, just as the '93 budget has been
submitted by the outgoing Bush.  But I don't expect you to be able to make
such leaps of deduction.

Mike Huben

Strephon: "Have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a
	   case brimming with such poetical emotion?"
Chancellor: "Distinctly."
	From "Iolanthe", by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 16:15:01 GMT

PBH> == Patrick B. Hailey <doctor1@cbnewse.cb.att.com>
PS> == Paul Schmidt <pjs269@tijc02.uucp>

 PBH> Er, perhaps not germane to the current discussion, but this brings to
 PBH> mind something Dick Boddie once wrote.  To paraphrase:

 PBH>   Equality in the garden would mean chopping the tops off of the
 PBH>   healthiest, fastest growing plants; geological equality would
 PBH>   mean leveling mountain ranges.

 ckd> All analogies are suspect, USENET analogies doubly so.

 ckd> To use the second part of that analogy, if Beacon Hill were as high
 ckd> as it once was, a walk through Boston's Back Bay would require a
 ckd> wetsuit.  The "equality" generated by filling it in created a fairly
 ckd> large amount of real estate, now home and/or workplace for many
 ckd> people, in a good example of how creating infrastructures can
 ckd> facilitate the creation of wealth.

 PS> I want to facilitate the creation of wealth.  How much did it cost to
 PS> create the infrastructures?  I am assuming you are alluding to the
 PS> call for a rebuilding of infrastructures by government.  (If I am
 PS> wrong, please correct me.)

I made no specification of who was to build the infrastructure.  (I don't
actually know whether the filling of Back Bay was a government project, a
private project, or a mixture.)  I was attempting more to address the
argument that equality "harms the high-fliers".  In this case, Beacon Hill
residents lost some of their view, but gained potential neighbors,
employers, shopping opportunities, and so on.

 PS> I believe that their are certain things that the government is needed
 PS> to supply an infrastructure.  I think a government should supply a
 PS> police force, a judicial system, and a common defense against foreign
 PS> invaders.  These are all necessary functions of government.  Filling
 PS> in bays, supplying electricity, or building a national computer
 PS> network are services.  I think that we can have more of an abundance
 PS> of these things through voluntary cooperation than demanding payments
 PS> and using guns, if necessary, to collect such payments.

EFF's network connections in both Cambridge and Washington, DC are provided
by commercial IP service providers.
--
Christopher K. Davis      | ``Usenet seems to run much like the Kif (or,
<ckd@eff.org>   EFF #14   |   for the TV generation, Klingon) high command.
System Administrator, EFF |   Whoever takes action and can be heard wins.''
+1 617 864 0665  [CKD1]   |   --Peter da Silva <peter@ferranti.com>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: lachman@netcom.com (Hans Lachman)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: Netcom
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:15:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.195714.29883@ils.nwu.edu> Cliff Chaput <chaput@ils.nwu.edu> writes:
>In article <SLAGLE.93Jan7184944@sgi417.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com> Mark
>Slagle, slagle@lmsc.lockheed.com writes:
>> 
>> Don't be obtuse.  If your family had put away 20 to 30 percent of their
>> income from the time of your birth they would have enough to send you
>> and several brothers and sisters to Harvard.
>
>You're forgetting something, though: supply and demand.  If taxes were
>eliminated, and the average net income rose accordingly, demand for all
>items would also rise, since they are now more affordable.  As the demand
>rises for a product, so will its price.

Eliminating taxes does not create more money, it just causes whatever
money there is to be distributed differently.  Therefore, in the
aggregate, prices would not go up.

Hans Lachman
lachman@netcom.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: doctor1@cbnewse.cb.att.com (patrick.b.hailey)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:20:20 GMT

[Original context:]
>>You are trying to make more champaign by pouring it
>>onto the rug and sucking it up rather than drinking it straight from the
>>bottle.
>Please spare us your "reasoning" in metaphors.  They are easily turned:
>better everybody gets a swig than one person is drunk.

In article <BZS.93Jan6053516@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>>Er, perhaps not germane to the current discussion, but this brings to mind
>>something Dick Boddie once wrote.  To paraphrase:
>>   Equality in the garden would mean chopping the tops off of the
>>   healthiest, fastest growing plants; geological equality would
>>   mean leveling mountain ranges.
>
>Gack, what a fascist mentality! And I suppose adding a little more
>water and fertilizer to the section of the garden not doing well is
>just anathema...let it wither, deliver god's justice to your carrots!
>
>>He goes on to say he prefers liberty to equality.

Right.  And if I were telling you that *you* may NOT get drunk on *your*
champaign, that you *must* share it with me, you wouldn't decide that 
that attitude is 'fascist' as well?

The childish name calling and generally insulting tone of the rest of your
post is noted.

  Thanks awfully,
            Patrick
 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: The World
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:33:14 GMT


From: pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt)
>OOPS!!!!!!!!  I said the exact opposite of what I meant.  It should read:
>"I WANT big companies to be responsible to repair damages they make."
>Sorry for any misunderstanding this may have caused to a reader.

And my question remains the same: How are you going to force them to
do that?


-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | bzs@world.std.com          | uunet!world!bzs
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: tervio@katk.Helsinki.FI (TERVI| MARKO J)
Subject: Alt.Philosophy.Objectivism has started !
Organization: University of Helsinki, Computing Centre
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 11:26:14 GMT


   So check it out.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:3030 comp.org.eff.talk:8320 alt.amateur-comp:479 soc.culture.usa:9461 alt.activism:20060
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.amateur-comp,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Date: 5 Jan 1993 16:35:55 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1993Jan5.050327.28994@zip.eecs.umich.edu> positron@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jonathan Haas) writes:
>In article <1iab94INNsdv@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>>My parents were impoverished immigrants.  They, my sisters, and I could
>>never have afforded our educations which propelled us into the middle class
>>without substantial government loans and subsidies.  I defy you to point to
>>a nation that creates and perpetuates a large middle class without such
>>subsidies.
>
>So let me see if I understand this. Premise 1: Your parents were poor.
>Premise 2: You needed an education to suceed. Conclusion: Joe Richguy
>down the street should be compelled, at gunpoint, to pay for that
>education. Maybe I'm being obtuse, but I'm missing the logical leap
>there.

Yes, quite obtuse, in addition to misrepresenting my thought.

Nobody is compelling Joe Richguy to do anything: he has chosen to live in the
USA and abide by our government.  Nobody is pointing a gun at him and
commanding him to stay here where by mutual agreement we are taxed.

Joe Richguy has now benefitted, since I have by now already repaid (through
taxes on my greater earnings) those subsidies, and can now better share
supporting the costs of society with him.

You have also ducked my challenge.

Mike Huben

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point
than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.  The happiness
of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."  George Bernard Shaw
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
From: chris@keris.demon.co.uk (Chris Croughton)
Subject: Re: Psephological journals 
Distribution: world
Organization: Keristor Systems
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.19)
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 16:04:31 +0000

In article <93006.41398.J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM>
            J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM writes:

>But as I said before, it's predicated on the *if*.  There is no reasonable
>consensus on the "if."  Some think that a fetus is human.  Some think it isn't
>human until it's born.  Others think there is some "magical point" in utero at
>which a fetus can be considered "like a human being"--and to many, that magical
>point varies from a couple of months to the moment that a fetus could survive
>outside the womb.

'Survive' *how*?  At what point is that?  Certainly, five minutes after
birth the fetus can't survive on its own.  Or is meant as 'survive as an
independent entity, not totally dependant on a specific other person'?

OK, your point (somone's point <G>) about technology is valid to an
extent.  If the 'abortion' meant that the fetus survived (and was, if
necessary, implanted in the womb of a woman who wanted it) then there
would be very little objection (apart possibly from some of the
traditionallist churches at 'tampering with nature').  But that's not
really abortion - the whole problem with abortion as an issue is because
it involves *killing*.

Incidentally, I wonder how many vegetarians have abortions?  I've known
of one - and at the time I didn't think to question the hypocracy ("It's
wrong to kill animals, but OK to kill a human fetus").

I'd agree with your 'personal statement' - if I'm not being forced to
pay for someone else's abortion, I don't have the right to force them to
conform with my beliefs.  Incidentally, if I *am* being forced to pay
taxes towards their abortion, then by my beliefs I am being forced to be
an accessory to murder.  Ouch...

Anyway, it's nice to see a reasoned, non-personality bashing discussion
on this subject.  Well done...

***********************************************************************
*  chris@keris.demon.co.uk      *                                     *
*  chriscr@cix.compulink.co.uk  *  FIAWOL (Filking Is A Way Of Life)  *
*  100014.3217@compuserve.com   *                                     *
***********************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: The World
	<BZS.93Jan8173041@world.std.com>
	<PA142548.697.726776626@utkvm1.utk.edu>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 01:35:01 GMT


From: PA142548@utkvm1.utk.edu (T. Archer)
>You have not demonstrated how Exxon profited from the spill.  It remains 
>irrelivant.

In fact I have, a few times, but it's getting wearisome, go look thru
the thread. The executive summary is: Cost cutting.

>Exxon remains responible for the damage done.  Stockholders and company 
>owners remain shielded by limited liability laws that would not exist under 
>libertarian ideals.

In this case they don't need the shield, Exxon didn't go broke or even
nearly so over this.

>And when shit happens, the defacator should be held responsible if shit 
>happens on other people.  Do you disagree?

Sure, but who is going to hold them responsible? And isn't it at best
semantics to say that this isn't the govt?

>I can't find anything in the Libertarian Party platform that would permit 
>roadside dumping of toxic waste.  Dumping on someone else's property, or on 
>one's own property in such a manner as to present a public hazard would not 
>be protected under a libertarian administation.

No, neither can I.

What is missing however is the part where the libertarians dismantle
all the prevention and enforcement structure and somehow hope that it
will still work anyhow.

>>Ah, so push the envelope all the way back and damn the consequences?
>
>No, hold individuals responisble for their actions.

Who will do this? How? Don't wave your hands, describe the system that
will do this. I suspect that once laid out it will look a whole lot
like what we have today, or else it probably won't work (or just be
superficially different.)

>>Ah there ya go, crap, libertarianism only is against coercion inasmuch
>>as that serves its dogma. They're perfectly happy to demand coercion
>>otherwise. How unusual...
>
>No.  Libertarianism is against coercion period.  Where do you get this?

Something about "fraud and theft". However, libertarians want to
define what is covered under that, and the interests they as a (small)
group seem to define is not terribly general.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | bzs@world.std.com          | uunet!world!bzs
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian