From: ARCHER@utkvm1.utk.edu (T. Archer)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,alt.individualism
Subject: Re: = Opportunity etc.
Date: 7 Jan 93 14:10:11 GMT
Organization: University of Tennessee

In article <1igrjfINN28t@agate.berkeley.edu> mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu (Manish Vij) writes:
>In article <ARCHER.627.726336611@utkvm1.utk.edu> ARCHER@utkvm1.utk.edu (T. 
Archer) writes:>>Unrelated:  participation in the Salvation Army is 
voluntary.  Participation >>in a state-mandated "war on poverty" is 
manadory, coercive, and immoral.>
>The first issue is whether to help anyone else, assuming they're responsible
>for their own successes, as all ultimately are.  The second is whether
>to coerce such aid by funding anti-poverty programs through taxes.

If they are responsible for their own successes, why must you help them?  
Because they need help.  I have no argument with this.  It is moral to help 
anyone you can.  It is immoral for the state to coerce you into helping by 
taxation enforced by the threat of imprisonment.

>
>If you truly wouldn't even part with your fecal matter for anyone else's
>sake, you wouldn't really get along in a family.  

Some people prefer to live alone.

>Aside from altruistic
>reasons, mutual aid and cooperation eventually in a selfish sense benefits
>those who participate.  

Sure.  And that is a good argument to persuade people to participate.  It 
does not support stated coerced "charity."

>My philosophy is to extend that family concept from
>the nuclear family to human beings in general.  I may not practice it all
>the time, but it is an ideal I admire.

That's your choice, and a good one I think, but the state should not be 
forcing it on people who do not choose it.

>
>As for the second issue, consider:
>
>1) Taxation can marshal enormous resources to take care of a problem.

So can impoundment. This is irrelivant.

>2) The portion of taxation which currently goes to welfare etc. is miniscule
this is also irrelivant.  We are talking about the principle of coercion 
here.
>   compared to the so-called valid portion which goes to defense and 
>other tasks which federal gov't is well-adapted to.

Who said these were necessarily valid?

>3) It is not at all clear that voluntary charity alone takes care of
>   suffering; it does not now, 

NOTHING takes care of all suffering.  It is a basic tenet of human nature to 
want more than you have.  There will always be poor and needy, all we can 
hope to do is re-define "poor."

>in the current social-justice-influenced
>   system, and abuses of capitalism show everywhere, especially in
>   developing nations.
>
>Again, if the belief is that "If they don't succeed on their own, f*ck 'em,"
>I disagree sharply for both the above reasons and the following example:

So do I.  People who need help SHOULD be helped, and I help them when I 
can.  The state should not be FORCING you to help through coercion.

>without managed trade, we would have much weaker domestic auto and 
>chipmaking industries.  This is just an extension of the isolationist
>argument, but applied to business rather than individuals.

Our domestic chip-making industry is dead-in-the-water due to unfair trade 
practices from abroad, typically caused by thier government subsidizing 
thier industry to the point where they could practice product-dumping with 
the deliberate intention of killing off competition.  This is an act of 
economic war, and well within the purview of state intervention.

As to isolationism, I think it's a good idea, militarily speaking.  We've 
currently got our fingers in every forgien policy tar-baby that King George 
can think of, and Slick Willie is all aboil to commit troops to that meat-
grinder that they are running is Bosnia.  Men AND tax-money, both of whom we 
will never see again.

>
>Sure; I was just taking the example of starvation.
>
>[Of Nicaragua:]
>>As I recall, the revolution there took property from those who legally owned 
>>it without compensating them, and gave it to those who did not.  That is 
>>theft.
>
>There are sometimes higher values than upholding the law.  Otherwise, for
If you're not going to follow the rules, why bother to write them down and 
call them laws?

>example, the American Revolution was composed of merely law-breaking
>riff-raff.  In my view, when an extreme polarization of wealth is
>achieved in a society and poverty becomes unbearable and widespread, 
>overthrow of the ruling class is perfectly justified.

They weren't riff-raff, they were law-breaking elite.  Ain't success 
wonderful?  They got to write history books.  Otherwise, the "American 
Rebellion" would be just another footnote to the saga of the British Empire.

>>>No one has claimed that the invisible hand is benevolent, only 
omnipotent.  >>Anytime you try to dink with the laws of supply and demand, 
you cause more >>problems than you solve.
>
>It is clumsy to "dink" with market forces, granted.  Farm subsidies, I'll
>give you, have caused problems.  The minimum wage, however, is better for
>our economy than the harms it causes.  Other examples abound.

I disagree.  For every life helped by the minimum wage, I believe another to 
be unemployed, partially because the current minimum wage causes him to be 
unable to afford it, and because other taxes finish the job.

>
>>>We can strike a balance between suffocating overregulation and the cruelty of
>>>the free market.
>>>
>>
>>Not really.
>
>You've been living far too long under Republican administrations :-).

Spendycrat control over the legislative branch hardly constitues a "
republican" administation.  Congress is the chief-thief up in tax-town, not 
the oval office.

>
>>Vote Dempublican, it's easier than thinking.
>
>Vote Green; at least there's some thought-provoking arguments.

Neo-rousseauian kiss-the-trees-and-it'll-be-okay claptrap.
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Vote Dempublican, it's easier than thinking.
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Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,alt.individualism