Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Outgrowing Libertarianism...
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 1 Sep 92 09:45:52 EST
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
 <52630@dime.cs.umass.edu> <4ebx6US00WCXE3Rks5@andrew.cmu.edu> <secerKu00WAyQMHF1Q@andrew.cmu.edu>
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <secerKu00WAyQMHF1Q@andrew.cmu.edu>, Thomas Omar Smith <ts2a+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
...
>>	Not true.  Libertarians hold individual rights supreme.  Period.  No
>>ifs and buts or ors.
> 
> No, Libertarians hold economic individual rights supreme.  There is a
> major difference.

	I see your rhetoric, and raise you the Libertarian Platform:
 
                        1992 National Platform
                                of the
                          Libertarian Party
 
                        Adopted in Convention
                             August 1991
                          Chicago, Illinois
 
 
                               PREAMBLE
 
As Libertarians, we  seek a world  of liberty; a world  in  which  all
individuals are sovereign  over their own  lives, and no one is forced
to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
 
We believe  that  respect  for  individual  rights  is  the  essential
precondition for a  free and prosperous  world, that force  and  fraud
must be banished  from human  relationships,  and  that  only  through
freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.
 
Consequently, we defend  each person's right to engage in any activity
that is peaceful  and honest, and  welcome the diversity that  freedom
brings.  The world  we seek to build is one where individuals are free
to follow their  own dreams in  their own ways,  without  interference
from government or any authoritarian power.
 
In the following  pages we have  set forth our  basic  principles  and
enumerated various policy stands derived from those principles.
 
These specific policies  are not  our  goal,  however.   Our  goal  is
nothing more nor less than a world set free in our lifetime, and it is
to this end that we take these stands.
 
[...rest deleted for your comfort...]
 
>>> rich, then you can buy whatever sets of rights and protections you want.
>>
>>	But you can NOT infringe upon the rights of others.  Period.
> 
> You can if nothing tangible exists to stop you.  After all, we are
> dealing with amoral politics now.

	Not.

>>>  However, if you are poor, you cannot purchase certain protections that
>>> are basic rights.  For example, Libertarians want to make people pay for
>>> private roads.  In theory, it sounds nice.  However, if you are poor and
>>> you need to get to a hospital in a hurry, this could be literally life
>>> and death.  
>>
>>	Not at all.  Emergency service would have the same bypass mode that
>>they do now.  No stopping to pay tolls for ambulances.
> 
> Then you admit the government has a right to intervene in people's
> property rights to ensure other basic human rights.  

	I admit no such thing.  Please state where I do if you feel otherwise.

> The free use of the
> road is as effectively a tax as any other form.  The owner of the road
> provides free service to the government.

	It is the owner's choice to do so, and also in their best interest, as
it may be them riding in the ambulance.
	If the owner of the road doesn't want to let E-vehicles through on
bypass mode, then they'll find their road unsupported by those who feel
E-vehicle service is a good thing to have.

>>> For that matter, in a Libertarian society, once you got to
>>> the hospital, you might be left to die in the lobby because you couldn't
>>> afford the money for a simple life saving procedure.
>>
>>	Once again, people take today's society and attempt to overlay it onto
>>Libertarian philosphy.  Libertarians believe that the best way to
> ensure health
>>care is to make sure everyone has adequate opportunity to economic resources
>>(like jobs, markets, etc.)  Government can hand out fish and raise a
> generation
>>(or three) of dependants, or we can provide the tools and let people be taught
>>how to fish.
> 
> I agree that the government should provide people with the basic tools
> to achieve self sufficiency.  Those include a good public education,
> equal access to markets despite racial or religious boundaries and
> support for entrepreneurship.  I've seen far to many purist libertarians
> who want to remove public education and allow discrimination.  These
> don't grant rights, they remove them.

	Education:

	I don't see anything wrong with the government providing education
*if* they allow both competition and voluntary participation.
	If government education is so good, let them prove it in a competative
marketplace.

	Discrimination:

	If people are dumb enough to want to actively practice it, I'd rather
have it out in the open, so I can avoid them.  Rather than them hiding behind
the government.
	Peer pressure and people protesting is what removed the *government
sanctioned* segragationist laws.  Not do-gooding bureaucrats.

>>> Let me give a concrete example of how a theory can be perfectly logical,
>>> and yet morally repugnant.
>>
>>	But you are assuming that the goal of Libertarianism is "me-ism". 
>>Which is not the case.  It's simply less "thout shall-ism" and more "do unto
>>others".
> 
> Exactly my point.  But without governmental mechanisms in place, the
> rich do unto others until the others have nothing left.

	I disagree.  If you are rich, why would you care (assuming "me" mode)
about the poor?  They're not going to hinder your banquet plans or your
investments.  Thinking that the rich want to opress the poor for the fun of it
is not backed up by facts.

	In addition, Libertarians support the rights of *all*, not just the
rich.  There is no income test for Libertarianism.

>>	Someone posted earlier about letting people starve.  I answered their
>>question, but have little hope that that will prevent them from in the future
>>stating
>>	"All libertarians would let people starve"
>>	When that is clearly not the case.
> 
> Some libertarians would give food to the poor out of their own pocket,
> certanly.  Others wouldn't.  No argument there.  For that matter I'll
> agree that if someone refuses to work or try and make themselves more
> able to work, then they should be allowed to starve.  However, saying
> that private charities are the only reasonable mechanism to prevent
> starvation is stupid.  

	But we're (Libertarians) are not saying "only".  We're saying the
government should not make participation in their plan(s) mandatory and they
should allow private organizations to operate in competative areas.
	(Witness the prosecution of the California man who was taking drunk
people home in his car.  They arrested him for violating taxi regulations.)

>There are people who are in dire trouble through
> no fault of their own.  I shudder to think that we as a society have
> reached the point where we will not ensure the basic necessities to
> widows and orphans unless we happen to feel generous that day.
> 
>>> Postulate: Killing all blacks in America would lower crime rates.
>>
>>	Remove blacks and it's the same strawman.
>>
>>> 1) Blacks have the highest crime rate of any ethnic group.
>>> 2) Removing blacks from the society would remove their crime rate
>>> 3) Removing a group with a crime rate above the national average will
>>> lower the national crime rate on average.
>>> 4) Killing every black in America would remove them as a group.
>>> 5) Therefore, killing every black in America would lower the national
>>> crime rate.
>>> 
>>> Logically, there is no flaw.  Yet morally, this is genocide in its
>>> basest, most vile form.  This is not to say that Libertarianism
>>> advocates genocide.  This is an illustration of how a system that is
>>> logically correct can be morally outrageous.
>>
>>	Let's get extreme.  Destroying the planet will eliminate human crime
>>also.  Putting a "but Libertarianism isn't this extreme" at the end doesn't
>>make the analogy any less disingenuous.
> 
> I wasn't making an analogy, I was making a point.  The point was that
> logic does not prove morality.  A system can be completely logical and
> workable and still be morally wrong.

	True.  And Libertarians come from the same crosss-section as the rest
of the US (and world).  There will be people who don't care and those that do. 
But you can't legislate morality any more than you can legislate faith.

>>> Libertarians need to accept the fact that people possess certain basic
>>> human rights.  
>>
>>	One more time:
>>
>>	Libertarians hold individual rights supreme.
>>
>>	Next straw man?
> 
> Yet these same Libertarians would remove every mechanism for ensuring
> the protection of many of those rights.  

	No, we wouldn't.  We would take away the government power to decide
what is discrimination and lawful in that context.  People had to fight the
government to get their civil rights, which never should have been taken away
in the first place.  To say that the same government that took them away in the
first place (and can do it again) is the "protector" of these rights isn't
something the Libertarians find logical.

> Holding rights as supreme
> requires taking action to ensure that ALL PEOPLE receive full, equal
> consideration of their rights.  Individuals, acting as individuals,
> cannot guarantee that on a large scale.  Only large scale organization
> with authority can do that on a large scale.  And that, my friend, is
> what government is.

	Government should have the power to prevent fraud and ensure rights,
but not the power to legislate morality or faith.  Racial bigotry is like
religion in that facts will seldom sway the believer.  Are we to then try to
force these people to our own point of view, or the views of the "majority"? 
Or simply make sure that their views do not harm others?

	A "blacks only" store is not directly harming blacks.  Assuming, of
course, that the government no longer has the power to deny new businesses from
starting up.

	As long as the government controls certain businesses, then segragation
is fraud and to be stopped.  But then you're asking the fox to police itself
while in the henhouse.

> The straw man is the Libertarian insistence on the value of personal
> freedom.  They may value it, but not enough to do more than say its a
> good thing.  Ensuring rights requires resources and organization,
> neither of which the Libertarians are willing to let government provide.

	We do not believe that government bureaucracies protect rights.  Given
the LA Riots, and the opposition to the war on drugs, I would say that we are 
not alone.
	Rights have always been secured by the actions of individuals.  Those
weren't bureaucrats marching in the south during the 60s.

>>> An important purpose of government is to insure that
>>> these rights are protected for all citizens regardless of social or
>>> economic status.  
>>
>>        Government does not fulfill this role, and is a proven major abuser in
>>this respect.  Do the Jim Crow laws ring any bells?  Slavery? 
>>*Institutionalized* by government.
>>	So don't give us this "it's government's role" bullshit.  Government
>>should not have that power, because it implies the reverse.
> 
> I never claimed government was perfect.  Or even close.  But without a
> government attempting to ensure rights, there is NO protection for
> individual freedom beyond money and a gun.  Not a country I want to live
> in, but one we quickly degenerate into when government's ability to
> safeguard freedoms is weak.  You can observe this phenomenon in the Old
> West, or in many modern inner cities.  When government fails to protect
> anyone's rights, everyone loses.

	Government should protect people and their rights.  What we seem to
disagree on are what exactly are "rights".  I would like to live in a world
where religion plays no important role, but do not hold any hope for seeing
that come about.  However, I do not wish to prevent people from following their
religions, even though millions have died because of them.

>>> To do this, the government must generate revenues for
>>> the enforcement and litigation of these protections.  And that is why
>>> governments have the moral right to impose taxes.  It is more immoral
>>> for them to not do it and allow the wealthy to buy the rights of the
>>> poor against the will of the poor.
>>
>>	That would not happen in a Libertarian society.  Despite the constant
>>assertions (unsupported, no less!) by non-Libs that it would.
> 
> But the question you have to ask is, WHY wouldn't it happen.  If nothing
> beyond a general principle exists to preserve freedom, then the first
> person with the needed strength tramples basic freedoms for his own
> ends.  

	But it's not a principle.  Government can protect people, but should
not attempt to legislate morality.  Someone not liking people based on the
color of their skin is not harming anyone, unless and until that person acts in
such a way to infringe upon the other person's rights.  And until that point,
the government should not be around.

> If more than that exists, then there must be a government
> existing to do it.  And if the government exists then it has to support
> itself.  and the way a government supports itself is through taxes.

	There should be a government, but not funded by taxes on income.  It
should have the role of protecting rights (among other duties) but should not
have the power to legislate morality.

Brett                                                      
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