From: hhuang@athena.mit.edu (Han-Young Huang)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:14:55 GMT

In article <BZS.93Jan8034450@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>From: hhuang@athena.mit.edu (Han-Young Huang)
>>>From: pjs269@tijc02.uucp (Paul Schmidt)
>>I seem to have enormous difficulty seeing how someone can make a few
>>million dumping toxic waste (unless citizens do not sue that person
>>for ruining theirp property -- hardly likely).
>
>Well, for starters there's the Exxon Valdez...I hear Exxon makes quite
>a bit of money. But one can quibble that I suppose, so how about the
>organized crime types who were picking up toxic waste and dumping it
>off on road sides when no one was looking? I hear they made millions
>posing as legitimate toxic waste removal services.

That is fraud, very punishable under a libertarian government.

>>Or how someone can
>>make a few million raiding people's savings, when a crucial point of
>>libertarianism is that one's property cannot be taken without one's
>>consent, whatever the circumstance.
>
>I assume you missed the recent Savings and Loans scandal that's
>costing the US around $500B?
>
>Or is the plan that under libertarianism there will be no one pushing
>the envelope of what they can get away with? A lot of the folks who
>made money off the S&L crisis technically didn't break a law, perhaps
>they used "poor judgement" or caused others to do that by loaning on
>property of questionable value, but hey, all the way to (or is it
>from?) the bank...

What was the cause of the Savings and Loans scandal?  The government
*strenghens* regulation by increasing the federal deposit insurance.
Some banks, embolded with ``security'' provided by taxpayers' money,
go foolhardy with speculation.  When those speculations fall through,
the bankers are not called upon to pay.  Instead, wondrous regulations
in the form of federal deposit insurance (which get their money from
taxes; where else does anything federal come from?) are called upon to
rush in monies en masse.  If the government stayed out of banking,
there would be no S&L ``scandal.''  There would be failed bankers, and
livid depositors who will insure that those banks which speculated
poorly would have a severely tarnished reputation.

The S&L situation is like if the government ``protects'' car-buyers
from their own foolhardy choices (i.e., paying them if they are so
unfortunate as to be bilked by incompetent car companies) by
``insuring'' car-buyers for the entire price of their cars if they
should break down within a year due to poor manufacturing.  Hyundai
(let's pick on them :-) is thus emboldened because they don't have to
worry about their customers asking for refunds, for a car which
actually works, for retribution through lawsuits.  Why should the
customers do such a thing?  They can go to the USA Federal Government
and get their full refund.  As a matter of fact, they don't even have
to do that.  The Federal Government will pay it through Hyundai.  The
customers don't even have to blink an eye (until they hear in the news
about some massive ``automobile industry scandal, cost $50 billion+).

So Hyundai uses this ploy.  Oh, it's the dirty businessmen again,
taking advantage of customers, right?  Wrong.  It's the government
subsidizing poor cars by ``protecting'' car-buyers from the
consequences of their poor choices.

The S&L scandal was brought about by an *increase* in regulation,
which, ironically, funnelled money from the middle class to the rich,
note the Keating Five and probably countless other bribes which must
have happened at all levels of government.  What is not ironic is that
the regulation caused the problem in the first place.  What *is*
ironic, and disgusting, is to see ``the corrupt rich'' or ``dirty
businessmen/bankers'' being blamed for a measure which was brought
about by the government meddling (``protecting'' ``insuring'', it's
all the same) where it had no business to in the first place.

>You are talking about idealized behavior. Enormous amounts of what you
>see around you in terms of laws and regulations is because there seems
>to always be a certain ruthless type of human being who insists on
>living right at the edge of what is absolutely forbidden and what is
>questionably legal. So you have to firm up that edge lest they prey on
>people who run their lives based on reasonable common sense. You can't
>posit a world based on reasonable and honest people, reasonable and
>honest people rarely go near the edge.

I personally agree with you on many of these counts.  I also believe
that that edge should be much examined, though I feel that edge should
be pushed far away from the current egregious level of statism that
exists in America today.  This ``edge'' is where our lawyers and
politicians should be reasoning, and not on trying their best to make
life difficult for everybody, and push the edge back to the twin
failures of socialism and fascism.

>>Perhaps you are assuming that
>>people are stupid and cannot be counted upon to protect what is
>>theirs.  It's a rather malevolent notion.
>
>Yes, so stupid as to hand their money over to banks for deposit who
>then go belly-up after loaning all the deposit money to their
>brothers-in-law. You must have an amazingly naive notion about
>punishment and accountability. Even if these scum are caught do you
>think they ever have the money? Do you think victims get paid back? Do
>you think punishing them pays people back?

I am counting on reputation, which is a value, like any other.  Many
people were ``stupid'' enough to buy a Hyundai.  It is unfortunate
that they did so.  But Hyundai learned its lesson quite well, and you
can be sure the rest of the automobile industry learned quite quickly,
too.  And one doesn't have to get a MBA from a top business school to
see what happens when one sells products with poor quality.

Yes, many people are stupid.  I can claim to have made many unwise
purchases, and I have learned from them, often not the first time, but
hopefully the second, and often perhaps not even then.  Shall I ask my
neighbor to ``take responsibility'' for it, by paying for my lack of
prudence?  And what shall his or her money be used for anyway, but to
subsidize bad purchases?  How will his or her money be used to make me
a more prudent buyer, or to somehow punish the merchant who sells such
bad wares?  It just doesn't wash.

>What gives ``the electorate'' the right to decide if you murder, rape
>or steal that you can be held in a cage at gunpoint?
>
>It's the same "right" [as which allows the electorate to tax you].

``The electorate'' uses that right to uphold the rights of its
citizens from having their bodies and property violated.  The
libertarian government is against the initiation of force, but will
use force to punish those who would initiate it, in violation of
other's rights to body and property, among other things.

But I have a question.  Is robbery ``one citizen's coercive
confiscation of another citizen's property by utilizing the threat of
physical violence''?  If so, then the government simply commits
robbery on a horribly grand, historically unprecedented scale.

>>The whole problem with a democratic society is that at any time, 50.1%
>>of the society can vote to wreck the livelihoods of the remaining
>>49.9%.  Do you consider this good government?  Does sound quite
>>dictatorial to me...
>
>You will never escape the will of the mob, about the best anyone has
>ever figured out to do is herd them into voting booths. That's hardly
>an opinion.

Let me construct one type of homophobic mob: which would go out and
slaughter lesbians, bisexuals, and gays en masse if given the license.
However, the American government specifically denies them that
license.  It seems to work quite well against the mob.

>In the end that's the pathos, it's impossible to understand who
>libertarians are appealing (complaining) to? Is your point that people
>should democratically vote what you assert they will not? Or are you
>going to force them into libertarianism at gunpoint, or what? (And
>don't repeat the catechism about coercion to me, what are your plans?)

Can we agree that a non-libertarian is a statist of some sort.  You
imply that all libertarians are alike, so I'll be just as
argumentatively unfair and imply that all non-libertarians are alike
-- in that they want to use government, and hence I call them
statists.

Who are the statists complaining to?  What knaws at them every day to
covet their neighbor's property and rights?  What perversion causes
them to not only feel that their coveting is justified, but they
should go further and call down guns upon whatever displeases them?
What ulcer have they that makes them so irritable and intolerant, and
inevitably pugnacious with other statists who shockingly disagree with
them (or even worse, libertarians who have the gall to say that
everybody should quit fighting and leave everybody else's rights and
property alone!)?

Plans?  Cut government at all levels, of all kinds.  Do it slowly, but
steadily.  Reform the judicial, law and tort systems.  Phase out
contracts.  The populace is addicted to government.  The last thing we
want to do is quit cold turkey.  Is that what you ask?  I'm not a
policy wonk, nor an expert of any sort.  I'm quite ignorant of most of
government, and necessarily naive in whatever government I place my
trust in.  *However*, I am completely convinced that most
non-libertarian approaches do not have my best interests at heart, nor
that of the great majority of the American people.  You don't have to
be a genius to vote LP.  You just need to be disillusioned from the
false prophecies of statism (to begin with, there're the Democratic
and Republican parties).

Only government can reduce the size of government.  So, yes, you need
force (government) to reduce government.  So you need force to go
towards libertarianism.  Is this bad?  Perhaps you've been talking to
too many holier-than-thou libertarians.  I try not to be that way, but
it can't always be helped, especially when others come towards us with
a you're-all-fools--quit-complaining-and-accept-statism-and-mob-rule
attitude.

>I suppose that is why they are so pugnacious, anyone who doubts them
>is at least something to push against. It must be frustrating shouting
>at the air most of the time.

Curse me for following my principles.  But what's this ``shouting at
the air'' nonsense?  Are we arguing morality/principles of
libertarianism, or is that a jibe at our apparent lack of clout in the
American political system?  You seem to be saying that ``might makes
right (and that the mob holds the might, so there).''  But correct me
if I'm wrong; I'm willing to listen.

Han-Young Huang
hhuang@athena.mit.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism