Newsgroups: alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Libertarian Platform
From: jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner)
Date: 12 Nov 92 01:27:19 EST
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt) writes:
> sulkom@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Mark Sulkowski) writes:
> 
> >	Well, the way Andre Marrou explained it to the media, there are
> >three government services that are basic to the protection of 
> >individual rights, they are: national defense, a system of courts, 
> >and police. If government does any more than protect individual 
> >rights, it is probably violating them in some way, and so rights-
> >respecting Libertarians want government to do very little else.  
> >Those three services would comprise the bulk of the government, 
> >and the total cost would be much, much less than the cost of the 
> >government we have now.
> 
> The counter-argument here is that if government is reduced to these
> three services, there would be more crime and also more civil court
> cases, so the size of these would be considerably increased.  As 
> there is little evidence either way, it requires an act of faith 
> (based on one's understanding of human nature) to state that the 
> total cost would be much, much less than now.

little evidence?
  1. expense would go down. drastically. look at a pie chart of where
     tax dollars go in the US, then eliminate the arcs that represent
     the areas Libertarians would cut. there's your reduction of
     expenses.
  2. the counter argument is complete bunk. the load on the police
     & courts would decrease immediately due to the decriminalization of 
     victimless "crimes". (can you say "no more War on Drugs"?)
     another decrease in crime should result from police turning their
     attention to actual crimes. an armed populous would decrease
     crime even more. if someone wants to post the numbers on these,
     please do. the point is that no such thing as an "act of
     faith" is necessary.
  3. even if you don't agree with a word i've typed, you can't get
     away from the fact that government expense hasn't always been
     this high. we did it before. we can do it again.

> [There is also the problem of funding a legislature (to enact any 
> laws) and an executive (to take initiatives) in responding to 
> changes in social structure; it requires another act of faith to 
> say that these are unnecessary.]

compared to the -rest- of the budget, actual funding for the executive
and legeslative branches is trivial. under a libertarian government
it would become even more so, considering the number of perks that
would get chopped. 

in an ideal world we wouldn't need any government. this isn't an ideal
world, but we can still get by with a lot less government than we've
got now.

jason

--
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`,` "True love is better than anything, except cough drops."            `,`
`,`                     - The Princess Bride (book), by William Goldman `,`
`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,`,` jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu ,`,`,`
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