From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: NDP "communism?" (was Re: A vote for Reform...)
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 10:14:56 GMT

In article <C0o5wH.Cns@ecf.toronto.edu> pelton@ecf.toronto.edu (PELTON MATTHEW ALAN) writes:
> It's hard to tell whether you mean it, or whether you have a real sick
>sense of humour...
>
>>
>>Means and ends. Why don't you get off your high horse and admit that they
>>both want the same thing but are going about it differently.
>
> I thought the way you went about something made a difference.
>
Not if you end up with the same result.

Socialism distorts the free market, therefore it will fail; perhaps
not as quickly or as brutally as communism, but it'll fail.
Since both systems fail, mostly in the same way, they are equivalent.
>>
>>Communism and socialism both espouse the same ideology - a system that will
>>solve all the world's problems. As a guy named Jesus tells us - we will
>>always have poor people. And unlike poor people 50 years ago - poor people
>>today have color tv's, and can spend welfare money on wasteful and anti-

>  Ask a Biblical scholar.  When Jesus said the poor will always be with you,
> he was making a joke.  Things always sound better out of context.
>  And I wonder where you've been living, or if you've ever actually seen a
> poor person.  The hundreds of people that come into the Scott Mission daily
> don't own a change of clothes, let alone a fucking colour TV.  If you live
> below the poverty line and have a spouse and a kid, you're lucky if you can
> affor rent, heating, and food.  Luxuries are pipe dreams to these people.  
> I'd advise a reality check.

Your personal experience is interesting, but isn't woth shit for proving 
anything. Stats Canada figures show that standard of living for everyone
has increased in the past 50 odd years; there may be a lot of RELATIVE
poverty, but many feel poor only because they aren't doing as hot as
others, not that they are in abject poverty. You should read the Globe&Mail
article a few days ago that quoted how many defined as 'poor' by StatsCan
own TVs, one car, two cars, three cars, appliances, their own home etc.
If you read the percentages of what many under the poverty line
possess, you would be surprised, and you would think that they may have
it tough, but that life is still pretty good, especially compared to
how they;d live in other parts of the world.

(1. hundreds come to your mission because it is free. free = inifinite demand
 in any supply - demand system. 2. They get 500+ per months, with which one
 can feed themselves with )

>  Of course, we all know that the poor brought it on themselves.  Never mind tha that they were born poor, never recieved an education, wouldn't even be 
> considered for higher-paying jobs, and are stuck in dead-end positions with
> no hope of ever making above minimum wage or doing anything interesting for a
> living.  And forget, of course, the omnipotent government that sets minimum
> wage at a level that couldn't support a single person, let alone their family.
>  Lord knows most unemployed people are perfectly happy scraping by on measly
> UIC checks.  They're much happier watching "I Love Lucy" re-runs all day than
> thinking that they're actually doing something productive for society.  And
> the ones who can't work because they're disabled, or mentally handicapped,
> or illiterate -- all their fault too.
> 
Never recieved an education? Well, we shouldn't be too hard on what passes
for 'education' these days, but at least they sat in class for 10-12 years.

Stop deluding yourself: minimum wage laws CREATE and INCREASE unemployment,
you have to be comatose not to be able to comprehend that. SImple:
raise the price and demand falls. Raise the price of labor, and demand
falls, so unemployment goes up. The typical socialist economic tinkering
always fails, and the stats back that up. Put in rent controls, and
the market responds by not building anymroe; result: worse housing
shortages. Force people to join unions, and you restrict competition,
driving up wage prices, causing demand for labor to fall, therefore
increasing unemployment. This is textbook stuff, bud. We capitalists
can thank the socialists for engineering the massive, painful economics
experiments, which prove supply&demand and free markets. Maybe you should
educate yourself about what is wrong, economically. Start by reading
F. A. von Hayek (an economist ahead of his time; ignored while idiots
fell overthemselves playing the games Keynes advocated)


>
>>Maybe anti-social activities like single mothers on welfare who get pregnant
>>are making the problem worse. That's right - people are to blame for their
>>own problems.
>
>  Yah.  O.K.

Biologically, we are programmed to reproduce, and gauranteed welfare 
encourages females to have offspring earlier, since the state will
be around to provide, instead of her looking after herself, or with 
a 2nd parent.
>>
>>If we cut taxes by 20% accross the board, we wouldn't need all of this
>>social junk. Healthy people wouldn't have to pay for all of those idiots
>>in the hospital who smoke a pack a day and are now dying of lung cancer.
>>That's right. People are to blame for their own problems. And its time
>>we stopped bankrolling them. Idiots who have liver problems because they
>>buy a case of beer a week. Let them die. I don't want to pay for these
>>idiots. Fat people - make 'em diet or cut off their health care. That
>>is right - make them pay. People who care for their health should stop
>>bankrolling those people who don't. 
>>
>>And guys who get AIDS because they were too stupid not to put a condom on
>>their weenie or keep it inside their pants. Let them die. I don't want
>>to pay for idiots. Punish stupidity - not working people who care for
>>their health, who actually earn their own money and can look after
>>their families.
>>
>>Maybe the destruction of the universal health care system is a necessity.
>>Or maybe a new rule - not that of wealth but that of health. In this
>>system idiots have no right to leech off the rest of us. Fat people
>>alcoholics and cigarette abusers - watch out. You are costing the system
>
>  I suppose it was my father's fault when he got hit by a car driven by a
> woman who had just suffered a stroke at 150 km/hr down the wrong side of
> a highway.  And my friend feels very guilty about forcing the taxpayers 
> to pay for the reconstruction of his right arm after he was hit by a hit-
> and-run driver (probably drunk) while walking down the sidewalk.  Or my
> second cousin, who got infected with HIV through a blood tranfusion.
>  They're all very sorry, and they agree that your taxes should be cut.
>
Sue someone. 

Probabiliies for obscure accidents are low enough, that
insurance (even if run by the state) is a legitamate way to deal with
such problems, NOT by robbing one person to pay for another's welfare.
We are talking about unknown risks, and known risks.

Laroque was talking about people who deliberately worsen the odds
for disease, accident, etc. That's their right, but then they should
pay higher premiums, to cover the KNOWN risk. Arguing with tearjerking
scenarios is really pointless, because the odds for that are ridiculously
low, and that kind of risk is easiliy insurable. When a KNOWN risk is
there, and people act to increase the risk, then people should be
punished, ie by higher premiums or taxes, since  they had enough 
knowledge to begin with. Nice try, but the scenarios you describe
are not comparable.



-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
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