From: tweaver@nyx.cs.du.edu (T.C.Weaver)
Subject: Re: Lovely things found in my mailbox
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Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 18:28:08 GMT

jclark@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (John Clark) writes:

>The Libertarians fail on the 'social consciousness' aspect, since
>quite a few religate concern for the welfare of other to the
>religious domain, and with the lessening of the 'religiousness'
>people have looked to the government to fill the void.
>
>This presupposes that the 'needy' were well looked after by the
>church support institutions, which in fact was not true, but at
>least one could call on that icon as an answer to the 'problem of
>the poor' posed by the laisse-fare advocates.

Tut, tut. You're assuming that religious = churchy, organised religious. I'm
homeless again at the moment (I need a job ;-), but am staying with a friend.
I *could* be staying in a B&B, charging the local council at least 10 pounds
a night while I house-hunt. Instead, I'm imposing on Christian charity in its
purist sense (I'm not Christian; he is).

The government certainly fails on the homelessness issue - many here are
trapped in the "too scruffy to get a house - have to sleep on the streets -
get dirty and scruffy, drunk & despairing" circle. Yet there are supposedly
plans of privision which cost the taxpayer plenty.

> Other issues the
>Libertarians don't deal with on a 'purist' level is various personal
>issues which are the logical extreme of 'governmental hands off',
>such as spousal abuse, rape of the wife, etc. The 'purist' argument
>suggests that the government should stay out of personal
>relationships, but in these cases most feel that the state does have
>an interest in protecting the person from abuse by another.

Expecting the goverment to stay out of your personal affairs is not the same
as expecting them to ignore you when you ask for help. Operation Spanner was
an outrage - an intrusion on personal choice of private conduct; it should
have been a different matter if any of those people were forced into having
physical damage perpetrated on them, but - backed up by personal experience
in my case, from having someone try to kill me - too often, victims such as
you cite are ignored as "domestics": cases where the police will not intervene.

So, we don't ignore personal issues - and are not as inconsistent as the
government on the limits of intervention (the Independent this week had a
thinly veiled reference to the Terence Higgins Trust video when the police
called for guidelines on what is pornographic, since there is no legislation
stating "this act may not be depicted", just a caveat against penises erect
more than 45 degrees and against "bad taste" ;-). When the State will ignore
spousal abuse and marital rape, yet prosecute consensual acts seen as
abnormal, that State is not acting correctly - it should be invocable by the
citizenry, not domineering.

>So the real debate on taxes and expenditures really centers around
>definitions of 'defense and general welfare' rather than 'to tax or
>not to tax'.

I'm not an anarchist - I believe government has some function. Defence I
find fair enough, but how is so vague a remit as "general welfare" to be
decided? Would it be good for the "general welfare" of the US if all the
uppity socialists, queers, liberal loudmouths etc. were taxed heavily into
submission? Poor people make bad rebels - undernourished and trying merely
to survive.

Tanaqui