From: sals@random.uchicago.edu (red-head fancier)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:33:22 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)
> >>Some guy who made a few million dumping toxic waste or raided people's
> >>savings etc may not have done his planet any good, but he's living it
> >>up somewhere on the money and probably thinks it all worked out pretty
> >>well! No doubt such evility would be a huge fan of libertarianism,
> >>these guys slip thru the currently regulated environment.
> >
> >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.
> 

The EXXon Valdez is largely protected from lawsuits by government  
environmental legislation.
>> 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...
> 
Many of the laons made by s&l's were made because the federal government  
made it profitable for them to do so by shielding the s&l's and their  
presidents from the consequences of bad loans.
 
> 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. 
Common law, unlike legislative law, allows for an evolution is law so that  
grey areas become resolved.
And how does the government do anything to solve this "problem"? And why  
do you think there is a problem with a few people living on the edge?
>You can't
> posit a world based on reasonable and honest people, reasonable and
> honest people rarely go near the edge.
Libertarians dont' posit a world based on reasonable and honest people.  
Libertarian's assume that people are willing to act in their own interest.  
> >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?


You've just pointed out problem due to government intervention. Federal  
S&L regulation shielded S&L's from accountability and punishment?  
Punishing them accordding to our criminal law system does not pay the  
people back. A common law system with reperations for the victims would  
help pay the people back. > 
> >>Other than when the electorate acts "irrationally" and imposes taxes
> >>on themselves soas to pay for the common weal.
> >
> >What is ``the electorate''?  What gives ``the electorate'' (i.e.,
> >other people) the right to decide if I should be held at gunpoint to
> >pay my taxes?
> 
> I assume "what is the electorate" to be a rhetorical question since
> you seem, by the next sentence, to know who they are.
> 
> 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".
> 
No it's not. The "right" to punish a criminal is the "right" to compensate  
victims for interference with their rights. Punishment of criminal in the  
form of a common law system would still occur in a libertarian society.
> >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...
> 
Again you've pointed out a flaw in present society not in a libertarian  
society.A libertarian society is not mob rule. It would involve either a  
limited government with strict checks on government power, or no  
government at all.
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