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From: chrisp@oliven.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Rent control, etc.
Message-ID: <151@oliven.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Jun-84 19:56:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliven.151
Posted: Fri Jun  8 19:56:32 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Jun-84 01:24:55 EDT
Organization: Olivetti ATC, Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 60

>It must be nice to have such faith in "other institutions". I don't.
>As bad as governments often are (I admit it freely), history 
>indicates (in the case of this country, at least) that governments 
>can sometimes express and respond to the desires and needs of large 
>groups of human beings.  There is also some reason to believe that
>as our knowledge of ourselves and the governmental process improves, 
>it may be possible to increase the degree to which governments are
>worthwhile and useful, as opposed to destructive and repressive.
>I don't think that this approach is particularly unreasonable.

>                            I don't know what people argued about
>during the Revolution, not being a historian, 

>Bob Binstock

Since this argument has turned from invective to reason, it seems to be worth
re-entering:

I cannot call myself an historian. I haven't written anything. But I can call
myself a student of history. A study of this country's history makes it
abundantly clear that it is precisely when the DESIRES of the majority have been
implimented that the greatest evils have happened. If you were to expand your
study to other places and times, this lesson would become even clearer.

One of the clearest and most disgusting examples of this fact is the
"internment" of one small group of American citizens in concentration camps in
1942. Not only were these citizens deprived, patently un-constitutionally but
"legally", of they liberty. Their property was "confiscated". The appearance of
"legality" was maintained to the extent that the Supreme Court ruled that "due
process" had been observed in this theft and incarceration. All of this foulness
was perpetrated at the clear desire of the majority. (I will grant that no
referendum was held on the subject, but there was no need.

Nor can one claim that this is an isolated example in the history of the United
States. If you need further examples you could profitably study the Ku Klux
Klan, Reconstruction and the Know Nothings. Then there is segrigation, there is
the persucution of the Chinese in California, etc. Each of these foul episodes
was a popular movement that was furthered by government.

If you know and understand a reasonable proportion of these episodes in this
country's history, it should be clear to you that government does not stand
between you and "the jungle". (If you don't, it is past time that you began to
inform yourself.) It should also be clear that the government has sometimes
been at the cutting edge of "the jungle" and usually been actively involved. 
When the government has been turned aside from pusilanimity it has always been
the foresight and courage of one or two individuals that saved matters.

So, I finally get to your first line. It is clear from this statement that you
completely missed my point (of some time ago) and you missed Price's point and
you are missing Nat's point. None of us places any faith in "other
institutions". They may be there for our use in extremity and they may not.
Where all three of us places his faith is in ourselves. Each of us has learned,
perhaps the easy way but more likely the hard way, that when you put yourself
in the hands of government or any other institution you give up something of
yourself. You give away a bit of your freedom. You give up a piece of your
integrity. Personal integrity and freedom are the most valuable things that a
person can have. And they cannot be obtained from others. Most particularly,
they cannot be obtained from a government or from any other institution.

				Chris Prael