Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Orphaned Response Message-ID: <1855@inmet.UUCP> Date: Sun, 2-Dec-84 02:07:04 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1855 Posted: Sun Dec 2 02:07:04 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 06:41:28 EST Lines: 87 Nf-ID: #R:watmath:-992600:inmet:7800201:177600:4361 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Nov 30 13:36:00 1984 >***** inmet:net.politics / watmath!cdshaw / 10:04 pm Nov 20, 1984 >The main thing which bugs me about libertarianism (aside from the smugness >evidenced by some of its adherents) is the incredible frequency with which >it is used as an excuse to avoid payment of taxes & levies in general. > This is awkwardly phrased -- if I understand the literal meaning of this sentence, you are aware of the inside procedures of the IRS (or some similar agency), and thus know how often a form 1040 comes back with "Sorry, I'm a libertarian" written on it. The meaning behind this sentence may well be: "I dislike libertarianism because libertarians are always moaning about taxes." Well, people who worry about pollution are always moaning about pollution, people who worry about nuclear war are always moaning about military spending, or diplomatic heavy handedness. Not all that surprising that people who believe that the state should be slimmer should moan about it eating yet another course of a BIG dinner. >Is libertarianism a dogma of monetary expediency or what ??? Or what. >I seem to remember from John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" that he stated >that laws for the common good are legitimate, but laws regulating individual >welfare are not. Laws are supposed to prevent you from hurting me, not you >from hurting you. > >Given this kind of line, objections to medicare because "medicare pays for >pacemakers and pacemakers are against my beliefs/morals/desire to pay" seem >irrelevant to libertarianism. Well, not quite. Think of it this way: bad enough that the government should spend our money against our will, but worse that it should spend it on things (my favorite is enforcement of laws against suicide) that some of the people being forced to pay find morally abhorrent. >The wrong lib. argument is : "I'm free to participate as fully as I wish >in society... I don't like X in program/tax regime Y, so I don't want to pay >for that portion of Y which goes to finance X". In other words, society should >operate contrary to IBM : everything should be unbundled & I'll pay for what >I want. > >Unfortunately, society doesn't come unbundled (at least not the version I got >(V7 release 3.233) (-:).. so making arguments of the above type is a waste of >time. "Society" needn't be unbundled -- GOVERNMENT should be unbundled. I doubt you could "unbundle" society (whatever you had left would still be "society") but I see no similar objection to government ceasing certain activities and letting them be handled by the private sector. >This is especially true of universal-pay-for-it schemes such as medicare, >since opting out would be hard to manage on a subprogram-by-subprogram basis. >This is par for the course, in fact, in all insurance-like programs: everyone >must pay, or the system won't work. Pfui. The government could sell federal land to raise the money to pay people the equivalent value of what they'd invested in medicare and social security. The raised money is then GIVEN to those people. People are then free to join PRIVATE retirement plans, medical insurance companies, (or, of course, to have great parties instead), and so forth. (This idea was in the 1980 libertarian platform). If you don't like the "all at once" problem of federal land sales, you could instead have the government guarantee easy payments of its debt to the people it had taxed, and get almost the same effect. In either case, of course, the government STOPS collecting for social security and medicare, and begins auctioning government controlled medical facilities. >If you enjoy some of the benefits, you >must pay for the entire package, no matter what. Not quite a strong enough statement: EVEN IF YOU WOULDN'T TAKE THE BENEFITS IF OFFERED, YOU MUST PAY FOR THE ENTIRE PACKAGE. >The babble that "I am free, so I have property, so I can do what I >like with it, therefore, I won't pay taxes for a particular set of things" >is vacuous, pure & simple, since if the argument were followed through, then >society would no longer exist due to people refusing to pay for the services >we all know & love. "Society" would no longer exist? Not so. "Government" would no longer exist? Maybe, maybe not -- it would certainly act differently were it dependent on popular contributions, the way listener-supported radio is.