Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Libertarianism Message-ID: <1837@inmet.UUCP> Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 00:37:41 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1837 Posted: Wed Nov 28 00:37:41 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 08:47:10 EST Lines: 47 Nf-ID: #R:ucbcad:-281200:inmet:7800190:000:2115 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Nov 26 17:55:00 1984 >***** inmet:net.politics / ucbcad!faustus / 9:31 pm Nov 24, 1984 >> Don't confuse "society" (which is a function of human interaction) with >> "government" which is an attempt to dominate society. People may owe >> much to society, but little or nothing to government. In particular, >> the government tends to claim credit for anything that happens in >> a society, even though the society managed it IN SPITE of the government. > >A good analogy would be: the government is to society as the skeleton >is to the body. Gack. More like: the government is to society as the CORSET is to the body. >It provides security and order, and makes it easier for >social interactions to occur. It provides apparent comeliness (welfare, AFDC), while avoiding the ugly necessities (dieting, exercise, refusal to meddle with the money supply, admitting that even people who do not want to give to charity have a right to their earnings) of real comeliness. It forces those of unusual composition into a mold favored by a current fashion, often disrupting the functioning of the inner organs to satisfy the vagaries of vanity. And think! Where would the corset-makers be without a continual usage of corsets? >Speculation about what would happen if >there were no government is very dangerous, because there is simply >no precedent for such a thing. Speculation about life without corsets is very dangerous, because (aside from medieval Ireland and Iceland) there is no precedent for such a thing. People are born wearing corsets, just as humanity was born with gavel in hand. >At the very least the government provides >security from foreign agression, which could never be provided in an >anarchistic society. Thus the continual invasions of medieval Iceland by other powers, and the fact that it took a centrally-organized invasion force (the British) a mere couple of centuries to subdue the Irish. Wayne: PLEASE do a little reference work before you post anything more about libertarian thought. I suggest you try: "For a New Liberty", by Murray Rothbard, who talks a bit about historical Ireland.