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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Social Order and Government: Re to Cramer
Message-ID: <685@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 13:25:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: whuxl.685
Posted: Fri Jul 12 13:25:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 14:23:28 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
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In seeking to explain the need for some governmental authority to Libertarians
I have used a quite simple and straightforward example from everyday life:
the regulation of traffic on public highways.  I had thought that the
need for such regulation would be evident to Libertarians from the simple
evidence of everyday life and reflection upon their own experience.
Apparently their experience is different than my own and what would seem
simple and straightforward is not so easily understood with ideological blinders.
After conceding my point that social order was needed Clayton Cramer replied:
 
> Social order, not government.  In the absence of government or its 
> direction, people develop social order.

I will now lead Mr. Cramer and the Libertarians 
further down the road and point out
that, yes, in the *absence* of government people develop social order.
Moreover in most cases the further development of social order involves
the development of governmental authority to insure that order.
Over 50,000 lives are lost every year on the highways.  When lives are
at stake I myself, and the vast majority of people do not wish to trust
simply to others good will.  Therefore traffic laws have been enacted
along with traffic police (a governmental authority) to insure those laws
will be followed.  Mr. Cramer apparently wishes to deny the need for such
laws:
> >  
> The risk is small; the potential damage and injury is immense.  Most
> people (almost all people, in fact), *do* reduce their speed to avoid
> accidents.  I suggest you go spend some time driving.  I frequently
> see people who are incompetent drivers; frequently people who are
> drunk, and don't realize how impaired they are; I *very* seldom see
> people who are so stupid as to risk an accident just to get somewhere
> faster.
  
As I say my experience differs from Mr. Cramer's.  Just last week I
was sitting patiently at a red light. A car pulled up with a big fat
Reagan bumpersticker and waited for awhile.  Suddenly this car just took
off across a major highway (speed limit: 50 miles per hour) right in
the middle of a red light.  The driver beside me honked at him and
looked at me in amazement.  I have found this same event repeated
several times. (curious too that several had Reagan bumperstickers...)
 
It seems quite clear to me that besides being a blatant violation of the
law, this type of action is very likely to cause an accident.
This happened *despite* laws, fines and the possible suspension of
the right to drive for such behavior.  Imagine how this person would
drive if there were no such restraints on him!
 
I will agree that if everyone followed traffic laws voluntary then
there would be no need for a governmental authority to police such
compliance.  Even so there would still be the need for some authority
to maintain traffic lights and so forth.  But such is not the case--
which is why traffic laws developed in the first place.
 
When laws are no longer needed because they are always complied with
then they do tend to disappear.  In earlier centuries there were laws
against spitting and pissing in the King's hallways at Versailles.
No such laws are required now with indoor plumbing.
 
There are very good reasons for traffic laws and police to enforce 
them whether they are always obeyed or not.
               tim sevener  whuxl!orb