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From: josh@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Newsflash! [Subsidized Education]
Message-ID: <3257@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 00:35:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3257
Posted: Tue Aug 13 00:35:50 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 07:28:15 EDT
References: <955@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1110@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1680@psuvax1.UUCP> <292@ubvax.UUCP>
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Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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In article <292@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes:
>In article <3168@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes:
>>In article <1680@psuvax1.UUCP> berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) writes:
>>>   I find here very appealing vision: unemployed starve or hire themselves
>>>for pennys, ... [litany of Dickensian horrors]
>>
>>Why do you think that the centralized organization of illegitimate
>>coercion, which is all that we're advocating the removal of, is the 
>>motive force behind social concern and compassion?  I don't believe it.
>>
>>I believe that the amount of compassion is relatively orthogonal to 
>>these political questions, but that the wealth of a society determines
>>the amount of activity and physical aid this compassion enables them
>>actually to give.  Thus a rich society is a better place to live,
>>even if you are poor.
>
>It's nice to know what you believe, Josh.  But is it true that the poor
>and down-and-out do better from private charity than from the modern
>welfare state?

Absolutely.  The welfare mess consists primarily of disincentives
to better oneself, and is one of the most degrading institutions 
encountered by most Americans.   Statists like yourself, who want to
reduce everybody to a kind of slavery to a massive bureaucracy, would
naturally have a hard time understanding this.

>  Why should the abolition of "coercion" make people
>any more generous? 

Can you read?  Do you have any idea what the word "orthogonal" means?
I have included the whole quote from my original message above, so that
you could go over it again.  Use a dictionary this time.

> Why should the absence of any health standards,
>for instance, which poor people should fulfill (food in the right
>quantities, minimum shelter, etc.) aid the poor in meeting these
>standards?

For the same reason that minimum wage laws cause unemployment, not
just temporarily but a whole class of the hard-core unemployed:
You have cut off the bottom rungs of the ladder, on the theory that
no one should be on the ground.

>These aren't questions of belief; the burden's on libertarians to prove
>these things (chuckle), not on the rest of us to take them for granted.

This isn't a court case.  If you are so enamored of the process of 
argumentation as to abandon the truth just because the libertarians
won't play by your petty rules, you are to be pitied more than censured.

Of course, the libertarians have explained the concepts and pointed to 
more voluminous documentary evidence time and again, and the Wuersches
just keep whining, "Proof!  We demand Proof!"

>>>   First problem: who enforces the law? Private agency? How about the 
>>>competition?
>>
>>The competition keeps the prices low, the laws fair, and the cops on the
>>job.  Unlike the present situation.
>>
>>>...  Perhaps hire another agency to shoot out the first one.
>>
>>War is extremely expensive; it is almost never practiced except by
>>those organizations who obtain their incomes by theft, such as 
>>governments and criminal gangs.
>
>Not in Mad Max's world.  Isn't libertaria more like that?  Nobody
>regulating the gangs?  In Mad Max's world, everybody knows how to use
>a gun ('cept for those helpless good folk...).

Now we know where Tony gets his models of social interaction and
economic feasibility.  (Of course, I'm sure that if he wrote a 
couple of papers about it, he could get a degree in Sociology or 
something...)

>Poor women who can't afford an agency had better watch out.  And even
>then, they'd probably could only afford a crime deductable (i.e. the
>agency pledges to protect only after the first ten crimes ...).  They
>would learn to adjust their expectations and live with this.

--As opposed to the poor women living in Newark, NJ, and other such 
statist paradises, where crime is virtually unknown...

Face it: police protection consists of a handful of very prosaic
services:  Street patrol;  after-the-fact investigation of robberies;
information collection and retrieval;  and suspect apprehension and
detention.  There are private agencies that provide all of these 
services, and the price can be compared to existing police budgets:
it ranges from one tenth to one half.  Your poor woman pays through 
the nose for the existing (lousy) police protection, generally through
property taxes as part of her rent.  Even areas with rent control allow
landlords to pass taxes straight through.

>>>Conclusion: Libertaria is a police state governed by the rich.  [etc]
>>
>>If I have two dollars and you have one dollar, I get two lollipops and
>>you get one.  If I have two votes and you have one, I get everything,
>>and you get nothing.  Sorry!
>
>Show me a democracy like this, and I might believe you, Josh.  At least
>I'd stop and think.

My native democracy, Mississippi, was very much like that between 1900
and the mid '60's, when it was changed by forces beyond the control
of the local majority.

>>>   It occurred to me that this is exactly what our net free-marketeers
>>>(and/or libertarians) have in mind.  ...
>>
>>If you actually think this, you are remarkably close-minded.  If, as
>>I rather suspect, you really understand that we believe that everyone 
>>would be better off with the rights and principles we advocate, and
>>you are merly throwing "cute" insults, shame on you.
>>
>>>Piotr Berman
>>
>>--JoSH
>
>Josh!  Give Piotr the benefit of the doubt, please.  He had a problem.

Well, I sure hope I've fixed it for him.

>On the one hand, if he liked libertaria, what he suggests is precisely
>what he would have in mind -- that wow, he's rich, and nobody can tell
>him what to do.  He thinks that if you were realistic and liked liber-
>taria, you would be as happy as he would be.

This is stupid and you know it.  One likes libertarian ideals because
they appeal to one's sense of fairness, justice, and the worth of 
individual human beings.  One dislikes libertarian ideals because one
is an elitist social engineer who likes to treat other people as 
parts in a social machine, or social doctor who wants to cure the 
ills of the social organism by treating people as cells therein.

The libertarian sees people as individuals, with individual RIGHTS
and concurrent responsibilities.  The statist sees individuals
merely as social units, as means to build his grand scheme and not
ends in themselves.  The libertarian likes his ideals because they
appeal to his inner sense of moral rightness.  

>Maybe he thinks that having a glowing, peaceful view of libertaria and
>being realistic are contradictory states, and he wants to retain his
>belief in your realism.

I fear you're putting words in Piotr's mouth he wouldn't agree with.
I doubt that his original message was prompted by a concern over my
own sense of realism.  I suspect instead it was prompted by an urge
to denounce what he (incorrectly) believed to be my (and others') motives.

>I agree with Piotr.  I'd rather believe in people than believe in
>libertaria anytime.
>Tony Wuersch

You don't believe in people.  You believe in the dehumanizing State.
You believe in feeding people like animals in cages.  You believe in 
denying them the economic rights they need to care for their own 
physical needs; and denying them the responsibilities to themselves
and others, that they must have to develop into complete moral 
human beings.  I believe in trading; you believe in stealing.
I believe in cooperation; you believe in force.  I believe in 
voluntarism; you believe in conscription.  I believe in freedom;
you believe in slavery.

--JoSH