Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!bbnccv!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis Message-ID: <28200222@inmet.UUCP> Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 23:15:00 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.28200222 Posted: Thu Oct 24 23:15:00 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 06:11:28 EST References: <876@water.UUCP> Lines: 101 Nf-ID: #R:water:-87600:inmet:28200222:000:5174 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Oct 24 23:15:00 1985 >/* Written 1:51 pm Oct 23, 1985 by mrh@cybvax0 in inmet:net.politics.t */ >In article <28200183@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: >> >/* Written 6:07 pm Oct 17, 1985 by mrh@cybvax0 in inmet:net.politics.t */ >> >Instead, your forces of freedom from government is proposing to >> >throw away our current system of keeping people from breaking down our >> >doors for an untried and probably impractical one. The systems can't >> >coexist: the current one depends on being the only one. >... >> Mike: the notion that the "current system of keeping people from breaking >> down our doors" depends on being the only one is unsupported, irrelevant, >> muddleheaded, and wrong. >> >> Unsupported: (so far, anyhow). Simply saying: "it's there, it works", >> says nothing about the validity of other systems, particularly (as >> Jan points out) when the first steps towards libertarian society are so >> simple and incremental. > >Other systems certainly might be valid: but you have not made an argument >addressing my claim that our system depends on being the only one. In other >words, you're yelling "unsupported" and following with a non-sequiteur. The paragraph was meant to juxtapose two facts: 1. You have stated that our system of keeping folks from breaking down our doors depends on being the only one (a so-far unsupported statement) and 2. (anticipating your argument) that our current system might work to a certain degree does NOT imply that it is "the only one" (because of point 1.) Clearer now? This is hardly a non-sequitur. >> Irrelevant: if it DOES depend on being the only method, it doesn't follow >> that a new method cannot replace it cleanly. > >Not irrelevant. It means that because they cannot coexist, the replacement >process must be abrupt, not gradual. It is difficult to perform "clean" >abrupt replacements of social mechanisms. Excuse me, but this is just plain silly. One needn't suddenly change the method of "door preservation" in order to change it. Presumably the actual method is evolving all the time, and evolutionary steps that led it to tolerate other door-preserving methods are certainly plausible (for example, there is a town right now that hire their police through private agency, in effect they hire a police agency rather than having their own police force). >> Muddleheaded: it also doesn't follow that a conversion to yet another >> method that was easy to convert to, but didn't depend upon being the >> only one, and was easy to convert FROM does not exist (for example, >> a voucher system like that proposed for "public" education). > >Speak for yourself. You've selected an example that NEVER depended on >being the only system. Private education has always existed in the US, >that public education has partially supplanted. I've suggested as an ILLUSTRATION the METHOD used in supplying another "public good". Nowhere (I hope) do I suggest that the voucher system had to supplant a universally public-school system. My point was that in the case of public schools supplanting private ones, the voucher system provides a way for a marketplace to resume. I'm not implying that a voucher system was ALL that had to be done to introduce private law-enforcement, merely that the mechanism had worked elsewhere and was encouraging. >Not to mention your sentence is atrocious. You must have a secret >hankering to write undeciperable regulations for a government agency. :-) It was a little involved. Sorry about that. Thanks for the effort that must have gone into understanding it. In a similar vein, I take it you have the contract for spelling words like "undecipherable" and "non-sequitur" :-) >> Wrong: the FBI, the state cops, and the city police (not to mention a >> private guard service) might all fulfill this function, depending on >> the criminal's motivation. You wish to argue that they are all part of >> the same system? Fine: I argue that they are all part of the laws of >> physics in operation; and I do not propose to step outside THAT system. > >If they are part of the same enforcement system, then you haven't shown me >to be wrong. If they WERE part of the same enforcement system, they'd cooperate fully. Your local police would have access to FBI files, and there would be no possibility of jurisdictional disputes. In fact, the FBI limits access to those files, the IRS tried and failed at least once to get hold of Ohio Motor Vehicle records (this from insider info, sorry, no references). You will also note that New Hampshire police are not noted for their cooperation with Mass. police regarding the enforcement of Mass's Sales and Use Tax. > Your final sentence is a classic fallacy: it's analogous to >the following example. Okay, Mike, who gives the orders to the State troopers, to the Pinkerton Guards, to FBI field men, to the Guardian Angels? What COMMON authority controls them all? >[siamese fish analogy] Not at all. I'm pointing out that what you're calling our current system is in fact quite varied, and not all under one authority, so it's hard to tell whether we really have "one system", except for purposes of discussion.