cliff@unmvax.UUCP (02/03/85)
> For what it's worth: to me, a socialist cares about all the people in > a society, and believes with John Donne "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. > It tolls for thee." Sure, they care for all the people...let's be socialist and see if *we* can starve our country to death like in Africa! > Libertarians (as self-defined on this net) care > only for themselves. This is a lie. I do not know what you hope to gain by it... Is it that whatever group you belong to cares for everyone except libertarians and feels it should assasinate character at every chance? I guess you are for the selective pro- secution of the poor through drug laws. Did you ever wonder just who it is in the U.S. that puts us third in the list of of countries sorted by prison population per capita? Did you ever look at some of the statistics concerning the people who were killed in the Vietnam war? Does it surprise you to find out that it is primarily the poor in the prisons and caskets? ...but they were democratically put there...so it must be ok. Your decision that libertarians care only for themselves is a holier than thou attitude that makes me sick. You are just as bad as all the drug goons who think they are the only ones that care about drug related deaths, because they are the ones that want to see the harshest penalties, etc. I am not a fan of drug abuse...too many people I know have had *serious* problems or died because of improper drug use. Now, I'm not to say that *I* care about drug abuse more than Mrs. Reagan, because *I* have a solution that *I* believe is much more effective than hers, but I am sure she would disagree with my solution. (I don't know whether she would pull your holier than thou bullsh*t or just politely try to tell me I am mislead.) Maybe you are confusing what you said: "Libertarians (as self-defined on this net) care only for themselves." with the tenets of libertarianism that say ~"a government should not require its citizens to show caring for any other citizens except by observing the rights of everyone." The key word is REQUIRE. People who pretend you can REQUIRE one person to care for another have some pretty weird ideas... BTW, it is possible that there are a few libertarians that care only for themselves, but I don't think that number is very high and I have seen absolutely no evidence of any such person on this net. > In the absence of any possible demonstration, no-one can refute the > apparently fantastic claims of utopian life in Libertaria; neither > can one refute the claims of those who argue the merits of a true > socialist state. All the same, one can look at the performance of > different states that tend (slightly) in one direction or the other. > After accounting for the ENORMOUS natural wealth of N. America, it > is astonishing that it is NOT the country in the world with the > highest quality of life. Oh, right, you are the master of judging how to compare countries... If you just want to compare whether the net result of libertarianism will be a better society then you can decide for yourself whether evolution works. I believe in evolution. I am happy I can walk on two legs. When libertarianism is compared to evolution, the big question is how does society look at any given point in time, rather than how it looks after N years (which is the comparison you want to make (N = 400) N. America vs. everyone else). The evolution comparison might seem cold hearted at first (in evolution failing species die), but the point to note is that it is not the people who die in libertarian societies but it is the inificient/unhealthy practices that die out. (not to say that people won't die in Libertaria, in fact, the average lifespan will be much higher than anywhere else). --Cliff [Matthews] {purdue, cmcl2, ihnp4}!lanl!unmvax!cliff {csu-cs, pur-ee, convex, gatech, ucbvax}!unmvax!cliff 4744 Trumbull S.E. - Albuquerque NM 87108 - (505) 265-9143