jrrt@hogpd.UUCP (R.MITCHELL) (08/03/84)
> I like people who like to give to other people too. I also like to give > things to other people. What I don't like are people who *make* me give > things to other people. What about the people who make you make you pay for the invasion of Grenada, the attempted assassination of Castro, the overthrow of Allende, ... <long list of perceived or real ills caused by the Federal government> What about them? I'm the anarchist, remember? Those types of people are appalling; they are certainly prime examples of jerks who take from me and use my hard-earned money to ends I despise. However, they are no worse than the "right-thinking" folks who wish to tax me and use that money to subsidize Social Security. What about the people who make you pay for massive advertising campaigns for products you don't want or need, for their lobbying and wining and dining and bribing of politicians or buying of politicians through massive campaign contributions, all to allow them to continue to pollute your environment and to pass laws that protect them from their precious free-market competition? These questions, and the point you make below, are excellent. I'll address each one in particular, and then try to summarize my overall philosophy (otherwise, we'd have to move newsgroups to net.politics). "Massive advertising" bothers me not at all; I'm a rational, intelligent person -- if I don't want the frammitz then no amount of advertising will get me to buy it. And if my neighbor is susceptible to massive advertising campaigns to the extent that he buys products he doesn't want or need, that's his problem for surrendering his self-responsibility. "Lobbying and wining...<or having anything at all to do with politicians>" bothers me quite a bit. Not because it's being done, but because the need to do it exists. I dislike our political system (although I believe it is the best one currently used on a national scale) because politicians have so much power over all our lives. Of *course* you'll have people trying all sorts of means to sway the pols; to do otherwise would be to deny the reality of their control. "Ah, " but you object, "Those bribes and such are manipulative, causing the politicians to compromise their responsibilities and to permit the nasty military/Business people to abuse us, our environment, etc." That certainly has happened, and will continue happening, although I don't ascribe evil motives to every PAC. But if you are objecting to having your freedoms limited, then why do you condone a system where you're surrendered control of your rights to someone who'll give them away for the gain of a three-martini lunch? Given a large, entrenched, bureaucratic government (at the Federal, state, and local levels), what better alternatives are there? You may suggest tighter controls on the politicians, bu I'd disagree -- who'd watch the watchers? I'd suggest the other alternative -- make the politicians less a force in our lives. There is a tax for these things in everything you buy. The fact that it doesn't say "tax" and "government" all over it doesn't mean it isn't there. Sure it's there, and I resent the fact that it's there, and I am working for a responsible alternative to a system which does have "tax" and "government" all over everything. You think you have worked hard for what you have, but your attitude is like the programmer who slaves to find the optimal instruction sequence for the inner loop of his bubble sort. You just have no concept of the costs inherent in the way the system is currently structured. 1) I *have* worked hard for what I have. That's why I want to keep it. 2) I'll accept your analogy, but understand that *I'm* not the one who's forcing me to use a bubble sort; that constraint is externally imposed by a socially mandated and supported governmental system. And my "optimal instruction sequence" is really a subroutine call that will allow me to leave the bubble sort and do my task in an efficient manner. 3) I DO know the costs. They're damned high; sufficiently high that most people (perhaps including yourself?) are unwilling to pay so dear a price. I am willing, because I think freedom at any price is a bargain. Should this discussion move to net.politics? There's an interesting discussion of libertarianism going on in that group... Rob Mitchell {allegra,ihnp4}!hogpd!jrrt "It is not a matter of being compelled to break eggs before an omelet can be made, but the eggs doing their own breaking in order to be able to aspire to omelethood." - Sufi