nrh@inmet.UUCP (07/07/85)
>/**** inmet:net.politics.t / umcp-cs!mangoe / 6:30 pm Jul 5, 1985 ****/ >In article <2380080@acf4.UUCP> mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes: >>If roads were private, these problems would be mitigated. There might well >>be roads with different safety factors. Motorists could to some extent >>choose the level of speed/risk appropriate for them. > >This is pure speculation, and ignores the demonstrted fact that large >variations in speed cause the most accidents. I think you've misinterpreted the idea. The idea is that a private road-owner would set the speed-limits of the roads he owns (just as public road-owners do now). On a given road, there's no reason to suspect that people would vary in their speeds any more than they do now. >In any case, the owners of >the roads would have to form some sort of agency to coordinate things like >traffic signs, which side of the road to drive on, etc. Sure! Actually, probably they'd use some ANSI standard, or whatever was left of the highway code, rather than form a new agency. >Such a group would >then enjoy monopoloy power over the roads with the right (as Mike has >claimed) to deny service anyone for any reason. This is quite obviously >tyranny. This would make ANSI a tyranny also. I'll live with it. In other words, the existence of such an agency in a libertarian society would not force private road-owners to subscribe to all of its ideas. >>>This confusion between *individual/particular* interests and the >>>*average/collective* interests is peculiarly bred by capitalist ideology. >>>Everyone is told that "anyone can become a millionaire". > >>This Alger Hiss mentality is not what libertarianism is about, at least for >>me. As I see it, libertarianism is about letting people do what they want >>so long as they don't violate rights of others. If what one want is to >>become a millionaire, one is free to pursue such dreams. Libertarianism >>does not require such aspirations or even encourage them per se. > >{It's Horatio Alger, not Alger Hiss.] Isn't letting people do what they >want without violating the rights of others the state aim of the current >government? That's nice. It does not, of course, matter what the "aim" of the government is, merely what it does, what laws it passes, and so forth. That I prefer a hypothetical government that explicitly limits its intrusion into my life to a real one one that does not (and will not) is not, I think, unreasonable, particularly given that the real one began with fairly strict limits on what rights the government had with respect to people and that states. >It all depends on what rights you choose, and how you resolve >conflicts between them. Mike seems rather consistent in his assertion that >the right to unrestricted liberty in the use of private property is supreme >above all other rights. I maintain that human beings are too prone to evil >to be trusted with such a right. The abuses of economic power by the likes >of the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Goulds is sufficient evidence for me. >Mike has proposed nothing which would check their power, and indeed, he is >quite adamant they have the right to such abuses. I suggest that it is no >wonder that Mike's views are not held by working people, but by professors, >bankers, and businessmen. So? A viewpoint's validity is determined in some way by what business the holders are in? As for checking the abuses of millionaires, you'll find that the very worst ones are state-supported.