kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (08/10/86)
From: Lynn Gazis <SAPPHO@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
I think most of the people who receive government assistance only
do so for short periods of time while they are down on their luck.
So? Most people who mug you only mug you once.
But it is not only people who are not "fundamentally dishonest"
and who want to "sit around watching TV all day" who won't want to
get a job if the government pays more for welfare than they can
make at a job. I would have to value self-sufficiency very highly
indeed to leave my (hypothetical) children to be cared for by
someone else in order to go out and make money so that they can be
less well fed and clothed and lose the free medical care they are
getting.
I don't blame you. Especially if you have been paying taxes to
support such people all along.
I am not saying individuals should forfeit benefits the government
guarantees them. I am saying it is the guarantees that should change.
What I meant by 'fundamentally honest' is that few people who could
quit their jobs and live BETTER by being on welfare choose to do so.
Saying that "society" is to some extent responsible for crime
means that "society" can somehow alter its behavior to make crime
less frequent, and that it ought to do so.
I agree that individuals can do much to reduce crime. Better locks,
not walking through bad neighborhoods alone after dark, being armed at
home, and being good at self defense all help. This does not of
course justify a crime if the victim has failed to be prudent about
preventing it.
If there are ways of reducing crime which are more effective than
heavy punishments for the criminals, then we should try them
(provided the cost in personal liberty is not too high).
Agreed. One promising new technique is electronic probation, where
a person's movements are monitored via an electronic bracelet. This
is a great restriction on freedom and privacy, but it is better than
being in jail. And cheaper. And the probationer is free to work to
pay for court costs and victim restitution.
Keith, what would you do about people who are needy because of
past injustices of the government. Is it wrong for the government
to compensate them, since it has to take money from everyone to do
so?
This is a problem. But we have faced it before. Before the 1860s,
slavery was justified on the grounds that, while it was obviously
unfair to the slaves, slaveowners would suffer enormously if they lost
their slaves. And they were right. They did. And the government did
not compensate them.
Another analogy to slavery is that it was also justified by the fact
that every major civilization had had slaves. The 'republican' Romans
had slaves. The 'democratic' Greeks had slaves. The Egyptians had
slaves. The Hebrews who escaped from Egyptian slavery had slaves.
How, they asked, could any civilization stand without slavery? Who
would do the scut work?
Taxation and mandatory government power are justified today on the
same two grounds. I think that they are as mistaken as the slave
apologists were in the 1860s. History does not have to continue as it
has. We are on a higher moral plane than the Romans and Greeks and
Confederates. We can be on a higher moral plane yet.
No inconvenience to slaveholders justified slavery for one minute.
It is true that without slavery everyone was better off in the long
run, and it is true that without taxation everyone will be better off
in the long run. But that is not THE MAIN REASON for doing away with
either.
What ought the government to do in the way of protecting children?
They should not be completely at the mercy of their parents, but
all kinds of excessive restrictions on people's freedom are
justified in the name of protecting children.
I think the present laws against child abuse are pretty fair. One
thing I would add to them is that it should not be legal to smoke
around children (this is not, however, mainstream libertarian
thought).
I think that the current 'awareness' of child abuse goes too far,
and threatens to result in unreasonable laws.
I do not think children should be taken from their parents unless
there is real abuse. Having a sloppy apartment does not constitute
abuse. Both parents working does not constitute abuse.
Keith, not everyone agrees that government interference caused the
Great Depression. So, if you want to use that as an argument,
could you either sum up why you think this is so or give a pointer
to some explanation.
Read Ayn Rand's book _Capitalism: an Unknown Ideal_.
...Keith
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