walton@ametek.UUCP (08/05/86)
From: Keith Lynch <kfl@mx.lcs.mit.edu>
I am not convinced that these people are unable to work.
Most of these fathers have split in order to make the mothers
eligible for these programs. Thus these programs are viciously
anti-family, and are responsible for the breakup of more families
than slavery.
You may not be convinced; try raising a child and working at the same
time. Your reason for no fathers is simply not correct (reference:
the Bill Moyers documentary to which I referred before).
We can argue endlessly about the causes of the current situation in
the ghettos; the fact is that it exists. It is a problem of children
who are underfed, and therefore underintelligent, since an adequate
diet is essential for proper brain development, having children of
their own. Welfare may have caused the problem, but ending welfare
will not cure it.
What about all the immigrants who came here with nothing, not
even speaking or reading English, and are now doing quite well?
This isn't just something that happened hundreds of years ago. At
work we had a party last week to celebrate the naturalization of
an employee who escaped from Laos on a boat three years ago. She
spoke no English...
Wonderful anecdote. (You have a habit of arguing with anecdotes.)
They prove nothing; moreover, you seem unwilling to admit that there
are people who work hard and get nowhere, preferring to think that
they either don't work hard or don't work correctly.
What WILL help is if we make crimes MORE exciting, i.e. if more
people are armed, burglary will soon become a thing of the past.
If more people are trained in self defense, there will be less
mugging.
For every time a gun is used by a private citizen to prevent a crime,
there are 4 suicides and 10 murders committed with guns by the owner
of that gun. A majority of the crimes committed with guns use guns
stolen from the homes of law-abiding citizens. Are you willing to
force gun owners to support families whose breadwinner is killed by
their gun, or to pay for day care for children whose mother is
murdered?
One thing that engenders crime is the high cost of illegal
drugs. If all drugs are legalized, the price will fall. Also,
there will be a lot fewer dangerous overdoses since the purity
will be much more standard.
Who protects me from those who commit crimes while under the influence
of drugs? We already have an enormous problem with drunk driving;
granted that the penalties aren't stiff enough, but there are probably
people who would not be discourage by anything short of capital
punishment for killing others while under the influence. And THAT
gives the government the most dangerous power of all--the power to
deprive its citizens of their lives.
(me): We already spend a larger percentage of our national wealth
on law enforcement, and have a larger percentage of our
population in prision, than any other democracy.
Sad but true. Juries need to be a lot more hardheaded. Most
juries today are willing to fall for any harebrained expert
testimony theory. For instance the case of that guy in San
Fransisco who got a very light sentence for murder because he was
under the influence of Hostess Twinkies (!). Or Patty Hearst, who
got a relatively light sentence for armed bank robbery because she
was 'brainwashed'.
I don't understand; you responded to my comment about having a lot of
people in prison by saying that we should have even MORE people in
prison, and for longer times. For what its worth: the "guy in San
Francisco" was Dan White; he committed suicide shortly after his
recent release from prison. Patty Hearst is now married to a prison
guard; she has not, so far as I know, committed any further crimes.
Some women have literally gotten away with murder by pleading
PMS (i.e. that time of month). That should do wonders for
women's rights.
Name one, please.
Is it any wonder that the crime rate and the incarceration rate
are both so high? Sentences should be much more uniform. The
chances of an innocent person being locked up must be reduced.
The chances of a guilty person going free must be reduced, but not
at the expense of the former.
How do you suggest we do this? Uniform sentences would require the
federal government to pass laws which would supersede the states'.
Ensuring that the innocent go free inevitably means that a few guilty
ones would as well.
On business:
Similarly, an employee or ex-employee can tag his employer as a
trouble spot. There are in fact several companies I would not
consider working for, simply because of what people who work there
have said about the working conditions. Symmetry.
Yes, but can you name a company whose owners were reduced to poverty
because no one would work for them? Many employees have been, which
was my point.
(me): In the book ... another explanation for the Great Depression.
There are many explanations. I firmly believe the libertarian
one.
If I see this book in paperback I will buy it. But I doubt
he has any evidence that will change my mind.
You may BELIEVE the libertarian one; I doubt you can prove it, or even
marshal much evidence in its support. The book I mentioned is
undoubtedly available in your local public library.
Before 1929, there was a regular crash every 20 to 30 years;
they called it the "business cycle." There hasn't been
another one since the New Deal.
Huh? What about all these random recessions? They don't
compare to the 1930s, but then neither did anything before 1929.
The difference between 1929 and previous busts was a matter of effect,
not size. Since, previous to 1929, most people were on farms, they
were in no danger of starving. By 1929, a fair number of people were
urban, and thus not self-sufficient in food production. The relative
change in the size of the economy was as large. The Dustbowl, one of
the worst droughts on record, was an unhappy coincidence.
Well, I am not too familiar with social classes. I try not to
think in those terms. But it was my understanding that the
working class, as contrasted with the middle class, has been
associated with unions.
And the large middle class supposedly dates back to the
renaissance.
Sorry, I was not precise. I use the term "middle class" as an
economic distinction; it is not the same as the bourgouisie, which
dates back to at least 1200, but consists of what we call
"businessmen" now. My point was that it was unions which transformed
the working class into what we now call the middle class in this
country--the citizen who earns near the median income of $25,000 or
so.
We avoided the socialism of Europe because of, not in spite
of, our labor unions.
Well, this is a classic arguing technique. FOO may be bad, but
it prevented BAR which is worse. Didn't the Nazis argue this
way...?
George Will (who I was quoting here) was making the point that our
labor unions are mainly capitalistic organizations who believe in the
free market, and who bargained directly with their employers for
higher wages, rather than going to the government to nationalize their
industries, as happened in Europe. He, and I, are not arguing that
labor unions are bad but better than the alternative. They are mainly
good things.
There may have been positive contributions many years ago. What
have they done recently? Anything to justify them having a
government supported monopoly status to the unquestioned detriment
of the rest of the economy?
Have their bad effects been sufficiently large that they should be
destroyed? Do you think it should be illegal for a group of workers
to voluntarily band together and go to their employer and say, "None
of us are going to come to work unless you give us all a raise?" This
is the essential function of a union.
Right. The average social security recipient is wealthier than
the average social security contributer.
Agreed. As I suggested, I think we can drop Social Security from this
discussion, since we seem to largely agree on its size, effects, and
injustice. One point: the reason that Social Security taxes are now
so high is that today's workers are paying both the benefits of
current retirees AND putting aside (albeit involuntarily) the money
for their own retirement. The system is currently projected to have a
10 trillion dollar surplus by 2010, which will be used to pay the
benefits of the then-retiring baby boomers. Of course, it will be
broke again 20 years later...
Why aren't the fathers [of mothers receiving welfare] paying
child support?
Because they either cannot be found or are indigent themselves.
Well, this was the original rationale for welfare. But it has
grown by orders of magnitude. Very few of the recipients are
widows and orphans.
But most of them are mothers with small children whose fathers fall in
the categories I gave above.
Those widows (and widowers) whose spouses left little money and
had no life insurance and which have no skills of their own can be
supported by voluntary donations. There really aren't that many
of them. Most jobs offer life insurance as a fringe benefit,
whether you need it or not.
What if yours doesn't?
And most wives have skills of their own, and have been working
outside the home for quite some time.
How is this relevant to today's welfare recipients as described
previously?
(me): We, as a society, have made the value judgement that such
people should not have to sell their homes and cars ... and
live in abject poverty ...
Whoa! Who is this 'society'? *I* never made any such value
judgement.
No, but you freely choose to live in a country in which the majority
of the citizens have.
I vehemently object to being taxed to
support people with wealthier lifestyles than me.
So do I, hence my objection to Social Security. I do NOT object to
the small fraction of my salary which goes to support those on
welfare.
If enough people feel strongly enough that these people deserve
handouts, then the needy WILL get enough. If enough people DON'T
feel that way, then by what right does OUR government take our
money and use it for these programs against our will?
"What, are there no poorhouses? Are the debtors' prisons
full?"--Scrooge
This seems to be the heart of your ideas in these postings--if I may
paraphrase, that taxation is theft, at least whenever the government
uses tax money for a purpose with which an individual does not agree.
I submit that by choosing to live in the United States (and it is a
free choice), you are agreeing to abide by all its laws, including
paying your taxes even if you don't agree with every purpose to which
those tax dollars are being put, purposes with which, ideally, a large
majority agrees. (As an aside, I disagree with the majority's choice
in the last election; I DON'T argue that choice was invalid or morally
indefensible.) Your difference with the mainstream is that you
disagree with the ways the vast majority of tax dollars are used. May
I suggest you either (1) move to another country, or (2) refuse to pay
that fraction of your taxes which you feel is improperly used.
Thoreau went to prison for non-payment of property taxes, which he
felt to be immoral; do libertarians do the same? Please don't call
taxation theft unless you are willing to resist said theft.
Other responsibilites, primarily work and family, prevent me from
continuing this dialogue further. You have enlightened me, and forced
me to put my own beliefs in some coherent form. I may even go check
out some libertarian books from the library and read further! Any
recommendations?
Steve
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