kfl@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (07/28/86)
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Date: Sat, 5 Jul 86 17:10:04 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Personal liberty
To: DPH.SWF@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU
cc: KIN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU, KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
From: "Scott Frazier" <DPH.SWF%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
1. Why does the government feel it has the right to interfere with
the sexual practices of two consenting adults? ...
2. Why does the government feel obligated to protect people from
themselves? (Ie: Why do laws like the "seatbelt law" exist?)
I think this is because the government is frequently the one to pay
for the consequences, so they feel that they should have some say in
reducing the costs.
If I was paying for all your food, I might object to what foods you
choose to eat, and attempt to choose for you.
There are three solutions to this dilemma:
1) The liberal solution: The taxpayers should pay, and pay, and pay
more. There should be no limit on taxes even if it drives us into
another great depression. The taxpayers should have no say in the
behavior of the recipients.
Problems: a) It is very unfair to those of us who have lived
prudently, believing that each individual must bear
responsibility for his actions. We feel motivated to
say 'The hell with it, I too will live for today and
let the taxpayers bail me out tomorrow'.
b) It is unfair to everyone to tax them more than
absolutely necessary, even if the tax money is to be
used for a good cause. In fact, it is nothing more or
less than theft.
c) It will demolish the economy, rewarding imprudent and
disease causing behavior, and punishing savings,
investment, moderation, and hard work. Everyone will
end up beneath the poverty line except a few
government bureaucrats and lobbyists.
d) By moving money from the private to the public sphere,
individuals have much less control over how money is
spent. For instance, if all medical spending and
medical research spending was private, each individual
would decide for himself whether he thought AIDS
research and/or cancer research was worthwhile.
Instead, we find that AIDS research has become a
political football. Either underfunded due to
government bureaucrats and legistlators prejudice
against gays, or overfunded, as is sickle cell anemia,
since a very vehement group contains most of the
victims. I don't think it should be up to random
lobbyists to decide how my money is to be spent. Not
that there would be as much of it if more of it was
taken away from me in taxes, since I would be less
motivated to make money knowing it is to be stolen
from me. Not that my employer would pay me as much
even if I were to continue to work as hard as I do
now, since he too would be subject to higher taxes.
2) The conservative solution: We must control people's behavior, for
their own good. Problems: None, unless you value personal freedom.
As I very strongly do and as most of the people on this list
obviously do.
3) The libertarian solution: People can do what they want, so long as
they do not infringe another person's rights. But they must take
responsibility for the consequences of their actions. If someone
fails to use a seatbelt, and gets badly injured, taxpayer money
will not be used for medical treatment. Problems: None.
...Keith
-------tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU (07/28/86)
Return-Path: <tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU> To: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL@ai.ai.mit.edu> Subject: Re: Personal liberty Date: Mon, 14 Jul 86 11:35:12 -0800 From: Tim Shimeall <tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU> >From: Keith F. Lynch >3) The libertarian solution: People can do what they want, so long as > they do not infringe another person's rights. But they must take > responsibility for the consequences of their actions. If someone > fails to use a seatbelt, and gets badly injured, taxpayer money > will not be used for medical treatment. Problems: None. Pardon me, but I see a couple of problems with this approach: a) How do you discern behavior that infringes with another person's rights? In our society, there are a lot of seemingly personal and private functions which may strongly interfere with other people. One example: Sex between unmarried teen-agers: many girls are choosing to keep their babies, but cannot support them (no job skills, no income...). If society ("the taxpayers") refuse to support them, numerous large problems result (health hazards, for one). If society agrees to support them, then a large amount of money (read, "ever-increasing taxes") is needed to provide this support. At present, I'm not aware of any good solution to this problem, except prevention (LOTS of education, plus LOTS of available contraception), which needs taxpayer support. (And who decides what the education is to include? Which/who's morality is to be taught?) b) How do you provide prior restraint to control infringing behavior, in cases where enforcement is impossible, or where the participants in this behavior CANNOT bear the consequences of their actions? Tim -------
kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (07/28/86)
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Date: Mon, 14 Jul 86 21:56:59 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Personal liberty
To: tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU
cc: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: Tim Shimeall <tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU>
Pardon me, but I see a couple of problems with this approach:
a) How do you discern behavior that infringes with another
person's rights?
Well this is a problem in any system. Except in one in which people
don't HAVE rights. My main point is not that the line between nose
and fist is being drawn in the wrong place, but that this principle is
being ignored totally. The line is clear off the map when there are
laws like the seatbelt law, rent control, gun 'control' (i.e.
banishing), minimum wage laws, maximum occupancy laws, and zoning
laws. Things are obviously completely out of control when we have tax
rates that are so high, and when tax money is being used to pay so
much for so many things that are not government's responsibility.
I just read in today's Washington Post that people can get
government aid to pay for child day care if child day care exceeds 10%
of the family's salary. In the same article it said day care
typically costs $150 a week. Now why should people earning $77,000
get welfare? Does this seem right to you? When people making 1/10 as
much manage to pay their own way, and subsidize this boondoggle?
Sex between unmarried teen-agers: many girls are choosing
to keep their babies, but cannot support them (no job
skills, no income...).
Well, there are really three issues here:
1) Teenage pregnancy. I have nothing against this, per se. There are
teenagers capable of being good parents.
2) Unmarried mothers. Many people are choosing to live together
without being formally married. Some do it because of the enormous
marriage penalty tax. Some do it for other reasons. Some people
like to raise children alone. It is nobody's business but their
own, so long as they don't infringe anyone's rights.
3) Unsupported children. These DO infringe people's rights, in that
we the taxpayers are called upon to support these children. I
don't know of any good solution in any system. The current system,
in which unmarried people are essentially PAYED to have children is
certainly one of the worst possible. It infringes the taxpayer's
property rights, even to the extent that companies are ruined and
hard-working prudent people are often unable to save enough money
to raise a family until they are middle-aged, if ever.
At present, I'm not aware of any good solution to
this problem, except prevention (LOTS of education, plus
LOTS of available contraception), which needs taxpayer
support.
I agree that education is always a good idea. I do not agree that
it needs taxpayer support. Much of education is on the street, not in
the classroom. The poor have learned their lesson well, that they
will be payed to raise children. Is it any wonder that when you
subsidize something you get a lot of it? If welfare was eliminated or
reduced by a few orders of magnitude, they will get the message
whether million dollar classrooms are supplied or not.
(And who decides what the education is to include?
Which/who's morality is to be taught?)
Classic dilemma of public education.
b) How do you provide prior restraint to control infringing
behavior, in cases where enforcement is impossible, or where
the participants in this behavior CANNOT bear the
consequences of their actions?
One ALWAYS bears the consequences of one's actions. That is
something government CAN'T take away.
Well, what about prior restraint for crimes? There is no way to
restrain a potential thief or murderer who has comitted no crime. Not
in a free society. So we are limited to after-the-fact consequences.
The main cause of crime is not drugs, nor is it poverty. It is free
will. A person comits a crime (or some antisocial act like having
children he/she can't support) because he/she chooses to do so. If
the consequences are unpleasant enough, i.e. whatever the 'natural'
consequences for the act would be in absense of anyone bailing the
person out, rational people will be disuaded, and irrational people
will get rational or will find someone rational to follow or will not
enjoy life very much. The latter is their right, of course. But they
do NOT have a right to create misery and give it to others while they
watch TV all day and count the welfare checks.
...Keith
-------walton@ametek.UUCP (07/29/86)
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Date: Mon, 21 Jul 86 09:03:14 pdt
From: Steve Walton <ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu>
To: cit-vax!mx.lcs.mit.edu!kfl
Subject: Personal liberty
On the subjects of welfare and criminals:
(1) I doubt you are qualified to say what persons are capable of doing
while under the influence of drugs.
(2) If criminals make a rational decision to commit crimes, they do so
because it is their perception that crimes are their best route to
improve their lot. To the extent that societal problems cause
racial discrimination, poor public schools and police protection
in ghettos, and other such conditions, society is responsible for
some crime.
(3) "being PAYED [sic] to have children". The amount of extra welfare
money which is received for another child is small compared to
what it actually costs to raise the child. Did you watch the
NBC special on the black family which Bill Moyers did? The
problem is quite a bit more complex than this.
(3) "Watch TV all day and count the welfare checks" is a wonderful
buzz phrase, calculated to produce an emotional response, but it
has no grounds in fact. Most welfare money goes to people who
are the victims of circumstance, and most of them would take a job
if they could get one. Unfortunately, none of the jobs are in
neighborhoods they can afford to commute or move to. I'm also not
sure why this phrase appeared at the end of a paragraph devoted
to the causes of crime.
On the subject of business:
>And what if all the companies engaged in a given line of
>business were to simultaneously refuse to do business unless they get
>more profits? This would be prosecuted under the anti-trust laws, of
>course. What if instead of doing so, the government were to penalize
>any individual who does business with a company that does NOT join in
>the work stoppage? Sound bizarre? Well, it's the symmetrical analog
>of the current pro-labor union laws.
Read your history, Mr. Lynch. I recommend William Manchester's "The
Glory and the Dream." The employer-employee relationship is NOT sym-
metrical in the absence of unions, because employers can deprive an
employee of his/her livelihood, but an individual employee cannot do
the same to an employer. When individual workers expressed political
views with which their employers disagreed, they were fired. When
workers attempted to exercise their right to freely assemble by
forming unions, the government shot them.
Your ideal libertarian free market only exists in cases where it is
easy to enter a new line of work if profits (wages) cease in an old
one. This isn't true in the real world--ask any farmer or steel-mill
owner or worker living in an isolated company town. The citizens of
the US decided during the New Deal that it was a proper function of
government to provide minimum protection to people trapped by cir-
cumstances beyond their control--in the words of George Will, FDR
saved capitalism by tempering its excesses.
Steve Walton
ametek!walton@csvax.caltech.edu
ucbvax!sun!megatest!ametek!walton
-------