From: Dick.Gray@bull.com
Date: Mon Jan 18 1999 - 13:35:29 MST
Karsten Baender writes:
>A government has no "interest" in redistributing your money. A government
>is not some evil villain trying to rob you.
It not only tries to rob me, it succeeds. More accurately, some people
calling themselves "government" conspire to take a lot of my money without
my consent in order to spend it on programs I don't want and of which I
don't approve. How is this any different in germ from a common mugger?
>It is an institution based on the common will of those assembled under
it's power,
This is meaningless blather. There's no such thing as a "common will".
There are only individuals each of whom has her own will.
>A government is someone elected by
>you to provide you with certain services you select to vote for.
Sorry, I did not elect any government. Nor have I voted for any "services".
>This is
>why you have to pay taxes, cause the government won't be able to provide
>this for nothing.
The reason I have to pay taxes is that if I don't, very bad things will
eventually happen to me. This is known in other contexts as a protection
racket.
>In an ideal world such as defined by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of
Nations",
>a free market would be a place where all people have approxiamtely the
same
>power...because we do not live in an ideal world, believing
>in this means believing in fairy tales.
No, the fantasy is yours. Smith never postulated an ideal world; he
observed the real world and drew conclusions therefrom. As do all modern
economists. It's anti-market pseudoeconomics that denies reality and
constructs fairy-tale worlds.
>You can only achive the market equilibrum
>by having some superior force counter such destabilizing effects.
More nonsense. Equilibrium, by definition, is a product of
self-organization. "Superior" (i.e. political) force merely moves the
equilibrium point to some less-efficient point.
[more "ideal state" red herrings]
Since market freedom has nothing to do with any "ideal" or "perfect"
conditions, I won't spend any time arguing your further economic points. If
you think you can prove that freedom requires some sort of perfection,
proceed to do so.
>If instead, carrying of
>wepons is prohibited, anyone carrying one is a bad guy, and the police
>could arrst him without having to wait till he actually uses it.
This is a silly argument. Obviously, the bad guy isn't going to parade his
weapon before the police so they can arrest him for carrying it. Or do you
advocate strip-searching everyone at random to make sure no one is hiding a
gun?
>There can be no equivalent for this on the market.Security should not be
>considered a commodity. It should be available to everyone regardless of
>his or her income, socail standing or other differences. Thus it is no
>commodity.
There are lots of things that "should" be available to anyone regardless of
means. Shall we socialize the farms so nobody will starve? Oh, wait, that's
been tried, hasn't it?
>Instead of spending billions of dollars for corporate and
>private security services, it would perhaps be more effective to use this
>money for the improvement of police service.
Oh, yes, by all means, let's improve the police forces' ability to harass
people for so-called victimless crimes. What sort of "offenders" do you
think are occupying the vast majority of prison space? The fact that the
police go after easy pickings, namely innocent people, instead of
effectively protecting us from real crime, is exactly why market-based
security services, as well as Block Watch-style neighborhood programs, are
rapidly proliferating. We've found that "private" security works, whereas
political "security" is mainly an illusion.
The more money "government" funnels into police services, the worse the
problems get. Just as with every other "government" program.
>Libertarian might include a lot, but if you don't want the state to take
>money from you to finance it's organization, you don't want public police,
>well, then you'll probably won't want a state, preferring Anarchy instead?
Why, yes, in fact some of us want just that.
>If someone wants to pickpocket you,
>you won't draw a gun and kill him right away. On the other hand, if you
live
>in Texas, maybe you will, but I consider this excessive force. In Germany,
>you'd be in jail for this very quickly.
Yes, it's so much easier, safer, and more "cost-effective" to silence the
victim than to go after the criminal, isn't it?
>[T]he carrying of weapons always implies a threat to others.
You know the old movie line "my hands are registered as lethal weapons"?
Must I cut off my hands to avoid posing a threat to you?
>If you have the possibility to use force, you'll be
>willing to use it whenever you might feel threatened.
Speak for yourself. You don't know what I'm willing to do.
>If humans where truly rational beings, I would
>judge this different, but in most cases weapons are used senseless and
>irrational.
Since most weapons are employed by "governments" to wage war or oppress
their subjects, I would have to agree with this last.
>In this, evolution has separated us from the animals.
Bullshit. We remain animals, only with far greater scope and power of
self-determination than our ancestors.
Bis spaeter,
Dick
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