Subject:
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Re: Why the founding fathers limited government scope (was Re: Rolling Blackouts
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 12 May 2001 19:07:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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1075 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
>
> > > That is, the wealthy can afford to pay for better roads, so
> > > shipping costs in their area go down, so prices go down to their area, so
> > > they save more money.
> >
> > But the savings they recoup go to pay for better roads.
> >
> > > Meanwhile, the poor can't afford to pay for better
> > > roads, so shipping costs in their area go up, so prices in their area go up,
> > > so they have to spend more money.
> >
> > Which they didn't spend on roads.
>
> These are the types of soundbyte answers I was talking about, since you're
> giving them as though they're self-evident and sufficient in themselves,
> when in fact they're neither.
My attempt was merely to point out that one group is paying more for road
improvement and the other group is paying more for
delivered goods. It is not at all clear from this which group would be the
poor and the rich. Or even, which way of spending
money makes more sense.
Also, your scenario where the poor are herded into huge patches of ground so
that they can have bad roads far from the rich
was presented in a similarly self-evident tone. And I don't think it's so.
While neighborhoods certainly tend to have
heterogeneous socio-economic levels, the kinds of roads that would really lead
to increased costs of goods are interstate
highways. The poor people in a given metropolitan area and the rich in that
same area will have the same highway system and
thus the same cost of goods. Three blocks of bad roads from the highway to a
grocery store is going to have no (or trivial)
effect.
What do you want me to say about the poor? I know some people are poor. They
are poor now. They are poor in socialist
systems. They would be poor in libertopia. I am not suggesting that the
solution of poverty is the number one motivation for
those who support libertarian ideals. But I would also say that everyone would
basically have more disposable income with
which to do good under a more efficient system of goods and services
delivery...which I think that Libertopia would be.
> Your first byte here underscores that the
> wealthy will be guaranteed a position to make themselves more wealthy, and
> your second byte illustrates how the poor will be guaranteed to remain poor.
And this is unlike our current system how? Or any other system?
> Perhaps the money "they didn't spend on roads" was needed to fund such
> luxury items as food, clothing, and rent.
Absolutely. I'm sure that would happen sometimes. Where are you going with
this?
> > I would say that the school one attends is less (not more) responsible for
> > what one makes than attitude that is learned from parents.
>
> If one's parents were, when they were children, consigned to an
> impoverished community and locked into it by a get-what-you-pay-for
> education system, then the cycle is preserved through generations.
Agreed. (Sorry for the sound byte.)
> Further,
> the educational foundation provided by a good school certainly provides a
> better basis for learning and for success later in life.
The term good school doesn't mean anything in the context of a sub-society that
doesn't value education and (self-)discipline.
Those who will take advantage of a "good school" will certainly be better off
in a "good school" than they would be in a "bad
school." But I think that they would also be better off in a "bad school" than
would those who won't take advantage of the
opportunities even in a "good school."
> I don't doubt that
> parents can and should instill integrity and self-reliance in children, but
> I refuse to believe that well-disciplined children from impoverished
> communities are as likely to succeed as well-funded children from wealthy
> communities.
Well-disciplined isn't the only key to success. Belief that education and
assimilation into the successful society will bring financial
rewards, and that that those rewards are worth that course of action is the
only thing that I've seen that will make it work for
them. I know "black" people from college who spoke exactly like the educated
"white" people and others who spoke with
some dialectal traits common to impoverished "blacks." It is clear to me that
those who can "talk white" will have a better
chance of success than those who "talk black." The drive to learn how to speak
differently than those around you is, I think, the
single most important challenge facing the individual poor black in America.
(Conversely, figuring out how to make it so the
don't need to, might be the single biggest race-relations challenge facing
society at large.) The black people with whom I was
friends were all educated and interesting. But the successful ones either
"talked white" or switched back and forth rather
miraculously. (I loved listening to an office mate of mine at MU who was the
staff sponsor for the Society of Black Engineers
on campus on the phone with her students, the dialect was turned on and off
with complete ease. I wish I could do that.) I
think the only advantage that the children from wealthy communities have is
that they fit in socially with successful society.
> > Why would the organization be sporadic? And you include privatized as an
> > adjective seemingly meant to suggest low quality, but it implies quite the
> > opposite to me.
>
> How many tanks can Microsoft afford to build? How many stealth fighters
> can Disney afford to maintain? Unless there is a formal coalition between
> private military organizations (and I can't wait to see the KKK-funded
> military machine!), there is no way that a private army can realistically be
> maintained at a level competitive with the state military of a powerful
> foreign government. Further, would you trust the Microsoft War Machine? We
> can't go one week on LUGNET without someone (often quite reasonably) griping
> about some aspect of Gates Hegemony.
Our nation could afford as many units of military manpower and hardware either
way. The same number of dollars would exist
right? Presumably companies would coalesce to form large mutual
back-scratching organizations, would train together, and
would be prepared to work together in case of real threat. Why wouldn't they?
Private military units work in other parts of the
world and in other parts of US history. Why not now?
As far as griping about the Gates hegemony...I get bored with it. I don't have
a problem with MS maintaining a standing
security force. I think it would be respectible for companies like that to
require inactive service of their employees. That's a
long way from what we think of as a good idea here and now, but it could become
normal.
> No one joins a private militia without "taking their role very seriously,"
> but that doesn't make them credible or capable members of a private military
> force, if only because they'll never be able to afford to compete with state
> military organizations.
Well, the guys I knew got to play with a wider variety of weaponry than do most
US Army soldiers, from what I understand.
That doesn't mean that the 300 people who form a little southern Missouri
militia group have tanks and helicopters (they didn't)
but they could still play a useful role in an engagement. And I would expect
MS helicopters to ferry them into position.
> In any case, I'd love to see the data on this study
> of a no-doubt representative sample, both of professional soldiers and of
> militia members.
My guess is that this is kind of vitriolic sarcasm. What's the point in that?
or have I misinterpreted? I never purported this as
any kind of "study." It was clearly an anecdotal description of my
experiences. But frankly, I have discussed military life with
dozens of people (I spent 1.5 years of college in ROTC) and coming from a
vanilla middle-class background many of my peers
became servicemen. Even I went through the entire enlistment process and only
backed out at the last possible second because
they were trying to screw me in my guaranteed job assignment. I'm not speaking
from complete ignorance.
Chris
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