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From: slack@wxlvax.UUCP (Tom Slack)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Libertarians considered psychotic
Message-ID: <343@wxlvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Sep-84 20:52:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: wxlvax.343
Posted: Tue Sep 11 20:52:08 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Sep-84 11:26:12 EDT
References: utcsrgv.5140
Lines: 27

I believe that you are being uneccesarly harsh on libertarian
Ideals.  I am not a libertarian, but I do appreciate some
of the philosophy.

1. Libertarians do subscribe to having some goals worked out
by central authority.  They are not opposed to all central
government.  Their point is that central government should
be limited.  In other words, a central government (independant
of whether it is controled by a majority of the people governed
or not) should be limited in what things it should be able to do.

2. One limitation that Libertarians would like to see safeguarded
from government is the right of individuals to own property.

3. If something truly belongs to me, if someone takes it away
without my consent, he is stealing from me.  This is also true
if a group of people get together and take property from an
individual.  The government is just such a group.

4. This is not to say that taxes are inherently stealing, but only
that they should be equally applied to all the people lest one
group steal from another.

Of course you can think of systems of government where individuals
cannot own property.

Tom Slack