Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!caip!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!MC.LCS.MIT.EDU!kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: Re: Personal liberty Message-ID: <12226108958.23.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Sun, 27-Jul-86 17:42:21 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12226108958.23.MCGREW Posted: Sun Jul 27 17:42:21 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 27-Jul-86 21:17:34 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: kfs%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 93 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu Return-Path: <@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU:KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU> Date: Mon, 14 Jul 86 21:56:59 EDT From: "Keith F. Lynch" Subject: Re: Personal liberty To: tim@ICSD.UCI.EDU cc: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU From: Tim Shimeall 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 -------