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From: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Reply to WLIM
Message-ID: <12256308719.26.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 19-Nov-86 21:34:36 EST
Article-I.D.: RED.12256308719.26.MCGREW
Posted: Wed Nov 19 21:34:36 1986
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    From: Willie Lim <WLIM@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>

    ... What may be sense to you may actually be nonsense to others.

  How can you say this while advocating objectivity?  If there is an
objective reality then something is either sense or nonsense (or some
mixture).  Which it is cannot depend on who you are.

    The incentive [to send shorter messages] would be more realistic 
    if there is a charge for using the service.

  And the incentive to send longer messages would be more realistic
if I was paid for my messages.  So?  As long as I am willing to send
messages and others are willing to distribute them and still others
are willing to read them, what's the problem?

    1) Duels.  You assumed that it is not a problem.  You said 
    nothing about why it can't be a problem in *ANY* libertarian 
    society.

  I don't understand the question.  How can I explain why it's not a
problem when you have never said why you think it is a problem?

    2) Nations in transitions (Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa,
    Grenada).  You gave reasons for why they can't become libertarian.

  No, I said it is realistically unlikely that they soon would, just
as it is unlikely for communist countries to soon become even as free
as the US.

    You did not mention what the prerequisites are for a libertarian
    society.

  I wish I knew.

    3) Society of nations.  You wimped out.

  No, I explained why there was no comparison.  Countries are not
anything like individuals.  Individuals cannot enslave parts of
themselves, have revolutions, invasions, merge, split, or become
colonies of other individuals.  Countries cannot think, cannot
have desires, goals, aspirations, friends, or lovers.

    4) Presidential Plan.  Again you wimped out.  You did not say how
    the government is made accountable in a libertarian society, i.e.
    how and why it works.

  Yes I did, though perhaps not in reply to your message, since I
had said it several times before.  Government is made accountable
essentially in the way it is now.  The difference being that a
libertarian government would not have the power to tax, to make or
enforce laws against victimless crimes, to wage war except when
invaded, to draft anyone, or to spend money on anything but defense
of individual liberties, i.e. police, courts, and military.

                                                              ...Keith

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