>From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: New Government?
>Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 00:56:25 -0400
>
>phil osborn wrote:
> >
> > >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
> > >Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
> > >To: extropians@extropy.com
> > >Subject: Re: New Government?
> > >Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 00:13:14 -0400
> > >
> > >phil osborn wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > As I recently said, "The solution would be corporate
>sponsorship."
> > > > > >
> > > > > > If you value life, *value* life!
> > > > >
> > > > >Imagine the following:
> > > > >
> > > > >Welcome to Union Carbide High School, home of the UCHS Gassers...
> > > > >because we care.
> > > > >Tonite our team is playing the boys of the Mighty Lockheed Bombers,
> > > > >visiting from Ground Zero Stadium...
> > > > >
> > > > >I am all for competition and merit in student acheivement, and no
> > > > >mainstreaming. I am especially for competition and merit among
>teachers
> > > > >(break the NEA monopoly), but pasting a corporate logo on my kid so
>he
> > > > >can go to school? Thats the kind of irresponsible idea that the
>morons
> > >I
> > > > >talk of in my prior post would be all for...
> > > > >
> > > > So you actually think that it's better to take money from people who
> > >happen
> > > > to have preferences for lifestyles different from yours, at the
>point of
> > >a
> > > > gun, money which is then allocated by bureaucrats with no stake in
>the
> > > > outcome toward whatever passes for "education" among the elite
>parasites
> > > > from academia - the people who told my parents not to ruin me by
> > >teaching me
> > > > to read at the age of three; wait for the experts to do it at six.
>The
> > > > jerks who spread racism throughout the South. Right.
> > >
> > >Hey moron, where in my post did I say anything about government
> > >confiscatory policies to fund education? I'm the last person to support
> > >that. Coming from New Hampshire, private school capital of the world, I
> > >know how much better private schools are than public ones, and not one
> > >private school that I know of even allows corporate logos pasted on
> > >students or school property.
> > >
> > >Mike Lorrey
> > >
> > You didn't finish your quote....
> >
> > To wit:
> >
> > "My personal favorite is to fund education with taxes on stupid
>behavior:
> > drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, pollution, gambling, logging... etc. Thus
> > its a negative feedback effect: the smarter the kids become, the less
> > need there is for more education... This to me is the optimum way to
> > have 'price' signalling in education." Mike Lorrey
> >
> > Wonder why you cut it off???? ;)
>
>I wasn't the one who cut if off, it was phil. As for my words that you
>quoted above, I was speaking contemporaneously, as an idea for the
>proper way to fund PUBLIC education today if a society were to choose to
>have public education, not in regards to a currently non-existent
>society where every child goes to private school.
>
>As for your gripe that I advocate 'taking money at the barrel of a gun',
>the fact is that the behaviors I specified all are types in which the
>practitioners externalize some of their costs onto society or other
>individuals in the form of crime, accidents, health care costs, state
>assumption of bankruptcy debt, below cost harvesting of resources from
>public land, etc. In my mind recovery of externalized costs is the ONLY
>justifiable reason for government to impose taxes on its citizens, its
>merely a matter of extension of civil law as a standard policy of class
>action, which is totally in keeping with libertarian ideals. Taking
>money from a person at the point of a gun is just fine if the person
>with the money got that money by passing his costs on to someone else.
>Its called enforcement of judgement, and such enforcement of the
>decisions of any arbitrator will exist even in the most libertarian
>society. The type of people who still gripe about paying taxes in such a
>society are the type of people whos mindset is "whats mine is mine and
>whats yours is mine" to begin with. Once they've stolen their bit its
>'obviously' a crime to recover that money and give it to its rightful
>owners.
>
>Mike Lorrey
Ah, thank you. That puts the discussion on a better plane. This is in fact
one of the major blank areas of the anarcho-capitalist school, right up
there with children's rights and orginal property claims.
(Of course, as an anarchocapitalist, I shouldn't even mention these
embarrassing lacks in our theory. George Smith attacked me back in the
'70's for what he and Wendy McElroy called "sniping from the gray areas."
I.e., PC for me would be to pretend that I have all the answers and all we
have to do is Smash the State and everything will be fine.)
Your most recent restatement is fine in and of itself. Yes, it is important
to deal with these problems of externalization of costs, free riders, etc.
However, some of people you have identified are probably not really in that
group. One of the early members of Foresight came down with cancer in the
late '80's. I had no idea, but ran into him and his wife coming out of the
local jail one night. She had just bailed him out, and I later learned it
was for a heroin possession arrest. He was a highly productive person who
on net balance certainly more than paid his way in society, and the heroin
probably allowed him to keep functioning a while longer than would have
otherwise been possible.
Then there are the 85% of N. American Indians who have the "addictive gene."
They have difficulty enjoying life in general without artificially
boosting certain neurotransmitters via alcohol, speed, etc. Due to the
Puritan ethic, the development of safer, more effective drugs to
specifically answer the needs of this large population (about 35% of
Caucasians also carry this gene) has been blocked. Should they then also be
charged for the harm that society has caused to them? Or shouldn't we in
fact bill all the people who voted for and support all those laws that keep
them from cheaply and effectively dealing with their problem?
I.e., it has to work both ways. If society harms the individual, then
shouldn't the individual also be worthy of compensation? And aren't many of
the examples you chose specifically cases in which society's laws have
worsened or created the problem?