Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxss.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxss!sebb From: sebb@pyuxss.UUCP (S Badian) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: More on Libertarianism, and a question Message-ID: <369@pyuxss.UUCP> Date: Thu, 2-Aug-84 14:12:46 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxss.369 Posted: Thu Aug 2 14:12:46 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 4-Aug-84 00:06:50 EDT Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J. Lines: 34 I find all this talk about libertarianism very interesting. I, personally, am a libertarian. Unfortunately, as a political and ecomonic system it just doesn't work in the big wide world. Yes, it works in protecting personal liberties. But in order to protect your liberties you have to depend on an efficient legal system. Before you can advocate a libertarian society, you have to figure out how to maintain an efficient legal system(as in courts, prisons) and you have to address questions of punishnent (as in capital). If you want to ignore the legal system and mete out justice the way they used to(you killed my kid; now I'm going to kill you!) then you are not advocating libertarianism; you are advocating anarchy(and certainly taking a giant step backwards as far as human rights go). Libertarianism is based on personal responsibility. In that way it is very existential. Most people cannot understand personal responsibility and certainly do not live by it. Greed and money are the motivating force today. I want to make that buck and I don't care what happens to you. This kind of logic is not a corporate problem, but an individual problem. People make decisions, not corporations. Take Hooker Chemical, for instance. Hooker is responsible for Love Canal in Western NY. As far as I'm concerned the people who made the decision to dump the chemicals there are at fault. We cannot blame 'big business' for it. Hang the creeps who decided to dump those chemicals there!(Better yet, make THEM live there!) I'd like to know how the libertarians deal with issues like national defense(certainly not a personal problem in today's world) and public lands(national parks, preserving the wilderness). If the government doesn't take care of these things, who does? sharon badian