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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