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From: mwm@ea.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Were not drifting; were being tugged - (nf)
Message-ID: <9800021@ea.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Aug-84 18:52:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ea.9800021
Posted: Sun Aug  5 18:52:00 1984
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Nf-From: ea!mwm    Aug  5 17:52:00 1984

#R:hogpd:-36600:ea:9800021:000:3057
ea!mwm    Aug  5 17:52:00 1984

> /***** ea:net.philosophy / ism780b!jim / 11:46 pm  Aug  2, 1984 */
> > I like people who like to give to other people too. I also like to give
> > things to other people. What I don't like are people who *make* me give
> > things to other people.
> 
> What about the people who make you make you pay for the invasion of Grenada,
> the attempted assassination of Castro, the overthrow of Allende, the
> Australian coup, support for the overthrow of Nicaragua, more money for
> military marching bands than goes to the rest of the nation's musicians,
> vastly inflated prices for nuts, bolts, tanks, and all other forms of military
> hardware, military aid to the El Salvadoran, Guatamalan, and Honduran
> generals, 30000 nuclear warheads, 17000 more scheduled in the next 5 years,
> MX missiles, cruise missiles, Pershing missiles, B-1 bombers, M-1 tanks, etc.?

Yup, I don't like being made to pay for any of that, either. Do you? Some of
it I would be willing to pay to support, but I don't like being told that I
*have* to pay. It's like giving things to people - it's something I'd do if
left to myself, but I *still* don't like being forced to do so.

> What about the people who make you pay for massive advertising campaigns
> for products you don't want or need, for their lobbying and wining and
> dining and bribing of politicians or buying of politicians through massive
> campaign contributions, all to allow them to continue to pollute your
> environment and to pass laws that protect them from their precious
> free-market competition?  There is a tax for these things in everything you
> buy.  The fact that it doesn't say "tax" and "government" all over it doesn't
> mean it isn't there.

Not nearly so bad - I have the option to not buy things. This is *far*
preferable to the government holding a gun to my head and taking things from
me. If I like a companies products *and don't own the company*, then all I
can really do to see that they survive is buy their product. I assume that
their management is trying to achieve the same end, and their massive
advertizing campaigns are good for the company.

Of course, in buying their products, I also support unions lobbying to get
laws passed to support there precious seniority system, to continue to place
more value on years worked than actual ability, etc. There's a tax for these
things in everything I buy - but once again, I have an option. Nobody makes
me buy things at union-inflated prices.

> You think you have worked hard for what you have, but your attitude is like
> the programmer who slaves to find the optimal intruction sequence for the
> inner loop of his bubble sort.  You just have no concept of the costs inherent
> in the way the system is currently structured.

You think you've done a careful analysis of the problem, but your attitude
is like the programmer who implements a quicksort to find the largest element
in the list - you're solving the wrong problem. You just have no concept of
how the system is currently structured.

> -- Jim Balter (ima!jim)