Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles; site uicsl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!keller From: keller@uicsl.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Ethics and others in libertarianism - (nf) Message-ID: <21700001@uicsl.UUCP> Date: Sun, 29-Jul-84 15:54:00 EDT Article-I.D.: uicsl.21700001 Posted: Sun Jul 29 15:54:00 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 31-Jul-84 00:33:07 EDT References: <2501@mit-vax.UUCP> Lines: 50 Nf-ID: #R:mit-vax:-250100:uicsl:21700001:000:2520 Nf-From: uicsl!keller Jul 29 14:54:00 1984 #R:mit-vax:-250100:uicsl:21700001:000:2520 uicsl!keller Jul 29 14:54:00 1984 What libertarian drivers do... ...obey the contract! Two keystones of libertarian thought are property rights and contractual obligations. For the driving example you are obliged to maintain your part of the bargain, as a driver, with the owner of the road. Thus the speed limit is set by the owner and as we all live it that limit is 55. (Ha ha, who goes 55? Try driving 55 on some roads and you'll be run over.) Now for an anecdote. My wife and I were driving to Pittburgh on I-70 when we hit a huge pot-hole somewhere in WVA. The impact dented the alloy wheel and caused a quick deflation of the tire. It was after sunset and raining and the hole was just after the top of a hill. It was impossible to see before you hit it. We pulled over to the side behind another car that had hit the hole a little while before. They were replacing the front left wheel just as we were going to do. We were there for about 45 minutes mostly because we helped another person who hit the hole after we did. While we were there no fewer than 5 cars hit that hole and had to change a tire. Later we wrote a letter to the federal highway administration and got a response saying that they had forwarded our letter to the WVA highway department. We wrote a letter to our insurance company about the road condition and didn't get a reply. This incident ended up costing us $200 and the insurance company another $100. (Alloy wheels are expensive.) You may have noticed that most toll roads are in good condition and that some interstates are in very poor condition. I believe that there is a strong conection between the condition of the road and the way in which you pay to use it. Tolls, being a direct use fee, seem to go directly to maintenance. But gas tax money goes somewhere in Washington and is seldom heard from again unless it is to be used at the whim of someone like fat old Tip. If any of you have heard of the estimated cost of rebuilding America's roads and bridges you will know that there is no way in hell that the government has enough money. No doubt the cost is inflated greatly by the governments usual waste. Now suppose that roads were privately held and that the ICC and FTC and ??C didn't exist (or were so small that you never heard of them) and that there was no tax on fuel and that the railroads and highways and airports and airlines all worked at free-market efficiencies, why then you might have passenger trains running everywhere, and nice highways, and cheap gas. It'll never happen. -Shaun