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- From: gmw0622@rigel.tamu.edu (Mr. Grinch)
- Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
- Subject: Re: Are recent Libertarian crusades not libertarian?
- Date: 22 Dec 1992 12:29 CST
- Organization: GrinchCo
- Lines: 46
- Distribution: usa
- Message-ID: <22DEC199212295265@rigel.tamu.edu>
- References: <1992Dec19.102325.12203@genie.slhs.udel.edu> <1992Dec19.192631.23217@rat.csc.calpoly.edu> <1992Dec21.222526.8441@bradley.bradley.edu>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: rigel.tamu.edu
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- In article <1992Dec21.222526.8441@bradley.bradley.edu>, dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell) writes...
- >mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
- >
- >>dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell) writes:
- >
- >We also need to start sacrificing a bit. We see Senator X push through the
- >East Dakota Pork Barrel Act of 1993 and we say, "What a scum sucking pig!
- >Term limits! Term limits!" Meanwhile, the voters in East Dakota are
- >reelecting Senator X *because* he is good at landing pork. That pork pays
- >for roads and schools and government services that the people feel entitled
- >to because they have their tax money siphoned off. So the pork scramble
- >spreads, because if people in East Dakota are going to have a stab at my
- >tax money, then I'm going to get a piece of theirs, godammit! I've
- >paraphrased de Tocqueville before with his quote "When voters realize
- >their ability to vote themselves public largesse, the decline of American
- >civilization will have begun." Well, I argue that it's begun already by
- >the people's insistence on reelecting porkbarrel politicians. And nothing
- >will change until we all decide to give up security for freedom. Another
- >common exchange:
-
- You seem to understand the situation pretty well, but you are not coming to a
- sensible conclusion. People are going to vote for what they consider to
- be their own best interests, and it is foolish to expect them to do
- otherwise. An experienced, influential legislator will be able to
- do more for his district than a junior representative. It is almost
- always to the advantage of the people in a district to reelect an incumbent
- (particularly if he is chairman of an important committe), but it is
- often to the disadvantage of everyone outside his district.
- >
- >These are the same people who keep reelecting useless incumbents. Now, one
- >of my prime arguments in favour of libertarianism is that it shouldn't be
- >against the law to be stupid. Hell, if these folks I've talked to are any
- >indication, stupidity is downright democratic!
-
- This can't be repeated too many times: people are not being stupid when they
- reelect incumbents, they are acting in their own best interests, although
- it may be against the interests of the nation as a whole. The idea of term
- limits is not to allow you to get rid of your own representative, it is
- to allow you to get rid of other peoples' representatives. That is why it
- is generally the big states that are voting for term limits first; a
- representative from CA is against the other CA represenatives as often as not,
- so weaking CA as a whole doesn't do Californians any harm as individuals.
- >--
- >*davE* Making the world safe for intelligent dance music. dave@bradley.edu.
-
- Mr. Grinch
-