[ExI] libertarians and inheritance

[Damien Broderick]

At 05:22 PM 5/3/2009 -0500, I wrote:

><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_inheritance>
>
>which doesn't touch the problem I raised of wastrel heirs ruined by 
>their unearned dough.

One fiery rant from 1991 that does

<http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/lastlib.html>

comments:

<You have no idea of the corruption that entered the "Party of 
Principle [since 1980]." Reason Magazine sold out. The great 
anarchistic "Mr. Libertarian", Murray Rothbard, joined with an 
arch-fascist [LaRouche]...

I've worked my ass off since childhood at junk jobs because of the 
very conditions mentioned. Correct: too many of these 
pseudo-Libertarians have had it too easy in life. I had to collect 
bottles at factories at age five and I was shoveling coal in 
basements at age nine, but according to these pseudo-Libertarians who 
spent those years playing, I'm poor and they're rich because I didn't 
work as much as they did. An inverted crazy-quilt world made by 
people who inherited while demanding that others earn and don't even 
want to face it....

One of my biggest problems is with "inheritance." On the one hand I 
do not support inheritance taxes as they strengthen the State. On the 
other hand, I'm sick of hearing Libertarians and Objectivists say how 
everything in life must be earned and then they look away and whistle 
when I say, "True, but how about inheritance? It's not earned."

Perhaps it's because having been born along the East River in New 
York City, I've never known what it's like to be middle-class and to 
have the necessities of life handed to me so I'd be set up in life. 
I've never known any Ayn Rand fans to be Hank Reardens themselves; 
they seem to be born owners, not renters. I've watched my fellow 
libertarians sell out as they got older; they no longer care about 
personal liberty, just economic freedom.>

Obviously this is not the case with some libertarians, such as Rafal 
who escaped from the Belly of the Beast with only the shirt on his 
back, and now drives a small starship on a freeway he built with his 
own bare hands.

Damien Broderick