[ExI] Deficit spending and never admitting you were wrong

[Dave Sill]

On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 1:13 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I got some of my libertarianism from Heinlein. In one of his novels he
> says "We'll feed and take care of your family but if you won't work you can
> starve."  It's not just the drug addict that needs help - it's the family
> too.  You want to be tough on the addict - fine - will you let his family
> starve?  I would not and I think that most libertarians would not.  Status
> restored.
>

I don't want to be tough on the addict and I don't want anyone to starve.
We shouldn't expect the government to do everything that needs doing. We
shouldn't *let* the government do everything that needs doing.

I have no idea what the addiction recovery rate is.  Depends on the drug, I
> am sure.  I am also pretty sure that tens of thousands of homeless people
> are addicted and have been in and out of therapy for years and are still
> shooting up.  I have no idea what to do with them like the street people in
> SF that Spike and I have been discussing.  I do not know what not treating
> them like helpless people would be like.  How would you get tough on street
> people?  Many of them are cross-addicted as well, and a large percentage
> are mentally ill.  Getting tough is no solution to that, whatever that
> would mean.
>

I'd start by not making addicts criminals, so they can have hope of getting
their life back if they beat the addiction. I don't understand "getting
tough" on street people: do you think that's a lifestyle they choose?
Better mental health care is something we definitely need.

Totally agree about drug prohibition:  good money after bad, or even good
> money after good. Has there ever been a bigger federal government failure?
>

I'd have to think about that, but it's certainly up there.

-Dave
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200528/0d07b118/attachment.htm>