[ExI] Deficit spending and never admitting you were wrong
Dave Sill
sparge at gmail.com
Thu May 28 23:19:19 UTC 2020
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
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