[ExI] Social right to have a living

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/7/11 Will Steinberg <steinberg.will at gmail.com>:
> Stefano, Kelly:
> I can't write a long-winded response because I'm at work, but it will
> suffice to say that things like nixing your special sewage system is at most
> a nuisance...

In this case, it was more than a nuisance. It nearly rendered me
unable to build a house at all. It added tens of thousands of dollars
to the cost of building the house, and it delayed construction by a
year. In the end, all the cost overruns (many of which were directly
due to government interference) caused the house to go into default,
and I lost it. It wasn't ALL the government's fault of course, but
they delayed construction by well over a year, and added at least
$200K to the cost of building the house.

> and that even grievous government intrusions on specific
> persons are just that--on specific persons--and pale in comparison to the
> chaos that those persons will cause in concert if government is abolished.

I am not in favor of abolishing government, just downsizing it. I am
not in favor of everyone "doing their own thing" at the expense of
others. There needs to be IMHO an authority, and laws. But when there
are so many laws that not even those practicing law know what the law
implies, that is a recipe for authoritarian abuse. I had a legal
question last week, was X legal or illegal? I spent nearly an hour
researching the topic. Even emailed back and forth a couple of times
to a lawyer. We could not conclusively determine whether the activity
in question was legal or illegal. That is a problem.

> Obviously we have very different viewpoints.  When considering
> 'individualism,' it might help you to note that most individuals are unlike
> yourselves, and have no real concept of  how they relate to land, country,
> or government.

I understand that not everyone has thought these things through as
completely as I have. I know that there exist many people who would
abuse any system. That's why I can't imagine complete anarchy working
very well, though I'm willing to go through the thought exercise to
see if I am wrong.

The government messes up everything it touches. It should touch less. Much less.

> What's even worse is that without the government's monopoly
> on uber-collectivization, cabals, cadres and militias of 'collected
> individuals' will fracture our economy, way of life, etc.  It can already be
> seen in the emergence of the 'Tea Party'--a group composed of those who know
> NOTHING about politics and those who know EVERYTHING, and where the latter
> have decided to use that knowledge to evilly control the former.
> Libertarianism is foolish.  It is the result of taking intuitive feelings
> about freedom and performing little analysis on them to yield results that
> are oversimplified to the point of being completely incorrect--sort of like
> signal aliasing.  Anybody who has spent time interacting with regular people
> should know this.  There is a happy middle ground somewhere, but that middle
> ground does not lie 1000 km rightwards.

So Will, do you think the current system is about the best we can do?
14 trillion dollars in debt. Open borders. Tightly limited
immigration. Foreign entanglements. Policies that will turn this
country into an economic wasteland over the next few years.

The tea party is just a reaction to Government Gone Wild! There
wouldn't be a need for a revolution if the government was perceived as
listening to the people. I suspect the results of the next election
will be another wild swing to the right. I believe in the collective
intelligence of the American people.

Where this all goes in the future is anyone's guess... but I think
eventually there will be a third political party.

In all honesty, I can't see that libertarianism is foolishness at all.
It is the only wise way to go forward. That is an opinion. Since it's
never been tried perhaps we will never know how it will work. On the
other hand, the Interenet, that we are all using is largely the result
of anarchy. So we have one example of anarchy working to build
something of great value. I hope that the states don't take it over
and mess it up.

-Kelly