Bob Blakely wrote:
> A lot of this seems somehow... backwards.
Hmm. Either because it is, or because I didn't draw clear
lines between which parts of it are how I think things ought
to be and which parts are how things appear to be now.
> In a free society, people determine what activities benefit them according
> to whatever criteria they choose.
I'm with you so far.
> [...] Further, who are
> we to determine for another fellow what should or should not give him
> happiness?
I *think* I'm still with you, since I said that such intangibles
as the arist's happiness or the audience's happiness counted as
"benefits" justifying expense.
Hey, if you're spending _your_ resources, I don't particularly
care what your justification is -- the fact that you're doing
so tells me that whatever justification you've got is sufficient
for you. But would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
to watch a single episode of your favourite sitcom? If not, I
say that you make _some_sort_ of judgement as to how much cost
is justified by how much pleasure (for you).
> I hold that all things are permissible so long as they do not
> harm others or diminish their rights.
Okay, so you're a libertarian. I'm almost-but-not-quite a
libertarian. We're going to agree in several places and come
close to agreement in many more. I wish I could be a libertarian,
as an absolutist libertarian stance -- even the Libertarian party
platform -- is so _logically_clean_, so mathematically pure, so
fundamentally simple. Alas, I don't see the world as being quite
that convenient. I see it as needing a bit of tinkering here and
there.
Nonetheless, I find a great deal to admire in libertarianism.
The axioms make sense to me as starting places; I'm just not
ready to apply them as absolutes.
> [...] Now even when applying this "criteria", I
> would tend to be careful. Take the case of "gas guzzling" race cars. Would
> it really be wise to restrict this due to costs of any sort? Who is really
> being damaged? How much?
My point is that _if_ motorsports are shown (uh, if enough people
become convinced) to be a Real Problem to "the commons" (i.e. by
causing _enough_ pollution to actually be an issue), _then_ steps
will be taken to adjust the economics of motorsports in our current,
decidedly non-libertarian, society.
As to whether such steps should be taken at all in a libertarian
state, that's something libertarians can probably have a lot of fun
debating -- pollution is an "intrudes on my right to breath" issue,
but what's the proper libertarian way to deal with that? (If I
get bored, I toss the question to another mailing list that has
a rather large libertarian population.)
> It's a hell of an age we live in. Here in California, some folks are ready
> and eager to restrict the liberty of others at the drop of a hat.
*nod* It can be (and in some places is) overdone. There are benefits
to having the legislature move rather slowly.
And no, the system, even from a non-libertarian point of view,
is not as perfect as I described it; I was working on an abstraction
and the real world has all sorts of ... well, politics ... in it.
-- Glenn
PS: The main reason I don't feel I can vote Libertarian is that
I do believe the State has an interest in providing education and
roads. Apart from that, I'm pretty damned close.
