X-Message-Number: 22939
From: 
Subject: Re. messages 22930 & 22931
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 20:52:33 +0000

Charles, yes I was employed by Clark County Public Works in Las Vegas. I 
would hesitate to say "worked" because I consider that an insult to people 
who have real jobs! I can speak from experience to those who doubt the 
private sector's capability of running roads. All wealth comes from the 
private sector, so it is the private sector that pays for all roads (the 
government just transfers money from the private sector to the treasury then 
sends checks to Clark County to pay for roads). Many times we (the county) 
would farm out projects to private design firms because they were bitching 
that they didn't have enough work to stay busy. They did as good a job as the 
county except that their lettering was not as "pretty" as ours (until 
C.A.D.came along). That was because the county is in no particular rush to 
get the job done (within reason). The private sector was competing for our 
contracts and had a time limit...so they drafted freehand. We (the county) 
had the luxury of using lettering templates. When it came time to build the 
roads, the private sector did that! I have just demonstrated that the private 
sector can fund and design roads. All that is left is operating them. In my 
opinion from observing how the private sector operates almost everything we 
get our material satisfaction from, I feel it is capable of figuring out how 
to profit from roads. And because I was employed by the government does not 
invalidate any criticism I have of its operation. In fact it should be seen 
as evidence I know what I am talking about. Now to Mike.Yes it WAS close! 
None of the massive federal bureaucracy we pay for today was in existence. 
Any undesirable legislation that existed was on a state level...in line with 
states rights. One might disagree with that legislation but at least it was 
constitutional! The libertarian party came into existence in 1971, so of 
course the founders didn't think of a provision to enforce a "libertarian" 
system. The founders saw individual rights as more important than the needs 
of the herd. That is a libertarian concept. Today ask anyone if the needs of 
an individual should be considered more important than the group. You will 
see how ignorant most people are of that fact. A real libertarian system has 
not been tried (to the best of my knowledge) but the fact that when 
governments get into financial trouble (which is almost all the time) one 
solution they occasionally use to get out of trouble is "free enterprise 
zones". In that, the government sets up a region that will experience either 
no taxes or drastically reduced taxes as well as reduced regulations. 
This "Free enterprise zone" is never set up for an unlimited time...only 
until the experiment in libertarian government bails the non-libertarian 
government out, then it is business as usual. Even Castro is 
allowing "limited" capitalism in Cuba for the obvious reason...well, obvious 
to some of us! Is the scientist working under NIH a parasite? If all the 
money he gets from NIH is money he put in...no. If not, yes! By the way, I 
consider myself a parasite for the reason given to Charles Platt's message. 
Even so, my message of libertarian government is not invalidated because of 
that. I came to libertarianism in 1985, 16 years after my employment by the 
county. Prior to that I was a democrat. I am no John Gault!! As for Mikes 
reference to Darwinian principles...I agree. I also believe we will never see 
a libertarian society in my lifetime and maybe never. That is because the 
type of "self interest" practiced (for the most part) today is not rational 
self interest. It is the kind Mike mentioned. Finally, If you don't believe 
that an alternative to pure libertarianism will be taken to its extreme, 
please ask yourself when our federal government will finally say:"enough is 
enough...we don't need any more taxes and regulations"! If that doesn't 
happen, I fail to see how we can avoid the type government that exist in 
North Korea and Cuba.
Jerry

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