"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 08:58:59 -0400, with neither quill nor qualm, "Ed
Huntress" quickly quoth:


"Stuart & Kathryn Fields" wrote in message
...

snip

Naw This is just a waste of time and keystrokes. I haven't learned
anything new and I would bet a bunch neither have you. All this energy
with no yield is definitely a waste of time.

I'll go along with that, but what I take from this is that I've heard not
one idea from you, Larry, or any other self-proclaimed libertarian that
would solve a single problem you've brought up, except to ignore it and
hope
it goes away. I really don't get how grown people can swallow this
nonsense.
And it is nonsense -- a utopian idea that people will get better, and
things
will get better, if you just ignore them.

And most people recognize it, Stu. That's why Ron Paul and the other
crazies
are going to be marginalized as long as they promote ideas that have no
basis in history or experience, and no logic to support the idea that they
will do something positive. It's all just an expression of frustration
with
the imperfection of people and the messiness of government in general.

Ed, if we simply tossed out a few thousand of our superfluous laws
(TBD) and enforced the truly valid ones, things would immediately
improve.

Is TBD something like "a player to be named later"? I assume you'd create a
government agency to judge which laws are superfluous, right? g


People would feel less abused, cops would get a helluva lot more
respect, and courts might get the time they need to give proper
handling to criminals.

TBD, as you say. Remember the immortal words of Robert Bork (and the
smartest thing he ever said) "All laws are legislation of morality." It's
absolutely true, and the consequences of that simple statement are the root
of every problem you have with the laws, and that Stuart has with the
agencies -- and that all of us have with the financial-system meltdown. The
laws are the result of political judgments about what people think is right
and what they think is wrong, and that has no necessary connection to what
works and what doesn't.

Less ideology, more pragmatic centrism, and we'll all be a lot better off.
We've had enough of government that makes us feel good about our moral
theories. What we need is government that works to achieve our basic
aspirations.

--
Ed Huntress