From: blancw@pylon.com
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 94 21:49:02 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Alt.Gvmt.Bad.Bad.Bad
Message-ID: <199408310449.VAA01301@deepthought.pylon.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


From Rachel_P._Kovner:

>It was once said that (and I quote -very- loosely) "The 
>price of liberty is  eternal vigilance", therefore, 
>'bad government' is probably not a result of  some kind 
>of evil or malicious people, but just people who do not 
>guard  their rights. 


It could also be said, somewhat loosely, that criminal theft is 
just the result of people who do not protect their property. 
For them it's as easy as falling off a log:  the big G will 
just keep getting worse and taking over more (Somebody Stop 
Me!).  


From :Perry E. Metzger:

>Actually, as public choice economic theory has shown, 
>bad government  tends to be the inevitable result of 
>the evolutionary pressures on  government and 
>government officials.

The 'evolutionary' pressure on Government tends to go in the 
direction away from keeping accurate accounts, including 
keeping an eye on the consequences of policies & procedures.  
They would rather not note what the real source of new goods 
and wealth is, and they would rather not keep track of the 
success/failure of their legislative constructs.  All this 
pressure towards backsliding on the evolutionary scale means 
that the big G will accept being as dependent on others, as 
some would like to be upon them. 


At the very least, they're not very admirable for making the 
rest of the population work so hard to prevent them from taking 
everybody down with them.

Blanc