From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 16:56:24 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Welfare Solution #389 / Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: CypherPunk Cults)
In-Reply-To: <199708220530.HAA22270@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.19970822011845.02fb7814@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>William H. Geiger III wrote:
>> A prime example is the welfair class in America. All their basic needs are
>> provided for by the State (food, housing, medical, education, ...) 
[If you're going to rant about government-provided education,
_please_ spell most of your words correctly, or let technology help you...]

>>and yet they have the highest crime rates.
No, they have high rates of arrest and conviction for law violations,
primarily drug laws.  Yes, there's also crime, but that's a separate problem.

>Welfare Solution #389:
>  How about this? - When a person on welfare is busted for heroin use,
>or theft to support a habit, the State thereafter sends the person's

Last time I ran the numbers, the estimated free-market cost of 
medical-quality heroin is less than $1/day, and cocaine about $3/day;
the coke figures are from Bush's 1989 drug-control policy.
All the crime and violence involved in the black-market trade is because
somebody's convinced society that there's a serious moral difference
between a junkie and a drunkard, and that Government Needs A War To Fix It.
I work in San Francisco, where there are junkies and drunkards begging
on the street corners (except when the cops run them off for annoying the
politer classes), and I've noticed that most of them can afford tobacco;
the real cost of politically less correct drugs is about the same.

So if you want the State sending the junkie's welfare check to the
theft victims, you should also ask them to send the drug cops's paycheck
as well.  Because they're partners in crime.

======
But this isn't a cypherpunks issue any more, unless we note that,
if the government would stop creating black markets like this,
there'd be a lot less need for Anguillan remailers, Swiss bank accounts,
money-laundering conferences, and many of the other techniques we use
to help the oppressed and downtrodden keep making the big bucks....

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp
#   (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies.  Thanks.)