From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 17:24:46 +0800
To: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Welfare Solution #389 / Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: CypherPunk Cults)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970822011845.02fb7814@popd.ix.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199708220913.EAA18778@mailhub.amaranth.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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In <3.0.2.32.19970822011845.02fb7814@popd.ix.netcom.com>, on 08/22/97 
   at 01:18 AM, Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> said:

>>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...]

This was neither a rant about government provide education nor is one typo
in a posting relevant to the topic.

>>>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.                                ^^^^^

Which was the issue I was addressing. I made no mention of drugs in my
post. Perhaps in the future you could make the effort to quote properly so
the statements of others are not mistaken for mine.

The rest below is irrelevant as it was not the topic I was addressing.

>>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.)


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William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

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