At 11:11 PM 11/9/98 GMT, Adam Back wrote:

Vladimir writes:

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what we really need is a government which can personalize its services, and people pay for what they use.

yes, agree. In other words we need freedom for business to compete in provision of all services currently monopolised by government.

I think a distinction needs to be made between what they (the Sheeple{tm}) NEED and what they "Request for Convenience". Wrongfull lawsuits and welfare careerists in mind, I think this is an important distinction. --snip--

If you can opt out of literally any goverment service, I suspect government revenues would nearly disappear. Everything they "supply" can be supplied more cheaply by business. So what government remained would have to compete on a fair basis with private industry.

Not so fast, Kimosabe- what business would rule against itself a la the Supreme Court against Congress, when a business decision was spiritually and/or lawfully in violation of the constitution and legitimately passed laws enacted since its inception???

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the big quandary is people who can't pay for what they use like social security. ultimately the question is how much money the state has the authority to collect for this kind of thing, and the political answer has varied every year, but it has gone up every year in the 20th century generally.

I think the state should have no authority to collect anything. Charity at the point of a gun is not charity. The state is an extremely inefficient distributor of charitable funds anyway.

This goes back to the "what they NEED vs. what they request for convenience (theirs)" argument.

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the big problem imho is fraud/waste/corruption in govt though. I

definitely a problem. Should AP politics apply??? What would be the method of redress for infractions that were so heinous that the perpetrator was deemed untrustworthy and removal from office the only recourse? Who would "remove" the heinous individual for incarceration in an appropriate facility??? Who would decide that such action was warranted???

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think if a lot of it were eliminated we would be flabbergasted at how little a personal contribution it takes to take care of people who need it. bureaucracies are the most expensive thing on the planet. here's hoping that cyberspace will cut through the *ultimate* middleman: govt.

Amen to that.

Adam

Perhaps we should view the internet as a wedge, not as the fulcrum, lever and force. I think it would be intuitive, instructive, and demonstrative to operate on that premise rather than the "here is the internet, my trump card, I rest my case" style of argument. Reeza! If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intention of doing you good, you should run for your life. -stolen from a cypherpunk sig