Letter from Jay P Hailey

Bill Stone writes in "Why I'm a Libertarian" (this issue):

>"But," you say, "you're particularly generous! Not
everyone will be 
>like you and we'll have people starving in the street!
>
>To that, I say, "Rubbish! Americans are the most generous and 
>prosperous people in the world! Each of us currently shells out half 
>of our earnings to Unconstitutional government 'charities' that 
>perform little or no charity work. Imagine if each of us gave one 
>percent of our gross income to our church or other true charity. There 
>wouldn't be a poor person left!"
>
> The real objection to voluntarily donating money private charities 
> money rather than seeing it stolen by government functionaries is 
> that it would force all the millions of parasites currently in 
> government employ to actually go out and work for a living.
>
>All our social and political ills would get solved overnight. All 
>those who currently have power on the  >strength of an all-powerful 
>(but inept) central government would have to find real work for a 
>change.
>
>And that frightens the hell out of them.

Here I am going to have to disagree with the Esteemed Mister Stone, for I
have had this conversation on many occasions, with many different people,
including one man who branded himself not only a socialist and a communist,
but actually Stalinist.  I feel this guy was exaggerating to watch
libertarians like me burst a blood vessel, but there is no doubt he shared
the point of view of most Liberals and Socialists.

Bill stated it explicitly above.  When it comes to welfare or some other
form of mass coercion to level the playing field, "There's no way
private donations could equal the good work of welfare." or
"Without the force of law to back it up, no one would ever just
voluntarily put down racism and walk away from it.  We need those
laws."  or "I'd be trustworthy with a gun. You might be
(probably, I know you), but there are people out there whocannot behave in
a trustworthy fashion, and so all guns must be controlled, to prevent
harm."

All of these "Liberal" positions are predicated on a simple
assumption. That without laws and government coercion, people would be evil
to each other. This presumption states "Most folks are greedy racists
who'll let poor black mothers starve,  while a solid minority are violent
loons who are only restrained from attacking us right this very minute by
the fear of what will happen to them if they are caught."

This idea that our neighbors are at best incompetent and at worst evil is
what is killing Liberty, and those of us who promote the idea.  It's all
over.  News stories are filled with stories of stupid, vile people, doing
stupid, vile things, and the idea that only a large force can keep a lid on
the madness.  I walk outside my door and see no cops anywhere, and yet I
see no one assaulting anyone, setting fires, or walking to the back of
their RVs for a beverage under the impression that a cruise control is
semantically equal to an auto-pilot.

However, a lot of people seem to see this world, a world of violence chaos,
insanity and incompetence and fear it.

For a few months in 2000 I carpooled with a man who'd spent thousands on
security for his home and rental property,  and said he was *scared* to
*drive* in Downtown Spokane, WA after dark.  I am from L.A.  I have been
out in the bad neighborhoods there, and I can tell you that Downtown
Spokane is a mewling kitten.  I drove a taxicab here in 1993, and learned
to identify prostitutes and drug dealers.  Occasional dumb things happen
but if you keep your eyes open and your wits about you, it becomes more a
floor show than a danger.  But despite my eyewitness accounts that Downtown
Spokane was nothing to fear,  this man preferred to hold on to his world
view that this is a dangerous, violent world, out to get you.

Another friend of mine asserts over and over that Anarchy, or Minarchist
Liberty will never work.  That human beings are fundamentally not equipped
to govern themselves without the mechanism of a power structure with a
power mad bully on top.  Else all will be at the mercy of the stupid,
incompetent and evil.

I wonder, and often out loud, to his face, how he can voluntarily be a part
of a such a miserable, useless species as this, composed of mainly useless
mouth breathers, with a portion of truly evil people and smaller proportion
of smart people and an even smaller proportion of people who are both smart
and evil enough to make the trains run on time.  I wonder how he can paint
this on himself and his species and continue to want to live through it.

The people I know consider the bureaucrats and power mongers of the current
system evil, and disposable.  But they cling to the structure itself
desperately.  If only they can find the right man or woman to put behind
the steering wheel,  the leviathan can be driven safely.

Bill's statement above - "But," you say, "you're
particularly generous! Not everyone will be like you and we'll have people
starving in the street!"

And all the implications of that statement are *exactly* what motivates the
average moderate waffling statist type on the right and on the left.
"But if anyone could buy any weapon at any time, without showing any
ID or anything, then insane people would buy guns and shoot up more schools
like Columbine!"  "But unless the police can search everyone, a
criminal might escape them and hurt someone!"  "Without guns
pointing at their faces, the others would put the Jim Crow signs right back
up! We know most of them are secretly racists anyway."

This fundamental distrust of the "other", of our fellows in our
community is what is destroying our freedom, and our nation itself, slowly,
but surely.

I have never found a more effective rebuttal than to say "Go stand
outside on your front porch.  Do you see any of that stupid shit happening?
Don't believe the news.  They have to hunt for the one in a hundred million
example to try and scare you with.  The news is full of shit."

I believe that by-and-large people are fundamentally decent, and will
generally not go out of their way to aggress or cause injury. I know there
are some who will,  but they are in such a tiny minority.  The proof of
this is all around you.  There are not enough cops to stop it when a large
group of people decides to violate the zero aggression principle.  I saw
this,  I was in Los Angeles for the Rodney King riots in 1992.  And 90 -
95% percent of Angelinos did just what I did.  We hunkered down and watched
it on CNN. This kind of thing is not happening in your town now,  although
depending who you ask it might seem like it.  Spokane, WA proceeds into
another summer night with no hint of that sort of insanity *as does 95% of
the world around us today*.

My species is not the violently idiotic monkeys we see reflected back to us
from the tube.  My species is the one that gave birth to Newton, Galileo,
Einstein,  Tom Paine, John Locke,  and Robert A. Heinlein.

There are more.  People of every ethnic background,  people of the two
sexes, people from all social strata who are wonderful.

And then there's you and me,  Going about our business each day, making a
living, and loving our families and doing the best we know how.  We're
pretty cool too.

Jay P Hailey
jayphailey{at}tic1.net

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