wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 15:09:46 -0400, Susan Hogarth
wrote:

wrote:

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:54:34 -0400, Susan Hogarth
wrote:

Do we have 'longevity, health, peace, and lower crime' now? Do we now
live longer, healthier, more peaceful lives than we would have if there
were no welfare-warfare state?

Absolutely. Go read some history.

History tells you what *would have been* if things had been different? I
think you misunderstand what history is if you believe that.

It does allow you to look at how things were and then compare them to
how things have turned out since.

And that tells you exactly nothing about how things would have been now
with a free market.

If you liked Edwardian slums, sweatshops and child labor,

Ah, yes, the Edwardian free market! They just called an entire era
'Edwardian' because they thought that would be a cute name, not possibly
because there was a massive government headed by this Edward fellow, eh?

If you don't like child labor may I assume that you don't like the idea
of children being forced to attend school for twelve years? Or is that
somehow different?

I can
understand why their disappearance from developed countries troubles
you.

Oh, yes. Now we simply drug the children and send them through a mental
meat-grinder rather than off to sweatshops. That's a big improvement. Not!

Like most libertarians you have a mental image of how things would be
if there were no regulation,

[assuming you mean 'government regulation']

Of course, and so do you. The difference is that yours is based on both
a mistaken understanding of history and a bunch of flawed assumptions
about reality.

you just have never taken the trouble to
compare it to the 100s , nay 1000s of year when it was not present.

It's really hard to compare the industrial age to the pre-government
age. Oh, wait - they didn't have television then, either. The government
must have given us television!

Your utopia did not emerge.

I've got no idea what you're talking about. What 'utopia'? People will
always suffer and strive to better their condition.

and government stepped in when things
got intolerable.

Your understanding of history is flawed. Government *made* things
intolerable. Then it blamed someone else, 'stepped in', took over the
schools so it could teach people to believe that any improvements were
due to government (clever, that) and *voila*! Here you are telling me
how wonderful government is and that without it I'd actually have to
find out what was in my toothpaste all by myself. Horrors!

Have you studied the British Poor Laws?:

http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/i...n/historyf.htm

"1572 An Elizabethan Act made provision for the punishment of sturdy
beggars and the relief of the impotent poor."

Right. *Punishment* of beggars. Send the poor *******s off to workhouses
to work for your cronies in so-called 'private industry'. THAT is
government for you!

But feel free to fight for your right for the 80 hour work week for 12
year-olds.

You don't think a 12-year old has a right to work as much as he likes?
Why do you have to control other people?

- Susan