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To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21956)	12/6/1998 3:43:00 AM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Is this the same author that implied that the liberals were communists? I genuinely forget.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21956)	12/6/1998 12:07:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Gerald, as ever I don't care to engage on the policy - political philosophy front. Naive high school civics guy will make a more response, it was going to be small but I always write too much. Your (or Hayek's) arguments are more substantial than the traditional "Bill Gates is John Galt" argument. Write your representatives, get the law repealed or MLB statutory immunity for Bill is about all that line deserves. But the level you're arguing at sounds pretty much like the more sophisticated Objectivist arguments I see from time to time, about what laws are justifiable (according to usually unstated principles) and which aren't. I don't think that's something that can be ordained outside the realm of politics. I don't take Hayek or Rand or Reggie's word that "one dollar one vote" aka government by "socioeconomic majority" is the way the world ought to work under all circumstances. The flippant rejoinder would be the old line, Democracy without Capitalism is like a fish without a bicycle. Bork's a funny case, as you probably figured out if you looked into the "Gomorrah" book at all. He's pretty Libertarian on the economic/business front, but he's got no problem with all manner of government interference on individual rights and civil liberties. It's mysterious to me why the government power should be subservient to, and tailored to serve the interests of, "corporate persons", or whatever the legal term is, but on the other hand should have unlimited power to regulate individual rights, according to the will of the democratic majority. That's my bastardized understanding of Bork, and it seems sort of backwards. Our government has evolved in a funny way. I don't know what the founders would make of it, but I don't know what they would make of the anonymous power structure of international capitalism either. I have a feeling they wouldn't think much of government in the U.S. by paid lobbyists from all over the world, but who knows. The judiciary has done more than originally envisioned. I'd guess the founders wouldn't think much of the total control of foreign policy and war powers by the executive either, though. And without the "excesses" of the Warren Court, the Constitutional guarantees about unreasonable search and seizure and other rights in the criminal justice arena would be about as laughable in general as they are specifically in the War on Some Drugs. Offhand, I'd say those who want the structure of our government to more directly reflect Hayek or Friedman's idea of "Capitalism and Freedom", should work for a new Constitutional convention. I don't think piece by piece legislative reform will ever be enough, and appealing to the "original intent" of the founders would be pretty theological. The founders certainly weren't as democratic as they're made out to be, as the Constitutional indirect election of Senators and the President indicates. But they also weren't very specific about the "property rights" that are now held so central by economic theorists when they move to the political philosophy realm. The founders are also invoked by the "Christian Nation" crowd, which gets really theological. Also a little too original for my taste, my understanding is they were vaguely deist at best. Sorry, off the soapbox. Gerald, maybe you should check out the Libertarian forum here, I've heard it's good, but the theory just doesn't interest me that much, given current political reality. The equivalent forum to this on the nytimes site, "Microsoft as monopoly" or something like that, is a big Objectivist/ Libertarian hangout too. I'm not disparaging your study of this, Gerald, but I haven't seen anyone around here who seems ready to match your scrutiny of the deeper issues either. On the more specific issue here, all I'll say is my usual flippant response, if the "market" worked all that well, Windows would suck less. Cheers, Dan.