re top ten reasons not to aid russians in article c qr duu encore com rcollins encore com roger collins writes julie eddie jpl nasa gov julie kangas writes i suggest you listen very carefully to the stuff yeltsin and his people are saying and compare that with the very anti west slogans coming from his opponents in the russian congress i sure know who i want to back could we back him without forcing others to back him at the point of a gun if we had backed him strongly early on i doubt there would be the problem there is now many russians became disillusioned with democracy and reforms when they felt rightly imo that the west didn t care yeltsin was virtually promised massive aid once bush got over his gorby mania this probably kept him from dismantling the congress and calling for new elections well the aid didn t come through and we didn t make sure it went to the proper places and now the anti reformers are gaining strength where before they were in hiding have you considered a non interventionist policy if market reform does happen russia will certainly get private capital at private risk to help their economy they will even have incentive to do so for the same reason if they don t reform then our government will probably consider them enemies anyway and rather spend money to hurt rather than help them if they don t reform i don t believe in giving them money however i think this is too important to take a non interventionist approach this is what really bugs me about libertarianism it sounds like it ll all be the same in a hundred years time no need to do anything how does this affect us well we are on the same planet and if vast tracks of europe are blown away i think we d feel something a massive breakup of a country that spans th the planet is bound to have affects here of course there is also the humanitarian argument that democracies should help other democracies or struggling democracies if a billion gift was that important to our well being couldn t it be raised voluntarilly people already give over billion a year to charity despite the wishes of libertarians this society is a far way and getting farther from being libertarian perhaps voluntary gifts would work if we had the proper framework but we do not have it we have to face the problem now not in x years when we have a libertarian dream society right now there are huge stumbling blocks to trade let alone charity there are still limitations to high tech exports nasa can t buy proton launch vehicles from them sure the market may be able to help a great deal but it can t right now there are too many obstacles instead of fighting against the aid you should be fighting to tear down the obstacles the market and charities have to face seriously everyone has different opinions on what is stupid my two causes are aid to russia and a strong space program someone else will champion welfare or education or doing studies of drunken goldfish that is why we have a republic and not a true democracy instead of gridlock on a massive scale we only have gridlock on a congressional scale it seems instead of gridlock on any scale we have aid to russia expensive space programs national charity that doesn t help the poor and probably studies of drunken goldfish i think limited government is more key than how democratic it is well i think limited government is primarily democratic due to it being limited but the main question is how do you transform a state run economy and monolithic government into something that even remotely looks like ours btw sometimes it seems that our government is trying to go the opposite direction it is not going to be painless and not going to be easy we simply cannot wait to help when they have the proper government they ll never get there without the aid it may be too late already btw who is to decide stupid this is just like those who want to impose their morals on others just the sort of thing i thought libertarians were against that was an opinion and libertarians are very big on free speech and i m just excercising mine actually my politics are pretty libertarian except on this one issue and this is why it is impossible for me to join the party it seems that libertarians want to withdraw from the rest of the world and let it sink or swim if you are pretty libertarian except on this one issue then you should be very libertarian consider it a compromise how much money would your fellow russia aiders have to give to russia if those you oppose weren t using the same government machine to steal money from you and your group for causes you don t support as i also said above another problem i have is with transformation a libertarian society is not going to happen painlessly or overnight i have seen nothing about how to take our current government and society and turn it into a minimal government and a responsible self sufficient populace we could do that years ago but not now people have been saying that for hundreds of years they didn t have nuclear weapons years ago nor instantaneous communications nor travel to virtually anyplace on the earth in less than a day like it or not we are in the beginnings of a global economy and global decision making all the more reason to depend on the free market which can more efficiently process information than to depend on rulers for decisions on complex issues yes depend on the rulers of the free market and the businesses rulers do emerge somewhere and they will never represent the opinions of every person on the planet there must be checks and balances checks on the government when it gets out of bounds and checks on industry when it gets out of bounds putting all your hopes on the benevolence of the market is to me just like putting all your hopes on the benevolence of government julie disclaimer all opinions here belong to my cat and no one else
