Asri-unix.645
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utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!mhtsa!ihnss!cbosg!teklabs!ucbcad!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!DIETZ@USC-ECL
Tue Jan 26 08:24:14 1982
Government Funding
  "THERE remain those enterprises of such great value to all, and of
   so little value to any one, as to require public investment." - A.S.

I reject this.  Who judges the value of a project?  Not the person forced
to contribute.  If it is of so little value to John Doe, why should he
pay for it?

Government investment (public investment is a misnomer) removes any choice
the unwilling taxpayers have.  It puts the "public good" above individual
rights.

In support of this, I point to all those pork-barrel projects that no sane
businessman would invest in.  Every one of them can be justified by a similar
argument.  Scientific research is more pork-barrel-ly than we'd like to think.
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