At 09:41 AM 4/11/2000 +0200, Tom Vogt wrote: >david wrote: >> Lightly regulated would be no big deal. But lightly regulated has always >> progressed to tyrannically regulated (and taxed). The history of the USA >> is no exception. Business monopolies could never screw up our lives the >> way governments do. > >you sure about that? I wouldn't bet. > >a government has at least a theoretical duty to the people, all of them. >a business only has a duty to it's shareholders, i.e. a duty to make >money, no matter what corpses it requires. > On this web site: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rummel/20TH.HTM Professor R.J. Rummel documents how governments killed 170 million civilians between 1900 and 1987. I believe that outscores monopolies by several orders of magnitude. The last list I saw named over 60 people involved in investigating, protecting, or preparing to testify against Bill Clinton that are dead now. I am not aware of any similar body count in connection with Bill Gates. So, yes, I'm sure. And yes, I would bet on it. David Neilson
