What is the role of government. As I said earlier, I say to provide services/goods for the country that the country will not provide when left alone. (Which includes safety brought about by helmets for example). I know Eli disagrees, and Stew. What do people think? This is another way to see how libertarian you are I think.
January 31, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Reserving the right to change my answer as I refine it, the role of government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of its citizens through violence or the threat of violence.
February 5, 2007 at 3:55 am
minimal amount of force needed to preserve freedom
February 5, 2007 at 9:32 am
but then you would need to define freedom. some would argue (in VA currently) that they have the right to the freedom to be in any bar in the state without having to breathe smoke. I’d disagree and say they have the freedom to choose which bar to go to. loosely defined “freedom” leads to big government and the lack of the aforementioned freedom
February 5, 2007 at 10:04 am
That is why we have natural liberty and negative rights.
February 6, 2007 at 1:50 am
Who guarantees our natural liberty? It doesn’t seem very natural to me. It’s easy to be libertarian in the USA, we have to test our beliefs in places like Somalia or Iraq to see what they are really worth. Violence is rational for most of the world, and was irrational for the young US republic. I hereby proclaim myself libertarian crusader and I suggest we keep growing fast enough so we can pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Maybe the US really was a one-time event, with almost no vested interests, a natural beneficent to trade, a vast landmass, libertarian-minded hard-working protestants as a basis, and with a Europe across the sea providing the hardy individualists instead of intellectual elites with lofty theories.