stewart@ihldt.UUCP (R. J. Stewart) (12/28/84)
[We've been having unreliable newsfeed. I hope this isn't a repeat.] > Remeber, TRUE LIBERTARIANISM *IS* ANARCHISM, as I proved before. The > definition of government is that it claims a monopoly on the right to > decide who may use force when. No organization has a right to do this; > there must be free competition between protective agencies/associations. I disagree. The objective of libertarians is not to minimize government, but to maximize liberty. Currently, the government is a major violator of individual rights, so it receives a lot of attention. There are others, however, who are giving the government a run for its money. To turn control over to whomever has the largest army is not my (or the Libertarian party's, or Ayn Rand's, etc.) idea of liberty. Also, this is not an inconsistent position, as I'll discuss. First a few appeals to authority. Excerpting from the recent posting of the Libertarian party platform (thank you Larry Cipriani): "The continuing high level of violent crime -- and the government's demonstrated inability to deal with it -- threatens the lives, happiness, and belongings of Americans. ...The appropriate way to suppress crime is through consistent and impartial enforcement of laws that protect individual rights." "We recognize the necessity for maintaining a sufficient military force to defend the United States against aggression." From Ayn Rand, generally considered a founder of the modern libertarian movement (excerpted from "The Virtue of Selfishness"): "The only proper, *moral* purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own *property*, and to the pursuit of his own happiness." [emphasis in original] As for consistency, libertarian ethics hold that no one has the right to *initiate* force or fraud against another. If someone defies this principle, it is permissible (in fact, it is a duty) to use force to stop the aggressor. A government that is restricted to this role is not contrary to libertarian principles. There would be the usual problems with keeping it from overstepping its bounds, but that's a problem with any system Bob Stewart ihldt!stewart