From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 3:08 PM
To: ba-liberty@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [ba-liberty] Drugs: not a topic to make Libertarianism
grow.


> From: anton [mailto:anton]On Behalf Of Anton Sherwood

> > > Heaven forbid the LP should ask people to think outside
> > > the box of "compassionate" statism.
>
> > Is anything shy of anarchism thus "inside the box"?
>
> none of the planks you criticized requires anarchism.

So your objection is not to statism, but just to compassion? :-)

> > I'd love to hear an argument that Federal constitutional
> > jurisprudence mandates the five LP planks I criticized. 
> > Got one?
>
> Not all five, but the Tenth Amendment covers most.

You've fallen victim to the inside-the-box idea that "government"
means "federal government".  Nothing in the Constitution
-- and especially not the Tenth Amendment! -- forbids states
or localities from aiding the indigent, taxing pollution,
or regulating local natural monopolies.

> - Poor relief: see Davy Crockett's famous anecdote.

I agree that my tax dollar needn't visit Washington D.C.
in order to help the indigent here in San Mateo County.
But nothing in the Constitution precludes San Mateo County
from taxing itself to aid its indigent.

- Pollution rights: Where is the authority for such a system?

For interstate pollution, the Commerce Clause.  For state
regulation of intrastate pollution, the Tenth Amendment.

> Currency regulation: this is the exception, being expressly
> authorized in the powers clause. [..] What are you proposing here?

That the LP stop advocating that the federal government
should not regulate currency and the money supply.

> artificial monopolies cannot survive without government support

Almost all economists would agree that situations can arise
-- without government support -- in which economies of scale and
collusion among competitors can create stable monopolistic 
barriers to entry.

> What do you mean by "Ban artificial monopolies"?

I mean a policy closer to current federal antitrust policy
than to anarchy, but applied to labor markets (i.e. unions) too.

> > If you think less legislation is always better than more, then
> > you're an anarchist.
>
> I disagree: a common-law state needs little if any legislation 
> beyond organizing itself.

That a) is vague, and b) doesn't rebut my point.

> if the LP isn't about to control Congress
> anyway, why not put up proposals with a distinctive 
> libertarian flavor?

Why put up proposals with a distinctive anarchist flavor?
Or (since you're an admitted anarchist): why not advocate
that the party change its name from Libertarian to Anarchist?
Are you afraid that the anarchist "flavor" is a little too
sour?

> Let others put up kinder-gentler-statist proposals,
> there's no shortage.

You can't deny there's a distinct shortage of serious minarchism 
in America. To the extent that it's hijacked by anarchists and
the selfish ("my drugs and my taxes"), even the LP doesn't
count as serious minarchism.

> I suggest using David D
> Friedman's instead (http://daviddfriedman.com/ ), 
> he being the most prominent exponent of my kind of anarchism.

Looks interesting.  How does he think that natural monopolies,
currency, and courts would work without a state?
--
brian@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net