From: JD (jd2@flash.net)
Date: Thu Oct 23 1997 - 19:44:10 MDT
At 03:48 PM 10/23/97 -0700, kristen brennan wrote:
>At 03:25 PM 10/23/97 -0400, you wrote:
>> I wrote:
>> >
>> > Free association is cooperation,
>> > central planning is coercion.
>>
>>IAN: Like a broken record, I find myself spouting
>>libertarian doctrine even as I've seen the flaw in
>>the common application of libertarian moral theory:
>>
>>If a landlord uses force to evict me, or even if
>>the contract says if I break his rules I go to a
>>cell in the basement, libertarian doctrine does
>>not see this as coercion, so long as I'm free
>>to leave his property.
>>
>>The federal government is the landlord of the
>>property known as the United States. The rules
>>of the landlord must be followed or penalty
>>is effected. It is not coercion so long as
>>you are free to leave the U.S. property if
>>you have a problem with the contract.
The feral government might like to convey the impression that it is the
landlord of the united States, but it assuredly is not! The whole idea that
a group of elite politicians is free to make whatever rules it chooses and
offer the choice of obidience or expatriation is equally absurd.
>>
>>What makes the market work is the ease with
>>which customers can exit a given establishment.
>>What makes government not work is the difficulty
>>with which customers can exist the country. This
>>difficulty makes it a "landlords market," putting
>>the customers, or citizens, largely at the mercy
>>of those who are the de facto landlord. So it all
>>comes down to size. This places emphasis on the
>>need to expand beyond the Earth, beyond this
>>fixed and limited parcel of territory.
>
What customers? In what sense are free people living in one of the united
States customers of some government?
>Does anyone have a good argument that suggests this won't continue
>to be the case as we expand into space/cyberspace/wherever?
Whether it continues depends on the choice each individual makes. The
government is not my landlord.
JD
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>-k.
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>___________________________________________________________________
>Kristen Brennan Teknowledge
>kbrennan@teknowledge.com www.teknowledge.com
>
> "Thou canst not stir a flower without troubling a star."
> -- Francis Thompson
>
>
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