From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Mon Jul 28 2003 - 09:57:07 MDT
Mike Lorrey writes:
> [A] ... duty of the federal government is the
> 'general welfare' of the economy, i.e. its economic
> vitality and long term stability (i.e. NOT nanny
> statism).
> If high paying skilled manufacturing jobs
> are being shipped overseas or replaced by
> automation, leaving just poorly paid burger
> flipping jobs in their place, this is a constitutional
> concern of the federal government because it
> deals in not just the long term economic stability
> of the nation, but its political stability as well.
>
> Even worse, a government that allows the export
> of not just its high paying manufacturing jobs
> overseas, but its higher paying knowledge
> jobs overseas is asking for only one possible result:
> the reinstitution of feudalism, because all that will be
> left are wealthy stockholders and lots and lots of
> burger flippers and blue jeans sales people, and
> garbage collectors, etc etc etc. i.e. an aristocracy
> of educated elites and a majority of uneducated
> and unskilled wage slaves.
>
> This is not what libertarianism is about.
I respect that you are active on the libertarian front
Mike and know from the list your views on certain
areas such as right to bear arms, gm labelling, the
free state project etc.
Can you briefly and positively describe what
libertarianism *is* about in your view. How do you
see libertarianism in relation to globalism and the
global economy and law? The notion of a free state
for instance can be looked at from two different
standpoints. One could be that the personal liberties
that one would like to be able to take for granted
as a citizen as ones birthright are not being respected
and that as a consequence the best practical way
to get them respected is to come together with
likeminded others and form a state. But is the aim
of that state to keep the rest of the world out or is
the aim of that state to create a building space
in which to live free and demonstrate a principle
so that that principles held by that state can be
extended further?
I can envisage a free state as being potentially either
defensive or offensive from a libertarian perspective
depending on how wide a group of people one aims
to extend liberties too. Would a free state be like the
last enclave of the American dream or would you
see it as a prototype to be copied and extended
globally?
Brett Paatsch
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