In this recent post I mention that Ned Lamont’s platform statement on trade is short — and indeed it is. But were I ever to run for political office (a possibility whose chances are less than those of the moon being discovered to be made of cheese), my platform statement on trade would be even shorter:
I steadfastly and unconditionally oppose any and all efforts of some persons to use force to deny or to lessen other persons’ opportunities to spend their money as they wish. Period. No exceptions.
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Of course you can't possibly mean "no exceptions," but we get the point…
I mean "no exceptions."
Hm, what about spending money to employ hitmen?
Touche, Matt. My platform is aimed at use of force — so that excludes hitmen.
Does this mean the government won't block (via arrests, fines etc.) attempts to bribe elected officials? What if I want to buy a Congressman, or better yet, the President? I'm not talking campaign contributions, which ought to be limitless, but money in their personal accounts.
Or paying my local FBI guy, or an NSA spook, to spy on my competitors' factories?
Even if I use my money to put a rendering plant on the property next to yours in clear violation of 400 years of the common law of nuisance?
Even if I bury nuclear waste in my backyard next to your water supply?
Even if I hire 12 year old sex workers?
As Nadine Strossen once said in a wonderful speech I attended, my rights end where yours begin.
She gave the example that I am free to extend my arm as often as I like, until my fist comes in contact with your nose.
We use our laws (propertly at least) in an attempt to draw as few such limits as possible.
Of course that line should be as far in the libertarian direction as possible, but there are realistic boundaries that are necessary in order to protect each of our rights to liberty.
By the way, here is one place not to draw the line on 'regulation'
August 7, 2006 from Morning Edition (JOHN HENDREN reporting)
This is how staggeringly pointless the killing in Iraq is getting: shepherds in the rural western Baghdad neighborhood of Gazalea have recently been murdered, according to locals, for failing to diaper their goats. Apparently the sexual tension is so high in regions where Sheikhs take a draconian view of Shariah law, that they feel the sight of naked goats poses an unacceptable temptation. They blame the goats.
I’ve spent nearly a year here, on more than a dozen visits since the early days of the war, and that seemed about as preposterous as Iraq could get until I heard about the grocery store in east Baghdad. The grocer and three others were shot to death and the store was firebombed because he suggestively arranged his vegetables.
I didn’t believe it at first. Firebombings of liquor stores are common, and I figured there must’ve been one next door. But an Iraqi colleague explained matter-of-factly that Shiite clerics had recently distributed a flyer directing groceries how to display their food.
Standing up a celery stalk near a couple of tomatoes in a way that might – to the profoundly repressed – suggest an aroused male, is now a capital offense.
Well said Dr. Boudreaux!