Its crazy that the simplest, and most fundamental points get ignoring or are completely misunderstood. Libertarians are railed against for being " simple minded" and ignorant to the complexities of society, yet they are the only ones who include such logical foundations in the building of their ideology. Complex systems don't nullify the truths of simple logic. I swear rage memes must have been created specifically for Libertarians.
An economy like the United States is way to complicated and intricate to be successfully regulated even with the best intentions. Every regulation has unintended consequences that requires another regulation, rinse and repeat.
Government regulation is force. Government holds a monopoly on force. Therefore, regulations on voluntary transactions are the initiation of force. One of the justifications is that the government (or society) knows better than you. This whole "balance" argument is contradictory at its core as are all arguments for positive rights.
But the system actually works quite well, regardless of your opinion on the matter. It works so well, that you completely take for granted everything that it provides for you. You have access to clean water, you can walk into any supermarket, choose from literally tens of thousands of products and have a reasonable assurance that it is all safe and manufactured in an adequate environment, you have the freedom to know every ingredient that is in the food you buy and the personal care products you use, the products you buy are warrantied under the law, there is adequate statutory and case law to protect you if you are harmed through no fault of your own, you have a reasonable assurance that safety standards are being met, you have access to public databases where you can look up which companies do not meet your standards. Yet you also have the freedom to support businesses that give you the best product at the best price. You have the freedom to eat whatever you want without anyone telling you otherwise. You have the freedom to read nutritional labels or ignore them. You have the freedom to choose whether you want to support large business or small. You have the freedom to boycott. You have the freedom to support consumer advocacy groups. You have the freedom to review businesses and their products and share your opinions with friends. You have the freedom to go to the press if you feel you have been wronged. You have the freedom to take a business to court if they have harmed you. You enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the entire world, in one of the freest markets. It's not perfect, and I've never argued that it was. It's not force. Going into business is a choice. If you don't want to go follow industry regulations, then don't go into business.
^I'm sorry Penelope but 14 trillion dollars in debt, and 100 trillion more in unfunded liabilities is not an indication of the system working.
Our debt is another topic, and has far more to do with the countless wars we've waged over the past decade then it does with commerce law.
existence is a choice. if you don't want to submit to the will of your masters, then don't live. amidoinitrite
This is a crock of shit. If there were any truth to this statement, we wouldn't be buying everything from China and running huge trade deficits. Not to mention our unemployment problem that is severely downplayed, and our rampant dependency on social programs. You like the system you have right now because it makes decisions for you, that's fine. I know that isn't how you see it, but ultimately it takes responsibility off of your shoulders and puts it onto other people to make them for you. Lazy consumers get what they deserve, and in this case it's companies like Monsanto consolidating more and more power in the food industry, destroying the quality of your food, all with FDA approval. You may like this, problem is many others don't. You can't opt out of federal regulations, but you can move from state to state. Monsanto doesn't want to have to lobby 50 individual states to maintain it's monopoly, much easier to just get a one size fits all regulatory agency to pay off.
So if I enter a voluntary transaction with someone and the government swoops in and attacks me for it, that's not force? You're right, I don't have to trade with anyone (I could just die in a ditch), but that doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that regulations on voluntary transactions are the initiation of force. Your red herrings, straw men and contradictions will be revealed.
Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Those are our rights. The government should not over step those rights.
How can something be a good system when its running at a loss? And I'm not talking about a few dollars here or there, I'm talking trillions and Billions in losses annually. And it costs way more to support the Welfare state then it does the military industrial complex. But I'm not disputing the Warfare state as a money spender, but if you're system is in debt by trillions there's more to it then just your military.
Because the system is multifaceted. To say that commerce laws don't work because we're in debt due to other factors, doesn't mean that commerce laws are the problem. If your plumbing wasn't working, you wouldn't burn down your entire house to fix it.
But you specifically said the system is working, going on and on about how we have clean water and the highest standard of living and blah blah blah. Something is seriously wrong when what an entire country makes as much in a year as they have in debt. The system will eventually fail, and then what will the highest SOL in the world get us then?
Anyone can live like a king on infinite borrowed money, the problem is when creditors realize they've been duped, and start to cut you off. Highest Standard of Living = Most indebted nation America is in for a wake-up call the likes of which the world has never seen.
It also has more to do with social security than war, but surely we are not going to catch you arguing for no "safety net" Regulation has a direct relation to our debt. When they regulate our economy, it sees losses. job losses, productivity losses, profit losses, etc. Once all these things hit and the people get angry, then they are forced to come in and cover up the mess they made regulating, with the already mentioned safety nets. The bigger of a problem they creating regulating our economy, the more they have to spend to cover up the end result, and the more gets tacked on to our spending.
Social Security has a $22 trillion dollar surplus and is excluded from the US Budget. I fail to see your point.
I don't know what planet you live on but its surely not Earth... http://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133627103/from-fdr-to-iou-social-security-hits-tipping-point