The liberal argument for socialism is too similar to South Carolina senator William J. Grayson's argument for slavery in 1856's, "The Hireling and the Slave": Yea, looking into it it's not exactly what I thought. There are Annex 1 countries, which are developed, and then non-Annexed, which are undeveloped. So I think the non-annexed are allowed to pollute more..? The way I saw it, the west has industrialized, and now we hate Co2, so naturally we'd prevent the industrialization of undeveloped countries by making them sign onto this global warming scam. I gotta look into it more.
You present a huge loophole in your first step in this argument. A) People should generally be free to do as they wish and engage in economic activity as they wish, within reasonble limits that we can disagree about. Ok, so within what YOU define as "reasonable limits" there can be disagreement, and apart from your ideas and sanctioned is intellectual slavery without any form of choice. You obviously force people to choose the first, as any sane person would, but the problems is what are "reasonable limits"? of course this is where disagreements come in, that's the nature of this disagreement in the first place, where do we place reasonable limits? I agree with other points you made, what we have in America is certainly not a free-market by any means. Your 6th point brings up an interesting corollary, what if the citizens of a state were to decide that? What about the citizens of a nation? Your seeming obsession with carrying on a supposed socialist/slavery side thread is also fairly irrelevant, as I stated before obviously no one in our current moral and cultural atmosphere is going to say "I'm in favor of slavery, mental and physical". As to your 8th point, I'd also be open to a thread of what the purpose of government is. In fact, I believe I'll start one! And as to your last one... it all relates again to what the purpose and powers of a State are. I asked that you reply as this is your thread, and you usually have interesting insight into current affairs, from a different position, which I almost always welcome.
The reasonable limits are what people of good will can disagree on. There are anarchists in this world, but anarchy is not a serious intellectual position. Our relationship with other persons in society is governed primarily by duties and rights. Disagreement about what those duties and rights are is part of the disagreement about what a free society should and should not consist of. The classic starting point for this sort of discussion is "One man's rights end where another man's rights begin." So I can't go around kicking people in the shin just because I like shin kicking. You are correct in your assessment that anything apart from freedom is a form of slavery. That doesn't mean society can't have varying degrees of freedom, and that one society may choose legitimately to be more free in some respects than others. As per my 6th point, what if the citizens of a state or a nation were to choose something like that? Good for them. They have exercised their freedom as they see fit As long as it is not inherently coercive. Once the line is crossed an coercive action is taken, freedom is being limited and slavery is being approached. People are free to enter into very-difficult-to-break life-long commitments. Monks do it. Married couples do it. Of course folks are free to walk out at any time and tell the other person/party to "Sod Off", but to properly severe the relationships can be a long and difficult process. Which is why persons are advised to not enter into those relationships willy-nilly. As per slavery, just because people don't say they are in favor of it doesn't mean they aren't actually in favor of it. Those who advocate for governmental power structures that rely on coercion to force persons to act in a certain way are advocating for slavery. They may call it something else. But we should recognize what it actually is, which is a form of soft slavery.