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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dave rose who wrote (5166)	5/12/2002 9:44:45 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 13056

That's a wonderful topic for discussion. My former business partner was a liberal democrat, and he and I always threatened to sit down and hash out what are the legitimate functions of government. But we never did. But IMO in today's world it's more than courts and defense. Or course, it depends on how broadly you mean the court system. If you mean it to include all the laws passed by government that are enforced by the courts, that can encompass a lot of things. For example, traffic control -- stop signs, red lights, etc. I lived in NYC when we had the great NorthEast power blackout. Was out at a restaurant. Had to get back to my apartment. With the power out, there were no functioning traffic lights. It was a total mess, even at night with minimal traffic on the road. Trust me, you do NOT want to drive in NYC without any traffic control laws. Then there are environmental laws. For example, you have a farm. I have a factory upstream. I dump all my pollutants into the water, your cows drink the water and die. Do you have any recourse other than coming after me with a gun? If so, the recourse is laws -- government. If you include this under the court system, okay, but then you're putting a whole lot under the court system. And roads. It's easy to say that they should be paid for by user fees. But how do they get there in the first place? If government hadn't helped the railroads with land grants, and/or providing the powr of eminent domain, we would still not have a national rail system. For our economy to function, we have to have an efficient transportation system. That requires government at some level. And money supply. Would you leave it entirely up to private individuals and companies to issue money? Have no national currency? Weights and measures. Imagine what our commerce would be like if everybody could define what they thought a pound was. There are a whole raft of infrastructure issues that we don't often think about, but that need to be centralized to some degree in order for society to function. You have to consider that government includes the process of passing laws, and the tort system.