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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (48054)	7/8/2013 11:55:04 AM
From: TimF	Respond to of 85487

You cannot have freedom without democracy. That's both false and irrelevant. False because even if its less likely (democracy does to an extent help support freedom, while in a dictatorship or monarchy, even if you had a ruler who supported freedom, he could always change his mind or be succeeded by some without any concern for freedom), you can have freedom without democracy. You can also (more easily) have a lack of freedom with democracy. Irrelevant because no one is arguing against democracy here. Again - Democracy does not equal (or imply, or require) big government. Democracy is not anti-freedom. Big government is. And how would you run a city without big government? Building codes, sewers, water, street lights, police, fire dept, taxes, roads, bridges, etc Much of a cities codes are not neeed. Sewers can be privately provided for. Police are a legitimate function of government (but they should be reigned in a bit, see Message 28992187 ), but you can have them even with minimal government. You can also have a small government with a fire department (or you can have private fire departments). Much of government, even local government, doesn't go to sewers and police, you get those things from local government, but you also get a lot of unnecessary government busybodyness. Things like Bloomberg's attempt to ban large sodas, rent control, massive difficult and expensive requirements before you can legally start a business (often put in place at the behest of other businesses who want to keep out competition, once again big government helping out "plutocrats"), etc.