Quote:
Originally Posted by pjorourke
But when you allow freedoms on both dimensions, thats when you get to libertarians.
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I used to think that, but after reading a number of the policy position papers from the Cato Institute, I've come to a rather different conclusion. They are rather selective in what they consider those freedoms to be. For example, they favor so-called free trade with other nations, yet for that to translate into real capitalism, the workforce needs the same freedom to move across those same borders. I don't see a policy position paper on allowing U.S. and Chinese citizens to freely travel between the U.S. and China to compete for jobs. Instead, outsourcing takes advantage of the fact that workers cannot freely move between countries while goods and services can.
The Cato Institute also takes the position that the government should give vouchers to parents who send their kids to private schools. Huh? Everyone with no kids at all pays for public schools, so whatever parents decide to do to educate their kids shouldn't cost the rest of us (especially those of us without kids) to pay more if they decide to opt out of the public school system.
The basic tenet of a libertarian is that the government's job is to enforce contracts. However, the definition of a contract is whatever the government says it is, so that is basically meaningless. In addition, why should the government provide that service at the expense of taxpayers? I'm more inclined to go for anarchy. Finally, the term ``libertarian'' is somewhat ambiguous. There are ``big L'' Libertarians and ``little l'' libertarians.
