On Sat, Apr 11, 2015 at 02:33:33PM +1000, Rohan McLeod wrote:
He also supported selling of children, to generate a "flourishing free market in children".
this makes perfect sense to Libertarians because children are, of course, property and markets are the best, indeed only, way to solve all problems (including the problem of matching sellers with excess children they want to get rid of with buyers who have insufficient children). without a flourishing free market, sellers might be forced to simply abandon their excess children without any chance to make a profit or even recover expenses and many businesses who could benefit from having a few more children would have to go without and be unable to expand their business or even replaced damaged assets.
Still, he did hold their moral right to run away, and thus assert their independence.
as long as no-one helps them (theft!) or feeds them (welfare!)
In a later chapter of the same book he claimed that it was ethical for legal forces to torture criminal suspects... On which, if a crime is confirmed, they are exonerated. Which generates a very interesting motivational structure...
Where does he stand on on-the-spot-capital punishment for traffic infringements; with post-mortem infringements to be billed to the family ?
if you want to know how an american-style Libertarian thinks, just look for whichever idea promotes property rights to the greatest extent, no matter how insane it might sound. so, presumably it depends on the skin colour and family history of the infringer, because that determines whether they ought to be property or not (the emancipation of slaves was an evil statist theft of private property and is still completely invalid even now). of course, if a hereditary owner can be deduced then the state owes them compensation for destruction of their property. a secondary consideration is how much property and what kind the infringer owns. if they don't own much then shooting them in the back is justified action against the criminal classes. if they do own a lot, then shooting them would be some kind of property crime (the only kind that matters). craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>