Tuesday, January 06, 2004



Let's you and him fight!

RBC also attacks Silent Running's contract argument, saying

Maybe Silent Running isn’t for free markets and private property. With conservatives, it’s sometimes hard to tell.

Yeah, let's you and him fight. Though I'm somewhat curious - usually, Libertarians will defend unto death the sanctity of contracts. No matter how one-sided, onerous, or silly, if you signed it, you have to fulfil it (I should add that normally this position is taken in discussions of employment law, and how much better off low-wage workers would be if they could freely contract for their services rather than be oppressed by all that cruel government regulation on minimum wages and safety and such). Is RBC abandoning this? Is he for example suggesting that contractual clauses can be ignored if they are (in his opinion) "silly"? Or is he just denying the government the right to contract that he would grant to every other person or corporation, solely on the grounds that they're the government?

(I know that RBC thinks that government shouldn't be in the business of assigning landing rights (or anything else, for that matter), but the fact is that they are in the business. The question is why he thinks that a contract can be "fine if the owner of the airways and landing rights was a private entity", but unacceptable if said owner is the government. Does he have any answer other than the usual frothing at the mouth and raving about how Government is EVIL? I think not.)

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