Here are the problems:

1. NONE of you (pro-libertarianists) have yet explained how to resolve a conflict which is not somehow addressed by a contract, and therefore for which no court of arbitration is specified.
2. NONE of you seem to see that, under the same circumstances of (1), it is contradictory to allow arbitrary behaviour, NAP notwithstanding.  One person's right will infringe another's.
3. Libertarianism has failed in the past and will fail again because other nations will exploit its vulnerabilities.  Now this has no bearing on whether lib. is admirable or not, just whether it's practical or not.
4. Libertarianism enshrines money and wealth as the ultimate source of power.  Power begets wealth, weath begets power.  All the things you don't like about government will be the same, if not worse, in libertyland; and there would be no public accountability.
5. Libertarianism requires cooperation from everyone everywhere and, by definition, cannot demand that cooperation without hypocrisy.  Again, no bearing on whether it's admirable or not, just its practicality.

Hey Moonshadow, I'm glad you're back.  I wonder do you have the time to answer this question?

Oh, I'm trying to calm down and think about this, somehow without falling off my chair. Tell me, Rassah, why are nukes so expensive?  Because they're rare and highly illegal.  If they weren't highly illegal, then there'd be plenty of them, the market would supply, and the price would drop.  There's PLENTY of fuel for them - the world could probably have a few million nuclear weapons if it really wanted, and that's just considering *fission* weapons.  Fusion weapons... well, whaddya know, they use HEAVY HYDROGEN.  Do you know how much heavy hydrogen there is in the sea?  Go fishing man, ask the fish.

Oh what a jolly time we're having so.  Dude, if I ever meet you, I swear I'll buy you a beer.  I haven't laughed this hard in ages.  I'll tell you what, I'll take you seriously the day some guy comes around asking me to contribute to an asteroid defence system...    Oh man.  This is priceless.

It *is* a double standard.  You are willing to use force to make me comply with your rules, while you deny me the right to use force to make you comply with my rules.  One standard for you, another for me.  Double standard.  Big difference is you're a hypocrite and I'm not - I say "I will engage in violence to make you comply", and I do, while you say "I will never engage in violence except in defence" but you do.

But this is far too entertaining to stop here.  So, all right, let's suppose I accept your NAP (which is, in and of itself an admirable principle), but I reject your definition of property.  I may therefore rightfully enter, without aggression, what you consider to be your property and claim it as my own.  You may not engage in aggression to eject me.  Correct or incorrect?


Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of the words "responsible" and "honest"...


Oh man, I'm bustin' my sides laughing now.  You couldn't buy comedy this good anywhere.


I gotta quit this thread - it's just too addictive.  These guys just *won't* address the problems put to them 'cos the contradictions are inescapable.


AND THIS     Oh shit, I'm crackin' up... there are literally tears coming out my eyes... I can't even type... you guys have gotta stop typing dudes, every time I hit "post" there are 10 new replies and I'm just breakin' apart reading them...

And there it is, folks.  The ultimate double standard.

Reminds me of a couple of recent wars supposedly aimed at liberating oppressed peoples - bringing them 'democracy' on the point of a gun, and stuffing it down their throats.  And that's just in recent times.

In principle you're right.  They could just engage in inflation.  Print money to pay for state services, the money finds its way into the economy, inflation ensues.  As long as it's kept under control, it could work.  People just get really upset when they find that their money-in-the-bank has devalued by half.  Somehow, part-tax and part-inflation seems to be understood as more acceptable.  Watch "money as debt".

Ok, great - you've agreed with my post from a while ago!  Here it is again:
Now, that didn't take too long -- only 26 pages!  Maybe in another 26 you'll admit that MightMakesWinnerMakesRight is actually an unavoidable consequence of resource scarcity.  Now can you give us a reason why would people become responsible citizens in LiberLand when they don't do it *even* under threat of being forcefully imprisoned?  If all you want is a hypothetical discussion of what libertarianism would be like and how nice it would be under certain, perhaps improbable, circumstances, that's fine.  But you seem to believe, in this thread, that you consider the above condition to be a likely possibility.  If so, can you justify yourself?  If not, would you clarify exactly what your argument is please?


By their nature, humans do not act humanely.  Reduced to the minimum, man organises into small social groups of maybe a few hundred individuals, each group with a single authoritative leader, and competes with other groups for resources.  The 'invention' of society, facilitated by the discovery of agriculture, changed all that -- and man changed from a nomadic to a social lifestyle.  As social groups grew, thanks to the success of agriculture, members had to learn to cooperate, even where they were not dependent on one another.  There had to be a 'social norm'.  To answer your question: I allow politicians control over me, because I genuinely think that the alternative would be worse for everyone, me included.  And one person having more power than others is nothing new.  It's been like that since time immemorial.  But, ideally, the ruling class should be checked and controlled by the population and, crucially, an independent judiciary.  And also because election time always comes around.  Sadly in our corrupted world, the politicians are literally getting away with murder.


I agree with this.  Modern states are corrupt, it has to do with equality and megacorporations.  This is one of the reasons I would not like libertarianism - it would ultimately lead to MightMakesWinner, and mega-corporations controlling all our lives but with no public oversight - no elections, no independent judiciary, 'politicians' accountable to no-one.  Although, instead of politicians, we would have CEOs looking no further than their own pockets.


They already did - they regulated the fertiliser trade.  Case closed.


Oh but it did.  Do you think that, if the nuclear trade were unregulated, no terrorist organisation or crackpot millionaire would have used one by now?


Every day that goes by in which the IRA, and any other terrorist organisations, DON'T set off a nuke, is a glowing tribute to the non-proliferation treaty.


Excellent point.


Another excellent point.  No-one in Somalia can get nukes because the trade is so well regulated.


Rassah, this is a terribly terribly terribly bad question.  Are you somehow suggesting that, in LiberLand, a representative of the Asteroid Defence & Mining Company is going to travel door-to-door, looking for people to pay a contribution so that they'll defend your property from an asteroid?  And what, if you don't pay, and the asteroid looks like it's heading for your property, like, they won't shoot it down (well, up)?

I really thought privately held nukes were the limit of absurdity, and I tried the raindrop-triggered nuke just to see if b2c & fb had their limits.  But privately funded asteroid defence???  Man, that wins  


What poor worker in a uranium enrichment plant will not sell material at a vast profit to himself, so some crackpot organisation can bomb a city on the other side of the world, in a nation that this poor worker doesn't care about, or maybe even actively dislikes?


Actually, it has been tried, in Spain.  Guess what, though?  It failed.  Externalities.  Greek city-states were also a close approximation.  Guess what?  Failed too.  Externalities again.  Sucks huh?

It doesn't, at least according to b2c & fb.  All a libertarian society could hope for, it seems to me, is that all along the chain from uranium ore mine, to extraction plant, to purifying plant, to weapons assembly, to transport and eventual sale, and re-sale, and re-sale, and resale^N, that EVERYBODY follows a strict voluntary code of conduct consistent with social safety.  And that's everybody - including the malnourished children picking away at the ore, the underpaid worker who needs money to get treatment for his sick child, everybody follows it.  In EVERY mine, EVERY extraction plant, EVERY EVERYTHING.  Is that the answer you're looking for?

edit: and even then, it's enough for a crazy person to *seem* sane, just for long enough to convince the seller that he, for some reason, really needs a nuclear weapon.

And you're STILL ignoring the crux of the issue - what about where being armed is neither explicitly permitted nor prohibited.  Like on unclaimed territory, or on claimed territory where the owner is a true libertarian and allows people to decide for themselves.  That's what you want, isn't it?  For people to decide for themselves?  How can you justify infringing my right not to be threatened when you declare that "nothing should diminish [a person's rights]"?  Can you answer that without sidestepping the issue?


No, no no no no.  You're wrong.  It's not with government in place, it's with humans in place.  If boycotts really worked in a libertarian society, then they would work in a statist society regardless of government.  You're suggesting that without government, boycotts would work; but we already know they don't BECAUSE when governments don't intervene it doesn't work.  For years people in my country saw plastic bags everywhere, on the street, the sidewalk, the rivers, EVERYWHERE.  Everyone was disgusted and called for everyone else to stop using plastic bags.  Nothing changed.  Nobody stopped.  FOR YEARS.  Then, the government TAXED plastic bags.  The problem disappeared IMMEDIATELY.


Ohhhh, how right you are.  How truly truly right you are.  Perhaps you have finally understood the core problem.

This is so far beyond absurd that I almost pissed my pants laughing at it.  In liberty land, everyone is intrinsically allowed to juggle smallpox on their lawn, or live grenades on the street, or knives on a life raft.  BUT, because people are not stupid, and because they don't do ridiculous things, well, the pro-libertarianists argue that this is not something we need to worry about.

BUT, suddenly, in democracy-land, where these kind of things are explicitly forbidden, we have to worry that, suddenly, *ALL OF SOCIETY* will want to be allowed to do that AND to expose themselves to the unknown and unknowable dangers.  Not just one crackpot or extremist, but EVERYBODY is a crackpot.

I'll grant that bittertea is probably using sarcasm as a tool to avoid resolving the problem, but, bitcoin2cash, your post has nothing, NOTHING, to suggest anything other than naive sincerity.

@Moonshadow: I'm still waiting for your non-arbitrary definition of "acceptable weaponry", and if it's not a simple static list then please outline the valid circumstances for a few representative weapons.  If it's truly non-arbitrary, then I'm sure myself, FirstAscent, Ayeyo, Hawker *and* bitcoin2cash, Rassah, FredericBastiat will all instantly realise that the definition cannot logically be otherwise - or at least, we will after some (finite) debate.


So HOW can you justify entering armed into a room where I am (where being so armed is not explicitly permitted)?  You are implicitly threatening me with mortal violence, and I have the right not to be threatened.

That's a load of crap.  Boycotts don't work except where the market is close to the production line.  Globalism and outsourcing ensures that any company now can abuse people in one jurisdiction while it's consumers on the other side of the world blissfully buy buy buy unawares - and a libertarian free market would facilitate that even more.  People have been boycotting Nestle for at least 20 years now and it's still doing just fine.  Look at all the bad publicity about sweatshops, child exploitation, people working with toxic chemicals to recycle computer components, genocide in the Congo to feed the cell-phone market... the list goes on and on and on.  If people don't actually *live* the abuse, they don't give a shit.  Boycotting a company is an irrational economic decision except where the cost-benefit analysis (and that's what we *all* do every time we buy something) indicates that not boycotting will incur greater future cost.  This is not so where an abusive factory is far away from the buyer.

LOL.  So tell us, exactly, who are you boycotting right now?  Computer manufacturers?  Oil companies?  Gym shoe manufacturers?  Clothes manufacturers?

MightMakesWinnerMakesRight.  You can rant all you like about it, you can rant about how it's not fair and how subjugated you feel.  It has always been that way, it will always be that way.  You won't change anything, but you can keep ranting.

I was hoping someone would mention smoking.  In liberty-land, I would consider it my right to throw a cup of water over anyone smoking in my vicinity (if not otherwise explicitly permitted), in order to reduce my exposure to toxic chemicals.  If they reacted with violence to my rightful behaviour, I would re-react in kind.  Can anyone tell me how such behaviour is not consistent with Hobbes' savage natural world of man against man?

Can't sleep :-(  Came here to find friends ;-((  I've amalgamated several replies into this post; some of them are repetitive and boil down to the same point, but worded differently in order to address yer comments.


Thanks for this, no sarcasm intended.  I can't agree with your argument of "crazy little ladies" not buying nukes.  Ok, maybe for crazy little ladies and nukes, you're right; but crazy big guys, and semtex bombs, no - you're wrong.  And the pro-libertarian camp seem to think that, just because no-one would ever try to buy a nuclear weapon for personal use even if free to do so, that nuclear weapons should be freely available.  Furthermore, given that hypothesis, that therefore no-one will ever buy lesser weapons for personal use and therefore they should all be freely available too.

Moonshadow, you yourself have stated that not all definitions of "acceptable weapons" are arbitrary, that some weapons *really are* different to others.  Hmm.  Then you argue that what is important is not the weapon, but the set of circumstances under which it's employed.  This latter sentence is somehow better, but it's equivalent to saying that there exists some pre-defined absolute line of "unsafe circumstances", and all weapons either fall on this side, or that side of the line.  So imagine if there was some new kind of weapon invented... use your imagination... let's imagine it uses 'sub-space harmonics' to make an assailant melt into a dead blob of jelly, and it has two dials, one controlling the range over which it operates, and another the intensity.  What you're saying is that there is some non-arbitrary line, which will be obvious to *everyone*, what the maximum range and intensity of such a weapon should be; and furthermore that this non-arbitrary line would be obvious to everyone.

But you miss the point.  ALL weapons become automatic once they are deployed.  A bullet from a handgun becomes automatic once the trigger is pulled - it can't identify between a teenager playing with a water pistol and a teenager trying to shoot you.  Or: could I legitimately use a landmine if I were 100% certain that the victim would be an intruder (or otherwise, an 'enemy')?

If a non-arbitrary definition did actually exist, it would be obvious to everyone (at least after debating).  But here we've seen that the pro-libertarian camp don't even think that privately held nukes are unacceptable.  And I don't doubt that someone, somewhere, perhaps a victim of a knife attack, would be very happy if all knives everywhere had a tamper-proof protective sheath that would only retract when in the immediate vicinity of carrots to be chopped, or that knives be only available from govt-approved shops after presentation of ID and motivation for requiring a knife.

But here - I'll tell you what - if not all such expressions (of "acceptable weaponry") are arbitrary, then PLEASE tell us what the single, unique, non-arbitrary one is.  If it could be guaranteed that *everyone* would abide by that definition, then I would too, WHATEVER it is.  But then that would be the Law, right?  Or not?

-----------

I'm not certain I agree with this.  My problem with libertarianism would persist *even if* the underlying framework was utilitarian rather than deontological.  To put it better: utilitarianism seeks to maximise "human happiness", deontology "human morality" (correct me if I'm wrong).  In a utilitarian society, if everyone was free to interpret "human happiness" as they see fit, the same problems would arise.  Analogously in a deontological society, if there was a system-wide definition of "human morality", then I see no problem.

The problems arise specifically and solely because people can and will have differing definitions of what's acceptable; and sometimes these definitions will be in conflict.  My own personal philosophy is neither utilitarian nor deontological.  My ideology could be summed up as "Everybody must obey the same rules; the rules must be impartial; the rules should seek to be comprehensive and minimise conflict."

Where is the contradiction in my idealogy?  I'm not defying you - I realise there may be contradictions it it, let's debate if you like.  In a different thread, if you prefer, but however we debate, it will also be applicable to IP law.

I can even see that there is little difference between my idealogy and libertarianism.  It all depends on how many rules you want, and how many conflicts you want to address really.  The difference between complete chaotic anarchy, and a totalitarian nanny state.  Wouldn't it be great if we could apply a cost-benefit analysis, not to whether a given law should exist or not, but to how many, and which, types of conflict should the law address.  i.e. the more conflicts you address, the bigger and more costly the government becomes.  At some point, the additional cost of instituting and enforcing a law will exceed the benefit benefit derived therefrom.  "no nukes" - small cost, enormously large benefit.  "no sunny side eggs" - medium cost, negligible benefit.


-----------

So a libertarian would stop someone juggling knives on a life raft, but not someone parading nukes around a city?

The point is, juggling knives on a life raft is *obviously* a recklessly dangerous thing to do, so, even in a libertarian society, it's unlikely that the boat-owner will specify that this is forbidden.  Therefore, by your argument, anyone may rightfully do so, and no-one may rightfully stop him.

Now it's pretty certain that no-one ever actually *would* juggle knives on a life raft, precisely because it *is* obviously stupid.  But there are plenty of other cases where the stupidity, or otherwise, of an action is not obvious, BUT, the owner whose T&C govern the situation will not have considered.  So, in liberty-land, may a person rightfully put a forceful stop to any behaviour, not specifically otherwise prohibited, which they consider to be dangerous to themselves or their property?  Moonshadow, in case you've not read the whole thread, this contradiction in (fb's & b2c's) libertarianism has already been established.  I perceive guns, even if holstered, as a threat, and therefore I can rightfully defend myself from them; but people have the right to carry guns.  Are they incompatible rights or not?


I tried asking this question before, except I was asking if it's possible to define "freakishly absurd" or not.


-----------

b2c, I'm not sure what you're arguing in these more recent posts.  In order to solve a problem, are you suggesting that we should learn more about the problem, debate it and research it, or are you suggesting that... I dunno, are you suggesting... something else?

If the state declares it will forcefully oblige people to obey, and does so, there is no contradiction or hypocrisy.  If you declare you will peacefully ask people to voluntarily cooperate with libertarianism, and then forcefully oblige them to do so, there is contradiction and hypocrisy.
Do you deny that?

It's an arbitrary decision based on my own opinions.  As are ALL other expressions of 'acceptable weapons' in this forum.  The only one that's not arbitrary is the one that follows the law, because everyone knows, or should know, what it is.  Recall - ignorance is not an excuse in the eyes of the law.  The legal definition can be arbitrary too; all that's important is that it is equal for everyone.



I presume you're being sarcastic - it's sometimes hard to tell in ASCII.

I did have preconceptions about libertarianism, and debated here to see if my preconceptions were correct or not.  I understand what libertarianism attempts and, repeating myself, I would happily try it out in a small united isolated society.

I do not have any preconceptions about who would best represent libertarianism but, be very assured, I am of the very firm opinion that FredericBastiat and bitcoin2cash absolutely do NOT best represent it - as they present it, it's inherently contradictory.

Having said that, I don't presume to be more intelligent than the great philosophers of modern or historic times.  I invite any other libertarian to resolve the contradictions that have been presented here  BUT, again, I'm bowing out for a while to see how the debate develops from here.  It's becoming very repetitive.

Regrettably I'm going to have to bow out of this debate for a while - it's taking up too much of my time.  It's great fun and I'd love to continue, but I'm satisfied that, at least as b2c and Fred present it, libertarianism is fundamentally flawed.  For example, in liberty-land:

1. Any person may use mortal violence to defend from any perceived mortal threat, or injurious violence from any perceived injurious threat; and any person may carry mortal weapons at any time.  One person's right gives another the right to kill him.  You might be doing something perfectly legitimate, and yet another can legitimately kill you for doing it.

2. You must make irrational economic decisions based on some arbitrary morality which other people may or may not adhere to.

3. To enjoy a reasonable level of safety in your own property, your only choice is to pay a security tax to some private police force and hope they keep a watch on fertiliser producers all over the world, making sure they do background checks on all their clients (though they are not obliged to do so), then checking all produce and people travelling near your territory to see if anyone has a bomb.  And if they *do* have a bomb, well, whaddyaknow, they are free to do so, so the security team has to follow them day and night and just wait until they stop merely *holding* the bomb and actually start "threatening" with it - whatever that might mean, bearing in mind that the interval between starting to threaten and actually detonating could be far far far far far less than the reaction time of the security company.

4. There is no limit to permissible behaviour - anything arbitrarily dangerous is permitted, as long as there is no intentional menace to others.  Competence, mental stability, physical ability, are of no consequence as long as the buyer can convince the seller that he intends no harm.  You could juggle live grenades in the street as long as the street owner didn't think of prohibiting that and, of course, as long as you don't intend to *deliberately* drop any.  You could randomly shoot your gun while blindfolded in the street with impunity as long as you don't deliberately intend to hit anyone.

5. Any justice, any justice at all, will always be bought.  The enforcement of that justice will be bought as well.  The wealthier (=strongest) members of society will have access to more powerful justice.  Poorer members can only hope that the wealthy do not use abuse their greater power to subjugate them.

6. There will be no stability to one's life; when the terms&conditions of neighbouring property changes in such a way as to become intolerable to you, you must sell and move elsewhere.

7. There is no guaranteed minimum access to healthcare, other than what an individual can fully pay for.  You could join a 'healthcare cooperative' of some kind, and hope that it honours its contract with you.  If not, paid justice will prevail.

8. There is no guaranteed level of safety anywhere, other than what the owner of a property is willing to offer.  Even then, there is no way to be certain that he will follow the code.  Even in cases where he proclaims membership of some paid private-standards group, it is not known if he actually follows the stated code or even if he actually is a member of the standards group at all.

Well, history has clearly shown that pre-emptive regulation of fertiliser sales saves lives.  Is it not logical that the greatest power in the land would be the most effective at regulating the trade?  And if that force is nation-wide, then the regulation will be nation-wide too.


A regulation cannot admit anything other than complete regulation.  Sure - there are more *options* available, e.g. regulation, partial regulation, non-regulation, deregulation, etc.... but if you choose the first option you cannot permit any of the others, while if you choose one of the others, you may or may not permit others.  So I would say, the options are: "regulated" or "less than fully regulated" and nothing else.


I read this, and it's almost written in legalese -- there are some sentences I don't understand.  But let's start with this:
You didn't define "threatens", "defend", "violence".  Please do so.  Also:
What about controvertible diminshments?  (as usual, assume that there is no contract addressing the particular circumstances).


So, suppose you get your liberty-land.  Because there is no taxation, there would be no standing army.  Now suppose a foreign power invades, eliminates you and yours, uses the experience to learns and establishes a new colony.  Is that progress?

But a gun doesn't put anyone on equal footing with a gang of armed thugs.

So, we'll allow automatic pistols.  An automatic pistol might put you on an equal footing with a gang of armed thugs.

But not with a gang of automatic-pistol-armed thugs.

So we'll allow machine guns.  dot dot dot

As long as the gang can arm itself the same as you, your gun does not put you on an equal footing.

If it's just physical strength, a strong person can only threaten one person at a time, and cannot menace a group.  With weapons, any person can menace many people simultaneously.

You asked where we should stop.  If I had to draw the line, I would permit only human-powered weapons.  Anyone's ability to menace would be only in a small area around them (as wide as the biggest stick they could carry, for example).  Bows-and-arrows and crossbows would be a grey area - they're not close-combat weapons, but they are still human powered.


No.  They wouldn't.  I looked for their comments on this, but it was taking too long.  If you don't believe me, search for it or ask them again.

He's not being black-and-white.  That would be "fertiliser for everyone" or "fertiliser for no-one".  Hawker just proposes "fertiliser for whoever legitimately needs it".  That's what you're proposing too, except Hawker likes to stop people *before* they suicide bomb a city, not afterwards.

Nobody will stop you setting up a company offering free cable TV, or doing research into x-ray vision for eventual human implants - though I suppose you might have to be sure to offer a quality product.  Tell you what, I don't have a TV, but if you offer free cable to me, I'll definitely 'buy' it.  Good luck.  You have the right to have free cable TV, and everyone else has a greater right not to be obliged to offer you free cable TV.

Fortunately, under just about any reasonable legal system I can think of, the right to have people with red hair arbitrarily executed is vastly superseded by redheads' right to life - so there is no problem in a legal system and the law protects redheads.  Likewise Nirvana and people's right to peace and tranquillity.

I'll bet if you take the core idea of law it would boil down to pretty much what libertarians would like.  "Do no harm; do not threaten to harm," might be a (simplified) starting point; the rest is just making a clear, unique definition of what constitutes "threat" and "harm" such that members of society can co-exist peacefully.

b2c, your own post just here shows that people with differing opinions on what their rights should be, cannot peacefully co-exist.  I realise that you are being facetious, but have you ever heard of Poe's Law?  In short: "Parodies of extremism are indistinguishable from the real thing."  So *whatever* your understanding of "threat" and "harm", there will *always* potentially be someone who's understanding is incompatible with yours.  Any society which has competing or conflicting members, REQUIRES a common definition of "threat" and "harm" if it is to be peaceful.  If all members of a society are cooperating towards a single mutually beneficial end, in some kind of symbiotic web maybe, then law would not be required.  Self-interest would be sufficient to keep things peaceful.

How's about this: I previously wrote that libertarianism might be defined as:
I'd asked to be corrected it it was wrong but nobody did (I think), so I'll assume it's at least close.

Now, please define "violence", "defend", "imminent", "perceived", "threat", "life", "health", "property", "damage", "honour", "contract", "obligations", starting with the ones in boldface.  I mean, you might come from a different country from me, with different linguistic conventions; you might not be a native English speaker and so misunderstand some words; your background might give you different interpretations and so on.  I need them to be defined, so if I decide to move to your liberty-land, I'll know what to do and what not to do, whenever I happen to find myself in circumstances somehow not comprehensively addressed by some prior contract.  Now don't reply "here's what you must do: 'don't threaten anyone' etc", please actually *define* the terminology used; use examples if you think it's necessary.

Fred, here are two quotes from you.  Are they compatible?



"The end justifies the means" is an ethical choice - see Ethics.  There are several ethical choices available, but they will result in very different and probably incompatible societies.

In fact, to reply to your "... majority rules, personal liberty be damned", I do not consider that the law should exist so as to restrict the personal liberties of anyone.  I think the law should exist so as all people can equally enjoy a minimum set of personal liberties.  In other words, the raison d'etre for law is NOT to curtail liberty, but to CREATE it.

Regrettably, as I have said several times in this thread, I do think present-day lawmakers abuse their powers.