The only thing that I can say to justify the Iraq war is that it was a huge mistake, and now we're responsible for cleaning up the mess we made.

I assure you, I am 100% small government, and these are the ONLY responsibilities I think the government has:

1.) Protect the rights, life, liberty, and property, of all the individuals in the nation.
2.) Defend the country from foreign or domestic invasion or subversion.
3.) Protect the free market from the forces of monopolies.
4.) Provide a system that represents the people, so that the power of the government is put in check.
5.) Ensure that no one person or group in the government becomes so powerful as to prevent any of the previous purposes.

The mistake we made was thinking that Iraq was a threat to the country.

-

__________________
.

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

--Murray Rothbard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skinny. A liberal is just a libertarian who hasn't studied economics.

i hope that at least we get to keep our private lives to ourselves.
gays would get to marry, druggies would get to buy drugs legaly(at least to an extent), prostitution would be legal, etc..
for protection.
thats my whole point.. government shouldnt interfere. only when someone is harmed.. i dont care if my gay neighbor likes to have sex with his gay prostitute spouse and smoke pot in his house as long as nobody is being harmed.

And how long do you think that would last? Do you think your neighbor with a drug habit won't eventually find some other means to buy drugs when he either loses his job or runs out of money? Oh, that's right, that's where the protection comes in. Well protection could also be viewed as prevention. If a sensible person can see that drugs will affect a person in such a way that it might eventually cause harm or rob an innocent person, then it would be up to the government to stop that "cause" in order to prevent that "effect". So then, by your reasoning, the government should tell people to not use drugs because eventually that could easily lead to harming others.

And you can't walk, talk, or think because it would eventually lead to you harming others.

__________________
.

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

--Murray Rothbard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skinny. A liberal is just a libertarian who hasn't studied economics.

thats why i put in at least to an extent..

I am going to the extreme with this just to prove my point. There is no right way for everyone. My way helps people and I'm sure your way helps people. I just don't think leaving everyone out there to protect themselves from corporate America is the answer.

so how is limiting peoples rights protecting them from corporate america (aka america)?

Do you think corporations care about Americans? Can you imagine if we didn't have federal guidelines and agencies? What kind of food do you think we would be eating if we didn't have the FDA? What kind of drugs would the pharmecudical companies give us? What would the home building industry be if they didn't have standards regulated by the government. These are the kinds of protection we need. So to have less government would mean we would have less protection (to a certain extent).

i believe corporations are amoral (neither moral not immoral).
the kind that i would chose to eat. the kind that i would chose to buy from the store..
the kind that we would buy...
it would depent on what kind of service i would want provided.
your assuming that all these big businesses would be big to begin with.. how do you think merk would be a big company if they just sold crappy medicine? they wouldnt make it very far. same with food companies. if joe decides to sell rotten meat, ill buy from bob. if bill builds crappy houses, ill go to dave.. etc.

No certain safeguards are in place by the government to help ensure that some of these products never hit the shelves. You see, if companies were left to do their own studies, they would use American people as the test subjects when it hit the shelves. I don't mean this literally but do you think they would spend an extra dime to ensure their product is 100% safe? Any product? No, all they care about is the bottom line. If it cost too much to make, they take short cuts to make it cheaper. Even if that is at the expense of a couple people dying in the process. Also if companies were amoral, they wouldn't care so much about PR. They wouldn't spend milliions trying to tell Americans how much they care about them. Believe me, to them it is all about the money.