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That’s a hastily compiled shortlist. You’ll find more here. The absence of an agency is not to be construed as approval. I apologize if your favorite candidate for deletion is not there. No malice was intended. Perhaps some parts of the departments of Defense and Justice will need to be retained pending the full liberation of the free market. I’ll leave that for another time.
Moreover, the national government should cease sending taxpayer money to “private” organizations around the world whether they do mischief—which I imagine describes most of them—or not. In fact, it should stop taking the taxpayers’ money and sending it anywhere. Government contracts should be viewed with suspicion.
While I want these agencies and departments zeroed out and their employees freed for productive work, as a libertarian I am also concerned with how this should be done. My worry is not over the government employees being retired. The government should not be a jobs program. Every government employee, who is paid through the theft known as taxation, could be producing goods in the market economy, where consumers rule through consent and exchange. Consumers have more agency than taxpayers do and will be able to let former government employees know whether they are productive or not. If the privatized workers are unproductive in some endeavors, they will have to find others. That’s how the free market works.
Let’s call a spade a spade. All of the state is nothing more than a conspiracy to take money from the non-state actors in the country in which the state is located and give it to members of the state. That is the sole reason for the coercion of the state; take it from you to give to THEM. Cutting the size of the state is the only way to, at least, slow the coercive state predation. Perhaps Trump and Musk need more philosophy on the cutting and less propaganda. They can also cut it out with the f*ing emergencies, because they are not emergencies.
I don't mind the use of emergency powers here. I've come around to Lysander Spooner's perspective that the law should always be levied and interpreted in whichever way most enhances and protects liberty.
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So, then, the question becomes does emergency declarations and suspensions of law and liberties enhance or destroy said liberties and laws? If the President, and I don’t care which President it is or was, declares emergencies and usurps congressional prerogatives and defies courts in the name of ”protecting liberty” he or she should be able to do whatever he or she thinks is necessary. I can see the President, any President, declaring emergencies, suspending constitutions, laws and liberties at the literal drop of a hat.
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It's certainly not about "in the name of". If the emergency powers are being used to gut the bureaucracy, I'm fine with it. If they're being used to infringe on private civilians rights, I'm against it.
You have to bear in mind that the bad guys are never going to respect our rights, so setting bad precedent is an overrated concern.
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I have to disagree to a point. The ends justify the means! may not be the most workable ethical situation I can think of. The ends of getting rid of parasites doesn’t mean it is OK to use an H-bomb on them as the means! We don’t have to do anything bad. OBummer passed some laws that make what Trump is doing completely legal, up to and including naming DOGE as a special commission with the power to shut down and/or fire employees.
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Using a metaphorical H-Bomb would violate the rights of private civilians, presumably. I'm strictly saying that it is best for the law to always be wielded in the way that maximizes liberty. What's the preferable alternative to that?
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What's the preferable alternative to that?
Not having the law in the first place?!?!?! We don’t need laws to dictate action in every little part of our lives. I think liberty is best maintained without laws that intrude into an individuals life. Negative rights are the only rights that are the way to guard freedom, there are no such things as positive rights. Positive rights make someone a slave to someone else.