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Fifty Ron Pauls
and the government
with Only One
Law
By RONALD N. NEFF
Since my criticism of the Libertarian Party appeared on this Website in November 2000, I have encountered two objections to my argument that I believe it worthwhile replying to in published form. Throughout this argument, I shall use Libertarian to mean a member or candidate of the Libertarian Party. And I shall use the lower-case libertarian sparingly and usually in the plural. It refers to advocates of libertarianism, the political principle that force and the threat of force are not to be initiated by either individuals or groups, but may be used only in retaliation against those who do initiate or threaten force.
The two objections I've gotten are similar in that they both imagine
endpoints that seem to be desirable, but they fail to see that there
are fundamental impossibilities intrinsic to them. They are built on
self-contradiction. They are equivalent to asserting: "Wouldn't it be
neat to draw a Euclidean triangle whose interior angles equal two
obtuse angles?"
3: The government with Only One
Law
© 2001 by WTM
Enterprises. All rights reserved.
Related articles by Ronn Neff:
Jacob G. Hornberger and Mr. Neff's exchange on five questions about libertarian electoral activism posed by Mr. Hornberger. (Reader response.) (February 2002)
"Why I am not a Libertarian." (November 2000)
Related article by Nicholas Strakon.
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