The gravest crimes in the state's lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to the state itself: treason, desertion, insurrection, etc. The state does not exist to protect its citizens, but to protect itself.
"These days most people tend to equate freedom with the possession of inalienable individual rights, rights that demarcate a private sphere no government may infringe on. But has this always been the case?"
The Canadian Liberal Party began as a party of classical liberalism, radically supportive of freedom and free markets. But those days are long over.
The Nuremberg prosecutors wanted to indict the Nazis on trial for crimes, but at the same time they wanted to preserve the dogma that the modern European nation-state is the culmination of moral progress. This created a conundrum.
Even granting the goals of “meeting people’s needs” and “selflessness” cherished by socialists, a property-based market economy is far superior at meeting those goals in modern civilization compared to a top-down, centrally controlled socialist system.
Many support democracy because for them the collective or “republican” liberty they favor far exceeds individual liberty in importance. Those of us who follow Mises and Rothbard will disagree.
The 1920s featured political détente, debt liquidations by prior consumer price inflation, an introductory stalling of monetary inflation, a German economic miracle, and a broad-based technological revolution. The 2020s have none of these.
The Nuremberg prosecutors wanted to indict the Nazis on trial for crimes, but at the same time they wanted to preserve the dogma that the modern European nation-state is the culmination of moral progress. This created a conundrum.
The 1920s featured political détente, debt liquidations by prior consumer price inflation, an introductory stalling of monetary inflation, a German economic miracle, and a broad-based technological revolution. The 2020s have none of these.
The Canadian Liberal Party began as a party of classical liberalism, radically supportive of freedom and free markets. But those days are long over.
