Thomas L. Knapp wrote: TK) In terms of long-range "what would my libertopia look like?" thinking, I haven't seen any great interest from him -- he's in presidential candidate mode right now, and his focus is on "what could I accomplish if elected?"(TK
BH) Right, and I want to know: what kinds of force would he initiate (or propose initiating or propose no longer being initiated) if elected? (BH TK) If you're going to re-post private email to a public forum, at least have the goddamn courtesty to include the part of it in which you provide the context underlying the part you're posting, rather than pretending that you're just now adding that context to an otherwise contextless snippet. The question the quote from me above was written in reply to was one of the trick questions often thrown at Libertarian candidates for the purpose of forcing them to impersonate philosopher kings rather than simply be candidates: How do they believe government SHOULD be financed? (TK I agree I should have included the question, if only to make your evasion more obvious. :-) Asking how government should be financed is hardly a trick question. It should be answerable by any candidate who wants to maintain the pretense that there is an interesting chance that he'll take office in 2009 and start working on submitting a FY2010 budget to Congress. It also should be answerable by any Libertarian candidate who has spent more than a few minutes during this campaign thinking about the proper role of government. Steve told Angela Keaton that liberty is "the right to enjoy your life without someone knocking on the door telling you that you owe them money". So does Steve agree with Christine Smith that all force initiation to raise government revenue is immoral and unnecessary? TK) And in that vein, he's actually not particularly radical by comparison to many past LP candidates. (TK TK) ... which is true -- with respect to the particular issue in question. Nice try at falsely generalizing the quote in order to "de-radicalize" Kubby, but did you really think I'd let you get away with it? (TK I didn't explicitly say that my questions about 1) force initiation for Sixth Amendment subpoenas and 2) financing government were related, but of course they obviously are. If Steve doesn't think that the Zero Aggression Principle is a general one, that's interesting to know. TK) On the issue of government finance, Kubby supports eliminating the income tax (like most past LP nominees), but acknowledges that Congress may very well decline to do so and then offers as his second swing at government financing a tax-cutting plan that fits within the mechanics of the existing system (TK That doesn't tell me how Steve thinks government SHOULD be financed. Christine Smith comes right out and says all government finance should be voluntary. Harry Browne said "until we find a way to finance government without taxes or a way to assure our safety without any government, some form of taxation will be necessary". Ron Paul talks about financing the government purely through "tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes", without ever talking about these Constitutionally-blessed forms of force initiation as evil in the sense that the income tax is. Steve told me he accepts force initiation for subpoenas because it's in the Constitution, so it seems fair to ask if he endorses Ron Paul's preferred methods of Constitutionally-blessed force-initiating government finance. TK) he's the most radical of the even remotely plausible declared (as of today) candidates for the LP's 2008 presidential nomination. (TK You probably think Christine Smith has much less chance than the 5% I give her, but she clearly is (currently) more willing than Steve to pander to radicals and say she opposes all force initiation in government finance.
