Posted on 12/09/2012 8:37:27 PM PST by ReformationFan
The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. — John Locke
When Christian employers protested the new federal rule that they provide insurance for services that violate their consciences, the most horrifying thing was the solution. President Obama assumed that Americans would accept his bullying of insurance companies if he paused his bullying of churches. And it seems he was correct.
For the moment, we still have some freedom of religion, but no "freedom of business." That's not what the Founders called it, of course; this is simply the fundamental right of all human beings to acquire and use property. James Madison warned, "That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions...deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property strictly so called."
Thomas Jefferson spoke of "the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." In today's English, we have the God-given right to work hard and think hard to serve our fellow man for financial gain, without government interference or redistribution of the proceeds. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own?" Jesus said in a parable (Matthew 20:15, NASB).
(Excerpt) Read more at renewamerica.com ...
Here's the problem with this argument: It is indeed lawful for one to do as one wishes with one's property as long as it does not harm another. Yet there is where the slippery slope lies in determining what constitutes harm. Did you screw up my view? Did you cause your runoff to pollute my stream? Yet your view is dependent upon my management of my property. Is that not a service for which I was not compensated? What if that runoff was fertilizer for your farm? Hence, whether or not something is harmful or actually a beneficial service is NOT temporally or spatially consistent. At that point, one must either come to agreements or face the likely invocation of police power. Worse, the degree harm experienced is both situational and subjective.
Liberals and conservatives agree in this respect: They BOTH want the power to decide what is or is not harmful to someone else. Neither is willing to allow a market in externalities to function, conservatives because they are afraid of anything affecting their operations (while simultaneously VERY slow to see opportunities therein) and liberals because they cannot get their cut for their whizdumb and beneficence in controlling outcomes from other people's property. Neither position is tenable long term because the cost of making that determination becomes way too high once the agents involved realize that the power to control is power for sale.
You wanted a solution? OK.
Of course they are -- we have such a market already, negotiated in units of force.
Meanwhile, what is wanted is a usable definition of "externalities" -- or some usable synonyms.
In the realm of environmental mitigation, what we have is not a market, but a game of price fixing for politically qualified players.
Meanwhile, what is wanted is a usable definition of "externalities" -- or some usable synonyms.
You can find one here, in context too.
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