Posted by Bob on 8/30/2007, 9:50 am, in reply to "Re: Free Markets and Minimum Wage" Freedom is NOT, however, as liberals so love to say, freedom from want. As horrible as are poverty, disease, disaster and so forth, government is not our parent, not our caretaker. Poverty and other ills have in fact NOT been solved by government largesse. Poverty can only be cured by a strong economy in which individuals are free to make their own decisions. Personal charity, morality, and compassion are necessary for any society to prosper. But when we begin confiscating one man's property to give to another, what we create is a class of resentful givers, and a class of ungrateful recipients. And it's not necessary. The economic evils of the 19th century were not the result of free markets, but the result of a lack of them. Anti-trust laws were a proper role of government in ensuring free markets. Confiscation of personal property from some, to be given away as vote-getting plums, is not a proper role of government. To you, this may all be abstract. To the people living in countries where there is no freedom, it is not abstract. It's a continuous nightmare.
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Freedom is not solely freedom from government. It is freedom from corporations, from criminals, or from any person or group that would infringe on your rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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