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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: National Defence (we need a new subject title!)
Message-ID: <145@l5.uucp>
Date: Sun, 22-Sep-85 17:52:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.145
Posted: Sun Sep 22 17:52:35 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 09:24:17 EDT
References: <3476@topaz.UUCP> <28200087@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 30

The issue of national defence (defense to some of you!) is one that divides
libertarians.  My opinions are very different than JoSH's in this area.

I think that the state is necessary. I think that the state should be
responsible for only one thing -- the defence of the rights of citizens.
This implies both internal and external defence -- the state is responsible
for providing a legal code which defines what the rights are, and which
imposes  penalties for trangressing against those rights.  

What i do not want is full time (career) civil servants.  There undoubtably
are people who would make good full time Judges, policemen and law makers
but there are far too many who are not.  Therefore I propose limiting how
long one can work for the state to 2 terms of (say) 5 years each. This will
mean that there is a need for a great turnover of state employees.  There
is no such thing as a free lunch, folks, so I think that the price that
citizens of libertaria will have to pay to have their rights respected and
a small state is compulsory work for the state for one term.  This does
not mean that one must work as an infantry soldier, of course -- you can be
a judge or a mayor or an elected official or a secretary or a programmer.
Do not expect the salary to be good, however.

This article has been very brief. I have thought about this a lot though
and in some detail.  A great deal needs to be worked out. I invite
comments and brainstorming.


-- 
Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa