Friday, April 11, 2014

A Terrible Idea from Rand Paul

This is why Rand is a problem for principled libertarians. He tends to think in terms of what government should do in specific cases, rather than thinking in terms of free markets.

When you center a question from the perspective of how government should solve a problem, you are a statist, pure and simple.

Specifically, Rand is calling for the arming of 100% of all commercial airline pilots. Here's WaPo:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday that arming “100 percent” of American pilots is the most “cost-effective” way of preventing terrorist attacks similar to those that occurred on 9/11.
This is not a libertarian position, it is a terrible reactionary position against the terrible position that pilots should be prevented from carrying guns. From a libertarian, free market perspective, whether pilots should be armed, or not, should be left up to each individual airline, with government staying out of the entire decision making process. Every time Rand comes up with one of these government mandated solutions to existing  bad regulation, there is a hidden implication that government has a justified role in these decisions. Disgusting.

It is a co-opting of the libertarian movement to get it to view things in terms of a government framework.

It is this kind of stuff that makes Rand dangerous to the libertarian movement.


8 comments:

  1. What made him propose this idea now? It seriously comes out of nowhere. Did it take his poll testers 13 years to determine that this would be received well?

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  2. He doesn't say the government should force them to use arms. Pilots can choose to use arms voluntarily.

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  3. When I say everybody should be a good person, I'm not saying that the government should force everybody to be a good person.

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  4. The airline shouldn't decide. The pilot should decide. The Airline is just another branch of the government. Saying the airline should decide is better, but changes little.

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    1. That logic just makes the pilot an employee of the state. There’s no right to be armed on the job, be the employer state or private.

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  5. I first heard the idea from Ron Paul, so i guess he's not a libertarian either

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  6. The owner or manager of the airline should decide what the airline will do, period.

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  7. More anti-Rand hysterics from Bob.

    Rand says he wants to lessen regulations on certifications of pilots carrying firearms so they can more easily do so if they want to.

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