Free Trade- Free is unencumbered

[Gdjjr]

Regulations encumber-

Exchange, like property, is a natural right. Every citizen who has produced or acquired a product should have the option of applying it immediately to his own use or of transferring it to whoever on the face of the earth agree to give him in exchange the object he desires. To deprive him of this option when he has committed no act contrary to public order and good morals, and solely satisfy the convenience of another citizen, is to legitimize the act of plunder and to violate the law of justice-

Frederic Bastiat, Property and Law (1848)

For a place founded with the philosophy of Natural Rights as a building block it's amazing that Natural Rights are highly restricted with regulations, which by definition, encumber and always favor one over another, which, to me, is the diametric opposite of the intent of *representatives* job- which was to ensure no one person or entity from a different district had legal advantage over another- yet, here we are with acolytes in the general populace cheering on agreements for trade (and other crap) by the very restrictors of Natural Rights who, by fiat, deem themselves who can do what with whom arbiters - SMH-

 

[Toro]

I read that book when I was 15. It was the first philosophical book I ever read. It crystallized my ideology.