Greger, one of the major problems with environmental degradation is that the corporate entities usually responsible are powerful enough to get their pocketed politicians to lighten up on the civil damages side, and clean-up responsibilities. Many politicians have attempted to severely limit individuals' use of civil courts. They are in effect defaming Juries' comprised of free-humans, and dismissing out of hand, their decisions of fact. Hardly an advancement of liberty.

Pundits and politicians decry bad jury decisions, yet if you queried these profane pontificators regarding their own personal histories of jury service, you'd find many of them felt is was too big of a personal burden to attend. In locales where the courts have taken a very aggressive view about jury service, punitive damage awards have been on the decrease. There are changes that need be made to Tort law, but to use this as an excuse for curtailing access to courtrooms is to advance tyranny, not liberty.

There was once a time when most libertarians believed that the citizenry's access to the civil courtrooms should be greatly expanded. Most environmental harm would be harmful to neighboring properties. It is a theft of liberty to force someone to breathe and/or ingest dangerous substances which were a byproduct of irresponsible manufacturing. It is extremely hard for victims of large scale corporate malfeasance to seek and obtain just redress for public corporations' civil wrongs. The class action suit is more of a boon to Large Civil Litigation Firms, than it is to victims. Law should be simplified so that an average person could use its methods without the aid of another who was well-trained in an arcane art.

In the case of the Exxon Valdez; if anyone who suffered provable harm from the spill had been allowed to file damage claims individually, it would have caused Exxon great pain as it was forced to expel liquid assets as in damage awards.

There have been many examples of how ranchers and large farmers (private, not corporate) have been the best environmental stewards of their land, and they should, it is theirs.There has been decent attempts to harvest sustainable resources from environmentally sensitive areas of the world. Some have not been the most effective, but given time, adjustments would be made. Especially if individuals were the land owners and not a public for profit fictional entity, or a government bureaucracy controlled shared asset of all people.

A while back, I posted some links to libertarian green solutions. that many who claim to be libertarians presently do not understand is a function of astroturfing policy orgs that falsely claim to be libertarians, and the general right-siding of libertarian theory.

In re: Issodhos' reading recommendations, I am in general agreement with it, but would add a bit of caution when reading any of the Contemporary Mises institute authorship. They have some very adamant Christian Reconstructionists, who believe that anarcho-capitalism is the proper means for them to eventually tear down secular society, and install their own hell on earth.

So when you're done or tired reading Issodhos' list, here are some links regarding Christian Reconstructionism and the Libertarian Party, from a diverse range of sources:

Libertarian Doubts


Last edited by a knight; 11/26/07 01:44 AM.