[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Beck says, "That's why we need to be honorable people." Honorable people. Honest people. Ethical people.
Notice he says "we" (the buyers) must be honorable. He doesn't demand that "they" (the sellers) be "honorable" because he's one of those gaming the system with and for them. He says we must each be honorable and search out the honorable sellers on our own -- and then just hope.
This is the big Libertarian Lie.
We need people who actually mean it when they say they would never "ask another man to live for" them (by exploiting them with poverty wages, perhaps?) After all, they are quite sincere when they say the first half of that creed, "I will never live for the sake of another man."
We need people who really mean it when they say, "A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud," (by selling worthless financial devices and junk goods, perhaps?)
We need people who really mean what they say when they speak, rather than going straight for people's reptilian brain with fear, fake outrage, and phony tears.
In the Libertarian-envisioned "magic marketplace," it must be assumed that business people are honest and honorable, and really believe in that "value for value" ethic. It just doesn't work between predators and prey, which is what we've been seeing.
Of course, the same vocal Liberarians spouting this business philosophy are the very ones most often caught violating their self-defined ethical standards by lying, cheating, stealing, plagiarizing, bribing, polluting, and on and on and on.
The very last thing today's anti-regulation "Libertarians" demonstrate is anything remotely like "honor." And a system without honor demands strict oversight and regulation.
[font color="navy" face="Arial"]*Quotes from Atlas Shrugged.
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