From: Tim McGraw
Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2020 2:01 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Grocery Shop “Raiding”
Dear Walter,
Here in northern California people are starting to complain about folks coming into their towns to “raid” the local stores. Linh Dinh has another Coronavirus report from around the world on Unz. One of the people who wrote to him was from Lucerne, CA in NoCal. Lucerne is a smaller town than our town of Healdsburg (12,000) population. The Lucerne woman was complaining about shoppers nee “raiders” coming up from Santa Rosa, CA to clean out their grocery stores. Also folks from the Bay Area are fleeing and moving into second homes in Lucerne.
My Libertarian question of the day is: Can a town shut its doors to outsiders? Can it fine interlopers? Does a town have a collective “right” to the food and goods in the town’s stores? Folks in NoCal seem to think so.
Thanks always for reading my missives and printing them on occasion. I do appreciate your time and thoughts and writings. Keep having fun.
Tim McGraw
Healdsburg, CA
Dear Tim:
Can a town do that. Yes, they can. They do.
A better question is, MAY a town do that, and be compatible with libertarianism?
Under strict libertarianism, anarcho capitalism, there’d be no town governments. Would it be compatible with libertarianism for all groceries in town to limit all sales to local people? Yes. Would they likely to that? No. Under limited government libertarianism, with a minimalist town govt, may they do this? No. They’d be violating private property rights
2:45 am on April 16, 2020
