Thursday, May 05, 2005



A Libertarian problem

Over the past month, Not PC has been doing sterling work in publicising the Berryman case and the army's efforts to cover up their shoddy construction. But now he's hit a snag: the Berrymans had signed an indemnity accepting that the bridge's construction was adequete and taking full responsibility for its maintenance.

Why is this a problem? Because it's a contract - and in Libertarian thinking, contracts are sacred. While the Berrymans' lawyer is arguing that the contract was not binding as the Berrymans were not engineers, the Libertarian attitude in similar cases (particularly in employment issues) is that a contract is a contract is a contract, and if people don't check things out properly before signing them, that's their own look out.

It will be interesting to see how PC copes with this little contradiction...

0 comments: