You get right to the meaty issues! Nice to chat with someone who doesn't divert into frivolous diversions.

But federal court judgement is meant to be on the constitutionality of laws, and the interpretation of valid laws. "Legislative jurisprudence" is a good google term to learn about how the courts have begun to overstep their constitutional mandate. I won't get into cases here.

Many argue that modern times require a byzantine growth of regulation and judicial decisionmaking tantamount to legislation. While I won't argue the philosophical flaws of that standpoint, i'll just point out that a growing number of Americans who consider these issues carefully are coming to the conclusion that it represents a serious trend towards unconstitutional government leading to an incremental abrogation of our natural and constitutional rights.

Ron Paul's advocacy of 'limited constitutional government' reflects the founding principles of this nation - distrust of government. It is truer to the law than those who promote incremental growth in central state power to regulate and rule our lives.

Re: Harms of 'Free Trade'. Unfortunately we've had about 150 years of 'international free market trade' enforced at the barrel of a gun; for e.g. the entire south american continent in the 19th century and much of the world in the second half of the 20th. This is not free trade, but mercantilism. It is the cronyish collusion of corporations with government to subjugate other nations. So we haven't really *tried* free trade yet.

Re: Free Trade with oppressive regimes. I'll agree that there are legitimate concerns involved with trading with oppressive regimes. Regimes that do not allow petition of grievances against government. worker organizations and that do not allow the injured to sue for redress are a real problem. Fact is, we have a lot of work to do ourselves in this department.

The alternative to trading is to engage in isolationism (as we do vs N. Korea or Iran). Ron Paul is against this (putting the lie to those that call him isolationist). The real isolationists are those who want to use economic embargos to force policies upon other nations. The harms these isolationist policies cause can be vast. Think of the 500,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqis who died of disease and malnutrition under 8 years of US-led sanctions (Thanks to Bush Sr, Clinton, Albright).

Abuses by US corporations in poor countries (sweatshops etc) do need to be addressed, but we must acknowledge first that it was government granted charters that enabled them to grow without boundaries, and without personal liability. (See the film 'The Corporation'). This is an area where i think most libertarian-oriented people have a big blind spot. The thing i tell them is that corporations have government granted priveleges - not natural ones - and that we as a society have every right to re-engineer corporate law to amend their legal status.

Just one radical idea: Should corporate law allow for the manufacturing and capital assets of a corporation chartered under US law to exist outside of US borders? It only takes a shift in assumptions to find favor with the idea that the operations of a US corporation be limited to regions under US law.

(I'm arguing this idea with some big-L Libertarians right now)

Yeah, "Tragedy of the Commons". Huge topic.