Comment by hardbass
7 hours ago
Yes, anyone and everyone should have a right to refuse contracts with the government. Is that difficult to understand? If you find it difficult to understand then perhaps democracy and capitalism isn't for you.
7 hours ago
Yes, anyone and everyone should have a right to refuse contracts with the government. Is that difficult to understand? If you find it difficult to understand then perhaps democracy and capitalism isn't for you.
Maybe, but only in a very idealistic, unrealistic, sense.
Could you imagine a hypothetical where we're at war and a private company has a potentially war-ending tech (nuclear weapon say) that they refuse to sell to the government?
Yes I can, and I'd lose faith in the government and loyalty and willpower to fight if that company refused and the government forcibly usurped it.
What if the private company had a vaccine to prevent a pandemic?
The job of a government is to look after the interests of the people who elected it... Is there no point that you think the rights/needs of the many should outweigh the ideological rights of the individual?
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It's absurd. Imagine Henry Ford blocking support for the US Army in the 40s
Henry Ford should have the full right to do so. The USA isn't involved in a world war now in any case. The only "wars" it is involved it right now are ones it started itself pointlessly.
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Yes, if they think the government is going to be irresponsible with it, and their weaponized smallpox is liable to cause a global pandemic that will also kill many of their countrymen, it seems entirely reasonable for the company not to sell it, or be forced to sell it either.
In the abstract though, we're just playing the "what if" game. If a company had the nuclear bomb near the end of World war II instead of the government holding it via the Manhattan Project is a different scenario than we're facing today, and if the government in question is the USA, Ukraine, the Nazis, or Russia also makes a difference. The weapon is also hard to abstract away. AI isn't a nuclear bomb, nor is it a weaponized virus/bacteria or a chemical weapon like anthrax or sarin, nor is it simply propaganda leaflefts distributed by airdrop.
Perhaps. Good luck skipping out on paying your taxes or filling out the census
If you can only make such absurd examples then you have failed. Paying taxes are not a contract between me and the government. They are a forced fee extracted of me. Everyone should be worried about the government threatening to issue supply chain risks if they don't like you rejecting a contract with them.
Paying taxes is a tad different than being a DoD contractor.
both fall under the umbrella of civic duties
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