“1) Are you going to say that just because you happen to outsource your electricy generation, that when you stop providing the resources necessary to maintain that flow, the electricity shouldn’t stop just the same as if you never rode your bicycle generator again?”
That is completely irrelevant to the point I am discussing, and no, I am not. What I am picking at is Friedman’s assertion that the power company or someone there is void of responsibility.
“2) Are you a socialist?”
Sure am.
“I believe people have the ability to freely choose their actions.”
Then there’s a problem if you agree with Friedman’s assertion that the power company has no responsibility in the matter. Self-ownership, to use terms more widely accepted here, is not a one time deal. It is not just in effect at the moment of contract, but at every point before and thereafter. It is inalienable. If its in alienable, then all actions, no matter their relationship to any contract, are wholly those of the actor, and no one but the actor can be held reponsible for them. At the moment the power was shut off there was an action on the side of the power company. That is not to say it was not a predictable action or one that lay outside of the contract, but that someone made a decision when they could have just as freely not.