Well we have laws against murder yet we still have murders so does that mean we shouldn't regulate murder? As FB said. There are almost no laws that are 100% effective but the presence of them does. Just from personal experience I strongly suspect we would have much more drunk driving if not for the laws. Many people fear the consequences of a drunk driving citation more than they do the possibility of an accident. Anyway under your scenario of essentially relying on lawsuits wouldn't guarantee elimination of such behavior considering we see lawsuits all the time.
This is a pretty arrogant and insulting statement coming from someone who's position has been exposed as folly over the last several posts.
I don't think anyone ever asserted that any law or regulation was ever 100% effective. It isn't. But again it's easy to look at the reduction laws and regulations have. Hopefully people will be rational enough to know that because something is only 95% effective instead of 100% it should be thrown out.
What I particularly like is how he manages to just ignore any point that proves to difficult to counter.
It seems to me that we can generalize "Regulation" to be basically "Laws". I mean, every law is some type of regulation. Speeding laws, criminal laws, whatever. It is all about what you can not do, and what you must do. You must have a boating license to operate a boat. That's a regulation. You can not kill another person. That's a regulation. So when the tea party say that regulation is killing us - are they saying law is killing their freedom? So they want companies to be able to do whatever they want right? Pollute, murder through poor safety, steal, or whatever. They want to let companies have poop in your meat, pour carcinogens into your drinking water, charge you for things you didn't ask for, etc etc etc. That's ok from the tea party stance because companies will police themselves....just like people do if there was no law. We should just get rid of all laws because people and companies will just police themselves. In other words, the tea party truly wants to eliminate gov't and install anarchy. Except they want gov't to do the following kill Muslims build a wall around America Outlaw abortions (interesting 'regulation') force the teaching of creationism in schools And then they wonder why the majority of the country doesn't like them.
How is that federal mar1juana regulation working out for the states who voted and approved legal medical dispensaries? The oppressive law was actually changed on a local level, when will there be even a slight chance for it to be repealed on a federal level? Or could it be that there is now too much invested in it, and now the federal War on Drugs is now "too big to fail"?
Not exactly a new issue, but FWIW, I'm on your side on this one. Here is a discussion I started in 2003 on the topic...
But it is the very tea party conservatives you speak of who would never allow the passage of a federal law allowing for medical mar1juana usage.
My mea culpa was in the next post. As it is, I still think that "moderate libertarianism"* is incredibly undefined. Your posts in that vein have not helped; e.g., you're complaining about the current situation as a rationale for adoption of libertarian principles - this argument is ineffective inasmuch as those principles remain undefined and (apparently) subjective. *Note that I don't really like this term, but it's a simple way to describe it, I guess. In any case, it's probably only relevant in the USA, as a counter to the "traditional" American libertarianism, i.e., anarcho-capitalism. For what it's worth I was recently in a discussion with a good friend of mine who is a die-hard Ron Paul supporter. He almost convinced me - his argument was basically that Ron Paul would be a giant monkey wrench in the system - and that alone would be a progress. If he can accomplish 10% of his agenda (and this is probably accurate given our idiot congress) it would be a massive (and good) change. Example: If Ron Paul can shut down all our unnecessary overseas military operations...
I never made that contention. I said that your argument was pretty much only after the fact remedy, holding someone financially liable, my point was given the dangers and amount of potential harm of things like drunk driving, dangerous animals and air pollution why not address those before the fact. I never said we shouldn't have after the fact liability and pointed out a few examples of where we do. Your argument seems to be, and please feel free to elaborate on it, that instead of relying on regulation we rely on liability. My argument is that we have both.
There has not been any push by the tea party to legalize mar1juana or end the war on drugs. That's usually something that comes from the left.
Ron Paul started the Tea Party in 2007 and vehemently rails against the federal ban on mar1juana. Obama was elected in 2008 and violently raids medical mar1juana facilities in states where it was voted legal.
Ridiculous. Way to avoid the discussion and misrepresent the arguments that have been made in this thread. I don't want the government to kill muslims. In fact, I don't want the state to have the authority to kill anybody unless we're in a state of war with well-defined enemy (not an idea, or act; like a war against communism, or a war against terrorism, or a war on drugs). I don't want the government to build a wall around the country. In fact, I'd like our borders to be as free and open as possible to minimize barriers to trade with our neighbors. I don't want abortion to be outlawed. I don't like abortion. I don't think its a good thing, but I think its worse to force women to become mothers at a time when its either infeasible, or when the child would be neglected. I don't want schools teaching creationism. In fact, I don't want public schools replacing a liberal education driven by curiosity as opposed to one driven by forced attendance and indoctrination. I don't companies to be able to act lawlessly. In fact, if you'd kindly look back on some of my earlier posts in this same thread, you'd see that I'm supportive of regulating property rights so that liability can clearly be defined in instances when companies generate negative externalities for the public. I'm not calling for getting rid of regulations and allowing companies to put carcinogens into the air and water supplies. I think we should have tough regulations against fraud. Companies shouldn't be able to charge you for things you didn't ask for, and they shouldn't be able to misrepresent their services to do this either. I'd much rather have the state regulate the coercive actions of individuals, businesses, and of the state itself.
