The EPA - Keeping us breathing since 1970!

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Originally Posted by GGT

"Industry standards" mean Regulations, something the EPA does. But if you mean polluting industries self-regulating, with more exacting standards, that idea has been shown to be a pipe dream. BP and Trans Atlantic as latest examples. As I've been reminded here hundreds of times, the purpose of any business/corporation is to make money. Not to have a social conscience or follow ethical community best-practices. In other words, your theoretical libertarian guidelines don't seem to work well when put into practice.

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Because prior to the BP oil spill, the oil companies lived in a libertarian wonderland, right? Libertarian guidelines haven't worked because they haven't been tried. If an oil company could be held solely responsible for the damages caused by a faulty oil rig, I believe they would have a great incentive to not cut corners, and make sure that their rigs were held to the highest possible standards. Companies that didn't wouldn't last very long.

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But they do. Would be great if the libertarian ideal worked in practice, but it doesn't. That's why it's an Ideal.

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Libertarian ideals have not been implemented or practiced.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

I don't support any EPA measures. I would support more and harsher legislation on polluters, (including removing the government mandated limitation on liability and damages) and more exacting industry standards.

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That's a bad notion. Because your idea means cleaning up after the fact, when the damage already has been done. And that is always way more expensive than preventing the damage from being done in the first place. If cleaning up is possible at all and you did not just wipe out an entire ecology, that is.

And, please, liability? Damages? Right. The company simply goes bankrupt and who'll foot the bill then?

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Because prior to the BP oil spill, the oil companies lived in a libertarian wonderland, right? Libertarian guidelines haven't worked because they haven't been tried. If an oil company could be held solely responsible for the damages caused by a faulty oil rig, I believe they would have a great incentive to not cut corners, and make sure that their rigs were held to the highest possible standards. Companies that didn't wouldn't last very long.

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Actually, they did live in a libertarian wonderland...

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

I'm not sure you're understanding the moral hazard argument fully, or how it would relate to this question. If you are saying that people who can't afford to treat the actual problem could use rescue inhalers as a crutch, you're right. Removing rescue inhalers isn't going to remove their obstacle to getting care though, and thus isn't really a moral hazard question.

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I may be using the term "moral hazard" incorrectly. What I mean to say is that making asthmatics have more skin in the game, however you do it, is going to lead to more asthmatics getting less adequate care. This issue is in other words not about asthmatics being in more jeopardy. It's about choosing the whip you want to lash them with.

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Do you think the inner city poor are going to be able to schedule and keep doctors appointments regularly? That their parents will be able to take time off of work to take their kids in? What about the clinics in those areas? Are they going to be able to keep pace with the influx of new patients wanting free treatment because they got their Obama Care?

This is more or less my position.

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Do you think some of them may be able to make some use of some of the 40,000 work/school days missed daily due to asthma? Once they have a good treatment regimen that they can follow and adjust as needed they don't need to constantly go to the doctor, to the ER, to the hospital ward. Or the grave :o

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Originally Posted by Aimless

http://www.aafa.org/display.cfm?id=8&sub=42

Every day in America:

40,000 people miss school or work due to asthma.
30,000 people have an asthma attack.
5,000 people visit the emergency room due to asthma.
1,000 people are admitted to the hospital due to asthma.
11 people die from asthma.


These facts signal deficiencies in regular asthma care, rescue meds are a distraction.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Because prior to the BP oil spill, the oil companies lived in a libertarian wonderland, right? Libertarian guidelines haven't worked because they haven't been tried. If an oil company could be held solely responsible for the damages caused by a faulty oil rig, I believe they would have a great incentive to not cut corners, and make sure that their rigs were held to the highest possible standards. Companies that didn't wouldn't last very long.

Libertarian ideals have not been implemented or practiced.

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Because the oil industry (like coal mining, natural gas frakking, even financials) was presumed to be operating on self-regulating standards. Incentives for quality and safety as internal SOP, for their own best interests. (Could call it the Greenspan model from the 90's, when those self-control principles led to de-regulations and less oversight from outside agencies. Until he found a flaw in that model.)

We already have an overly litigious society, not sure why you'd want more of that. All the counter-parties in the Gulf spill are busy suing each other, shifting blame and responsibility to the other guy. The Exxon Valdez law suits lasted over 20 years. Meanwhile, the costs of clean-up and damage done (some irreparable) are on-going, and how have they changed their practices?

Libertarian laissez-faire ideals have been incorporated, it's part of the American Way, and behind demands for 'smaller, less intrusive' government. Libertarianism might work at individual or personal levels, but it doesn't follow that it works at corporate or industry levels. No, I don't think corporations are people, and it's understood their main motive is profit, not people. Like it or not, that's why our labor unions came to be, followed by EPA and OSHA et al.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

And, please, liability? Damages? Right. The company simply goes bankrupt and who'll foot the bill then?

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Did I somehow miss BP going belly-up?

Furthermore, I'm more than willing to change the laws to hold the people in charge of the company criminally liable. Any company operating at that kind of scale would purchase catastrophic insurance for just such an occasion.

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Actually, they did live in a libertarian wonderland...

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Actually, they didn't live in a libertarian wonderland...

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Originally Posted by GGT

Because the oil industry (like coal mining, natural gas frakking, even financials) was presumed to be operating on self-regulating standards.

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Patently false. From OSHA to the MMS and EPA, the industry was presumed to be operating under a mouthful of federal alphabet soup agencies.

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Libertarian laissez-faire ideals have been incorporated, it's part of the American Way, and behind demands for 'smaller, less intrusive' government. Libertarianism might work at individual or personal levels, but it doesn't follow that it works at corporate or industry levels. No, I don't think corporations are people, and it's understood their main motive is profit, not people. Like it or not, that's why our labor unions came to be, followed by EPA and OSHA et al.

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Bullshit.

This is so frickin' bizarre. How is punishment after the fact better than prevention? The fishes demand an answer

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Originally Posted by Aimless

This is so frickin' bizarre. How is punishment after the fact better than prevention? The fishes demand an answer

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You're giving companies every incentive to be as careful as possible. If you know you could be held criminally responsible as CEO for an unpaid/mismanaged disaster on your watch, wouldn't you want to do everything you could to prevent it, from proper insurance coverage to regular safety inspections?

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Did I somehow miss BP going belly-up?

Furthermore, I'm more than willing to change the laws to hold the people in charge of the company criminally liable. Any company operating at that kind of scale would purchase catastrophic insurance for just such an occasion.

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BP didn't go belly-up, but continued to make profits. Even though their liability/catastrophic insurance didn't cover all the damage done to the Gulf eco-system, the local or regional businesses, or how it affected their counter-parties. Now, going on freee market principles and the insurance industry (same standards used for homeowners and businesses in the Gulf, btw) no insurance product is affordable if it covers ALL losses. Some of those losses don't even have a monetary dollar figure. (How do they include near-extinction of sea creatures like oysters, or that natural oyster beds need about 20 years to recover?)

Using your libertarian ideal, companies like BP or Exxon would have gone out of business. Maybe even Dow Chemical. How about big Pharma that pushed use of thalidomide until babies were born without limbs, or hormones for birth control until cancers appeared? What about big Ag and their use of veterinarian hormones that found its way into our meat and milk, and eventually into children reaching puberty at age 10?

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Actually, they didn't live in a libertarian wonderland...

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They tried, but thankfully they were met by others intent on protecting the General Public.

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Patently false. From OSHA to the MMS and EPA, the industry was presumed to be operating under a mouthful of federal alphabet soup agencies.

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No, I think you're using backward logic. Review our history of black lung or mine cave-ins for coal miners, disabilities from meat cutters, even fires in textile factories. Industries fought regulation and rules, because it impacted their bottom line profits. Workers were viewed as expendable and easily replaced drones. Particularly in industries with a regional "monopoly" on natural resources, and workers knew their jobs depended on mining those resources.

Some industries could eventually "outsource" (read, displace) workers, even regionally or nationally. Hell, the invention of refrigerated trucks and trains transformed our food industry, especially meat processors and distributors. Going "Whole Hog" took on a new meaning. So why not explain to us, how the Libertarian model actually works as you see it, in your ideal mind?

Cheaper exported meats from China, where they don't monitor hormone, lead or melamine levels in food for humans, or pay their workers decent wages, or make sure their work environment is safe? No agency on the import end, to see if Americans are eating the equivalent dog food, ingesting lead or melamine, infant formula contaminated with arsenic, toothpaste containing formaldehyde?

Seriously, in our global economy, I have NO idea how Libertarians can keep claiming their ideal is something so great.

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Bullshit.

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Citation needed. :p

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You're giving companies every incentive to be as careful as possible. If you know you could be held criminally responsible as CEO for an unpaid/mismanaged disaster on your watch, wouldn't you want to do everything you could to prevent it, from proper insurance coverage to regular safety inspections?

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No, you're not giving them an incentive. You're giving them the "let's see if we're getting enougn profits before we're caught".

Also: With your model you'd first have to notice that something is wrong. Some of that toxic produce is sneaky - it does not kill you outright. I mean, just imaging a company dumping or burying its waste somewhere - and you notice it 20 years later because suddenly people begin to drop like flies.

Only: The company is gone and the CEO dead. Or in another country which does not extradite.

Again: Moronic idea. The damage is done and it costs way more to clean up. And you can't ressurect dead people.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You're giving companies every incentive to be as careful as possible. If you know you could be held criminally responsible as CEO for an unpaid/mismanaged disaster on your watch, wouldn't you want to do everything you could to prevent it, from proper insurance coverage to regular safety inspections?

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Riight, well where are the shareholders and board of directors? They don't care about being "careful", either. They care about profits. I'm as hypocritical as the bunch of them, by holding stocks in things like Exxon, McDonalds, Pepsico, Yum brands, and RJ Reynolds. Then a 'balanced portfolio' starts to look like also buying stock in Lilly, J & J, plus some regional privately owned extended care facilities, or Big Insurance.

Sounds a bit like the Buffet plan, actually. He loves cheeseburgers, cherry Cokes, Dairy Queen, some small chocolatiers....owns their stocks but also owns....Geico and other re-insurers, plus McGraw Hill (who owns S & P). Find your vice and buy it, then find the counter-party and buy that, too. Sounds a bit like having your cake and eating it. :bulb:

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You're giving companies every incentive to be as careful as possible. If you know you could be held criminally responsible as CEO for an unpaid/mismanaged disaster on your watch, wouldn't you want to do everything you could to prevent it, from proper insurance coverage to regular safety inspections?

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You know, it's a little funny how some people want to solve all problems through regulations while others want to do so through using criminal law. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Do you prefer the exclusive use of the latter for ideological reasons?

When you speak about incentives to be as careful as possible, I can't help but wonder: careful in what ways? What does "careful" mean? Because, to me, it may very well mean "careful to cover your tracks well enough to not be found guilty by the standards of criminal law". It may just mean, "barely careful enough."

You live in a society where individuals can be held criminally liable for very many things, and where corporations may also be held liable for the actions of its employees. And yet your society isn't free from crime (or mishaps :o). To some extent your criminal justice system deters crime and encourages good/responsible conduct, and, to some extent, it encourages people to be sneakier or more ruthless criminals.

I don't know if it'd be fair/just to hold CEOs criminally liable for the actions of their corporations, but if you want to talk incentives for being careful, here's the best incentive for being careful in the right way: "meet these non-negotiable standards and prove to the world that you meet them or you can't do business. And if you somehow manage to cheat you go to jail." It's the best incentive: it's immediate; it's strong in both negative and positive terms (no compliance = no money; compliance = lots of money); it is (or can/should be) very clear (do these things, or else); and you can't avoid it (we're watching you all the time). If you want to talk about incentives, why, there's nothing better. Get your medical license and don't try to get out of having to recertify.

Interesting post, minx. Being as "careful as possible" also means accepting new science and medical findings.

Using JUST the asthma example, it's not a stretch to connect more reported asthma to man-made environmental changes. Using JUST the principle that species have innate survival responses, it makes sense that trees and other at-risk foliage will create MORE pollens, the more at-risk they are to fighting death. Organic based organisms don't differentiate between who or what is testing their survival, they simply react according to their biological programming.

Human biology also doesn't identify who or what is causing the problem, with any moral imperative, other than to save itself. One of the best examples is hemoglobin reacting to malaria, and human genes evolving, even though it produced sickle cell anemia.

Maybe asthma (and/or allergies) is our 21st century warning, that we're causing most of our own problems?

No, that's just madness

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Originally Posted by Aimless

When you speak about incentives to be as careful as possible, I can't help but wonder: careful in what ways? What does "careful" mean? Because, to me, it may very well mean "careful to cover your tracks well enough to not be found guilty by the standards of criminal law". It may just mean, "barely careful enough."

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We do see it often enough - some company does something wrong. And then, when you try to find the responsible person, it turns out that there is none. Someone did not tell their superiors enough, they in turn did not watch closely enough, the CEO does not even know about this and so on and so forth. Little things where the cumulative effect causes the problem instead of one single direct action.

Stuff like that where no one is found guilty - or maybe, if we're "lucky" it's some small time fall guy.

Not to mention that making the CEO directly responsible for anything his company does wrong would lead to only one thing: All chemical and pharmaceutical companies would get the hell out of America.

Hmm. Maybe the US and Europe can jump-start their economies by selling bronchodilators and asthma inhalers to the Chinese? After all, they have tons of air pollution, no real standards or regulations for their coal mines, and stand to add millions of new drivers using fossil fuels. They don't appear to be testing their air quality at all, or give a flying fuck who's hurt by their unbridled industrial growth, whether it's contaminated air, water, soil, or food.

How provincial and 19th century, eh? Is this what capitalists promised? That, eventually, goods and services from the developed world would be valuable to the developing world? :noob:

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Originally Posted by GGT

No, I think you're using backward logic. Review our history of black lung or mine cave-ins for coal miners, disabilities from meat cutters, even fires in textile factories. Industries fought regulation and rules, because it impacted their bottom line profits. Workers were viewed as expendable and easily replaced drones. Particularly in industries with a regional "monopoly" on natural resources, and workers knew their jobs depended on mining those resources.

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You're the one using backward logic, GGT. You're saying libertarian ideals have been tried, but they haven't. You're taking one aspect of libertarianism, (which is freedom from government regulation) and saying that because it's been tried, that libertarian principles don't work. That's not how it works. It would be akin to me saying that because China has a socialist healthcare system, but as people are still getting sick due to their lax pollution controls that socialist healthcare has been tried and just doesn't work. It's absurd.

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Cheaper exported meats from China, where they don't monitor hormone, lead or melamine levels in food for humans, or pay their workers decent wages, or make sure their work environment is safe? No agency on the import end, to see if Americans are eating the equivalent dog food, ingesting lead or melamine, infant formula contaminated with arsenic, toothpaste containing formaldehyde?

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False dichotomy. You don't think that a retailer like Walmart, or a private organization would be created that would do the same checks that the USDA does? Consumer advocates would suddenly cease to exist? Please.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You're the one using backward logic, GGT. You're saying libertarian ideals have been tried, but they haven't. You're taking one aspect of libertarianism, (which is freedom from government regulation) and saying that because it's been tried, that libertarian principles don't work. That's not how it works. It would be akin to me saying that because China has a socialist healthcare system, but as people are still getting sick due to their lax pollution controls that socialist healthcare has been tried and just doesn't work. It's absurd.

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Care to educate us how libertarian ideals would work, as you see it? How expensive litigation after the fact would paint a prettier picture of society?

How those down-stream of industrial polluters could cure the ill or bring back the dead? How poor people could convince slum lords, using public defenders, that lead paint was retarding their children or making them sick? How paper plants were offering a life-line in employment, that eventually led to the early demise of everyone around them who breathed the air or drank the water?

Please, I'd like to see the scenario from your point of view.

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False dichotomy. You don't think that a retailer like Walmart, or a private organization would be created that would do the same checks that the USDA does? Consumer advocates would suddenly cease to exist? Please.

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Nope, I don't believe that for one neutrino of a second. In fact, Walmart is known to sell food containing melamine, toothpaste with arsenic, kid's jewelry with lead, and dog food that kills. Because it comes from outside the US, and our import standards are shit, especially when mega corps like Walmart don't spend the MONEY to protect the consumer.

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Originally Posted by GGT

Care to educate us how libertarian ideals would work, as you see it? How expensive litigation after the fact would paint a prettier picture of society?

How those down-stream of industrial polluters could cure the ill or bring back the dead? How poor people could convince slum lords, using public defenders, that lead paint was retarding their children or making them sick? How paper plants were offering a life-line in employment, that eventually led to the early demise of everyone around them who breathed the air or drank the water?

Please, I'd like to see the scenario from your point of view.

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You are conflating lots of disparate ideas and scenarios here, few of which actually support your point. Regulations wouldn't have prevented lead paint from being used before it was known to be dangerous. Regulations also didn't discover those dangers. The notion that you are putting forward is that were it not for government regulations and regulators, home owners, manufacturers, and industry leaders would all choose to produce and consume dangerous products. Without government regulations, would you choose to buy lead paint and put it in your home? Without government regulations, do you purchase tilapia from China? You seem to believe that it is only by the grace of government that people can make intelligent and informed decisions.

In fact, ironically, one of the largest polluters in the world isn't BP, or Shell, or any other oil company. It's the US government. When the US Government set about testing nuclear weapons, did they consider or care about the downwinders? In a lawsuit filed against the government by individuals affected by nuclear testing, was the government held to account for its actions? Did it offer up any assistance, or take any responsibility for the increase in cancer and related deaths in the affected areas? Was it held liable for its actions? No. The lawsuit was dismissed because governmental agencies have sovereign immunity. This? This is the organization you look to for protection?

You see, the real root of modern libertarianism typical to the United States isn't anarchy, it is simply limited government. In fact, law and the enforcement of law, is a role that libertarians think the government is uniquely suited for. To have one libertarian ideal, (a decrease in federal regulations) without the other, (a strong and strict enforcement of contracts, and a recognition that responsible parties can be brought to justice for their actions) you aren't instituting libertarian policies, you are simply protecting the interests of corporations and politicians. It's crony-capitalism at its worst.

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Nope, I don't believe that for one neutrino of a second. In fact, Walmart is known to sell food containing melamine, toothpaste with arsenic, kid's jewelry with lead, and dog food that kills. Because it comes from outside the US, and our import standards are shit, especially when mega corps like Walmart don't spend the MONEY to protect the consumer.

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Because they don't have to. They have no incentive to go above and beyond to make sure the safest, best product gets into the hands of their customers. They aren't the responsible parties; it's the lack of regulations, the lack of regulators, the absence of standards...

Now imagine they were the responsible party for the safety of the products they sold to their customers. Imagine that they could be held liable in case of a problem with the product. You don't think that they would make sure that they had, and everybody knew they had, the safest, cleanest, most thoroughly tested products of all their competitors? Hell, they could build it into the process of companies applying to sell their products at the stores.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You are conflating lots of disparate ideas and scenarios here, few of which actually support your point.

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More to the point, I was asking you to support and explain Libertarianism in today's world. How it would work if put into practice.

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Now imagine they were the responsible party for the safety of the products they sold to their customers. Imagine that they could be held liable in case of a problem with the product. You don't think that they would make sure that they had, and everybody knew they had, the safest, cleanest, most thoroughly tested products of all their competitors? Hell, they could build it into the process of companies applying to sell their products at the stores.

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Nope, I'm not convinced that's how corporations would operate. Why should I expect them to have a collective conscience, when their purpose is to make money? Why would they spend (or lose) money to prove they "care", when they could just as well spend money on a team of lawyers?

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Originally Posted by GGT

Nope, I'm not convinced that's how corporations would operate. Why should I expect them to have a collective conscience, when their purpose is to make money? Why would they spend (or lose) money to prove they "care", when they could just as well spend money on a team of lawyers?

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Because that's good customer service, and therefore good business. Because nobody would want to shop at a place that would rather counter-sue their customers for killing them with bad products then put forth a modest effort to test their products. People would much rather shop at their competitor that had the Better Homes and Garden's seal of approval. You know, the store that didn't try to kill them.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Because that's good customer service, and therefore good business. Because nobody would want to shop at a place that would rather counter-sue their customers for killing them with bad products, and everybody would much rather shop at the store that had the Better Homes and Garden's seal of approval. You know, the store that didn't try and kill them.

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And people call ME a luddite? :confused:

Enoch, you haven't really answered my question. Do you really think a mom 'n pop shop can do the testing and research for goods coming from around the world, and promise safety of those goods to their customers?

^^By "mom 'n pop" shop I'm guessing you mean some small store that doesn't have the means to conduct such testings? If I was the owner of such a store, I wouldn't import any goods from a country/company that did not test its products for some form of safety. I'd rather purchase from the company that did, that could prove it and so on.

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Originally Posted by GGT

And people call ME a luddite? :confused:

Enoch, you haven't really answered my question. Do you really think a mom 'n pop shop can do the testing and research for goods coming from around the world, and promise safety of those goods to their customers?

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I don't actually think you know what Luddite means.

To answer your question, I don't think it's mom and pop stores that would be doing the testing. I imagine they would buy products that have been already approved by any number of organizations set up with that express purpose. Organizations like this already exist today. The primary difference would be that the organization would back their seal with a binding guarantee, and they would bear the responsibility for the integrity of that product.

If somebody wanted to buy a product that was not thoroughly vetted and backed by these consumer organizations they would have that right, but it would come without the obvious benefits those groups would provide.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

I don't actually think you know what Luddite means.

To answer your question, I don't think it's mom and pop stores that would be doing the testing. I imagine they would buy products that have been already approved by any number of organizations set up with that express purpose. Organizations like this already exist today. The primary difference would be that the organization would back their seal with a guarantee, and they would bear the responsibility for the abuse of the product. If somebody wanted to buy a product that was not thoroughly vetted and backed by these consumer organizations they would have that right, but it would come without the obvious benefits those groups would provide.

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Yeah, everyone here keeps telling me I don't know definition of terms, or I use them improperly. :rolleyes:

In other words, your libertarian ideal has some severe gaps and flaws. Why can't you just admit that?

Case in point: my local butcher. Most of his meats come from a larger distributor, but some of it comes from local vendors. Venison in particular. That means deer meat from local deer hunters, like guys with guns hiding in trees, or (depending on the season) using bows and arrows. Who's supposed to "test and certify" that meat is safe to eat? The hunter or the butcher? Most things can be cooked out of meat using high temps, like worms or parasites. But maybe not certain viruses. Or maybe the meat comes with surface bacteria that hand washing can't easily eliminate. Who's responsible for those things, the hunter or the butcher?

The true libertarian might say that's up to me to decide. Whether to buy the venison, or feed it to my family. Do I buy the venison and feed it to my family? If I have any doubts, it's up to me to choose? What the hell does that even mean? I have to use my gut instinct or trust of the butcher, while feeding my family? That doesn't sound right. Even libertarians should agree, that doesn't sound right.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

Because they don't have to. They have no incentive to go above and beyond to make sure the safest, best product gets into the hands of their customers. They aren't the responsible parties; it's the lack of regulations, the lack of regulators, the absence of standards...

Now imagine they were the responsible party for the safety of the products they sold to their customers. Imagine that they could be held liable in case of a problem with the product. You don't think that they would make sure that they had, and everybody knew they had, the safest, cleanest, most thoroughly tested products of all their competitors? Hell, they could build it into the process of companies applying to sell their products at the stores.

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THAT DOES NOT WORK! Automatic liability would make your state a tyranny. Get it into your head!

It's the same idea as: "The one who rams the car from behind is automatically the guilty party in an accident."

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Originally Posted by Draco

^^By "mom 'n pop" shop I'm guessing you mean some small store that doesn't have the means to conduct such testings? If I was the owner of such a store, I wouldn't import any goods from a country/company that did not test its products for some form of safety. I'd rather purchase from the company that did, that could prove it and so on.

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Right, and how do you know they test it for safety? How do you know the safety standards are the same? Who would tell you what safety standards those even are? And what if there's one product which slips this safety inspection and harms someone? Keep in mind that you can't inspect each and every good leaving a factory and still have moderate prices.

With Enoch's idea you suddenly are liable for something you did not have any control over and which you actually tried to prevent.

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Originally Posted by GGT

Yeah, everyone here keeps telling me I don't know definition of terms, or I use them improperly. :rolleyes:

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Define what a Luddite was/has come to mean. Explain how anything in what you quoted approaches the definition of what Luddite has meant, or currently does mean.

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Case in point: my local butcher. Most of his meats come from a larger distributor, but some of it comes from local vendors. Venison in particular. That means deer meat from local deer hunters, like guys with guns hiding in trees, or (depending on the season) using bows and arrows. Who's supposed to "test and certify" that meat is safe to eat? The hunter or the butcher? Most things can be cooked out of meat using high temps, like worms or parasites. But maybe not certain viruses. Or maybe the meat comes with surface bacteria that hand washing can't easily eliminate. Who's responsible for those things, the hunter or the butcher?

The true libertarian might say that's up to me to decide. Whether to buy the venison, or feed it to my family. Do I buy the venison and feed it to my family? If I have any doubts, it's up to me to choose? What the hell does that even mean? I have to use my gut instinct or trust of the butcher, while feeding my family? That doesn't sound right. Even libertarians should agree, that doesn't sound right.

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Who do you think tests your venison now? Do you think your butcher ships off samples of every piece of venison that is brought in to some CSI lab in Los Vegas funded by the USDA? A facility where they painstakingly verify it's genetically and prion-ically pure, and that the meat's lead content from the 12 gauge slug does not exceed the proscribed percentage set in stone by some flaming shrub, handed down from on high to Moses on Mt. Sinai? What mystical powers do you think your local health inspectors have? Do you think they are the ones following the hunters from the tree stand to your butcher's stoop?

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Originally Posted by Khend

THAT DOES NOT WORK! Automatic liability would make your state a tyranny. Get it into your head!

It's the same idea as: "The one who rams the car from behind is automatically the guilty party in an accident."

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It's not automatic liability, it's basic contract law. If I say a product has been tested for X, Y, and Z, and it just so happens that it hasn't been tested for X, Y, or Z, then I am the responsible for that. If X, Y, or Z causes death, and people were purchasing it under the impression that it would not cause death, I believe I should be held criminally responsible.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

You're the one using backward logic, GGT. You're saying libertarian ideals have been tried, but they haven't. You're taking one aspect of libertarianism, (which is freedom from government regulation) and saying that because it's been tried, that libertarian principles don't work. That's not how it works. It would be akin to me saying that because China has a socialist healthcare system, but as people are still getting sick due to their lax pollution controls that socialist healthcare has been tried and just doesn't work. It's absurd.

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Proper regulation has also not been tried - there is some regulation but the enforcement was, to say the least, lacking, and self regulation that was promised was also not delivered.

Arguably, before government put regulations in place there was only the libertarian principle, and the environment was still polluted then. Which is the entire reason why there are regulations now.

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Originally Posted by Enoch the Red

It's not automatic liability, it's basic contract law. If I say a product has been tested for X, Y, and Z, and it just so happens that it hasn't been tested for X, Y, or Z, then I am the responsible for that. If X, Y, or Z causes death, and people were purchasing it under the impression that it would not cause death, I believe I should be held criminally responsible.

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Again, what about long-term effects which only appear years after the fact? What about products imported from, say, China? What about cases where there's no clear responsibility?

You're thinking of some mystical uptopia where everything has immediate and clear effects. That is not so and thus your idea is just a pipe dream.

I mean, just take the smoking industry - did you see how long it took them to admit that smoking might be harmful, evidence to the contrary? There you have an effect, years in the making, and where it's only possible to prove a relationship by a multitude of research. And still it's contested.
Also consider your legal system where quite often the one with the deepest pockets wins.

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Originally Posted by Flixy

Proper regulation has also not been tried - there is some regulation but the enforcement was, to say the least, lacking, and self regulation that was promised was also not delivered.

Arguably, before government put regulations in place there was only the libertarian principle, and the environment was still polluted then. Which is the entire reason why there are regulations now.

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He also has this magical idea that money is able to clean up any and all accidents perfectly. Money is also able to ressurect the dead.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

He also has this magical idea that money is able to clean up any and all accidents perfectly. Money is also able to ressurect the dead.

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Even with regulation you are setting a price on a life. Same thing with insurance (IIRC, a life is €2.5 million, and permanent disability is €25 million). Harshly put, a life has a dollar value. I mean, with all of our awesome coastal defenses against floods... they are also the result of a cost/benefit calculation. They put a price on everyone living there, plus the economic value of the businesses and infrastructure located there, and from that determined both the acceptable flood risks, and the budget for the defenses.


The bigger issue I see is that with litigation you need to prove the blame. For example, a certain pollutant is known to cause cancer. A company dumps a bunch of it in a river, and people around it get cancer. With regulations, there is a penalty for the actually polluting the river. With litigation, people living around the river now have to sue the company for damages. This has a few problems: first of all the symptoms may not start for decades. Second, once you do get cancer: what if you also smoked? The company could blame that in court.

Not to mention that without inspections by government agencies, a lot of violations would not even be known.

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Originally Posted by Flixy

Even with regulation you are setting a price on a life. Same thing with insurance (IIRC, a life is €2.5 million, and permanent disability is €25 million). Harshly put, a life has a dollar value.

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Sure it does, but what does that value mean? The model is not equal to reality, and it doesn't have universal utility. It just helps guide some decisions. My mum's life can definitely be assigned various values in terms of money, but none of those values would mean very much to me personally. By focusing on monetary values assigned by various models we let simplicity blind us to things that are important. By using regulations to prevent harm we can reduce our likelihood of being faced with that problem.

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The bigger issue I see is that with litigation you need to prove the blame. For example, a certain pollutant is known to cause cancer. A company dumps a bunch of it in a river, and people around it get cancer. With regulations, there is a penalty for the actually polluting the river. With litigation, people living around the river now have to sue the company for damages. This has a few problems: first of all the symptoms may not start for decades. Second, once you do get cancer: what if you also smoked? The company could blame that in court.

Not to mention that without inspections by government agencies, a lot of violations would not even be known.

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This lies at the heart of the matter and I hope GE addresses the problem now that it's been brought up several times in this thread.

I can't for the life of me understand what GE believes we shall gain from replacing regulations with criminal liability (as opposed to having both regulations and criminal liability). Jesus GE, do you have any idea how frickin' impossible it is to keep track of all the elements of each of our little worlds even for an expert in today's IT heaven? Trying to untangle dodgy advertising is time-consuming enough when it's limited to the occasional gadget purchase. What on earth are we to gain from wasting more of everyone's time while simultaneously exposing them to greater risk? What's the expected payoff to real (and non-libertarian) people?

Btw, re. lead based paint, we knew lead based paints were bad but it took the US surprisingly long to ban it. Other countries wised up much quicker. In other areas we've had govt. regulation for hundreds of years (eg. food inspections).