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Subject: 
Re: Fixing the world (was Re: Ldraw cannon
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Mon, 7 Dec 1998 21:28:50 GMT
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Jesse Long wrote:

Larry Pieniazek wrote in message <366C20C0.1D3A29CA@ctp.IWANTNOSPAM.com>...

That's claptrap. Normal people are inherently good, and further,
properly structured societies incent people to act in their own self
interest, and cull those that are inherently bad.

Please tell me you don't believe this.  You'd lose the shread of respect I
have for your intellect if you do.  Read the news.  Every day is full of
murder, theft, abuse, and hate.  Yet people are good?  You don't have to
teach a two-year-old how to say "mine," yet people are good?  All of human
history is filled with conquerors and war, but people are good?  I'd love to
see you try to explain this one.

Certainly conquerors and war happen, and certainly there is murder,
theft, abuse, and hate, but don't tell ME that you believe that people
are inherently evil... I thought better of you. Once again slowly: Most
people are good. They have a sense of right and wrong. The rest (and how
many murderers do you know in your circle of friends, really...) are
deviant. People without a sense of right and wrong are not fully human.

To a certain extent that sense of right and wrong is nurture, not
nature, but if you have a society that is TOO far off respecting
property, people will sense that something is wrong, because they
understand cause and effect. Set up society so that rights are protected
and that self interest and the good of society intersect (that is,
capitalism and the rule of law, with a properly functioning marketplace
to communicate information about efficiency) and most people will do the
right thing. The ones that do not are acting in a counter survival
manner and need to be culled. That is the proper function of the rule of
law.

As for pittance wages, remove the 80% (or more, 99% in Sweden, for
instance) drag of the current govts on the economy and you will see an
unending boom so large that all that want to work will be able to live
handsomely. As for those that don't, bleeding hearts can voluntarily
contribute, and if not, think of it as evolution in action.

Explain.

Explain what? That government is a big drag on the economy and that
business cycles are created by government interference? We are far
afield already. Not today. Take it as a given for now and ask later.
That people have no "right" to have all their desires catered to by
others if they will not work? That people have the right to choose how
to spend their charity dollars? Seems self evident to me.

Stripping only pays more if the long term costs (leaching, adjacent
property value reduction, etc) are ignored.

Who cares.  They move, leaving the problems for others.

Today.

Reassert full property rights and the rule of law, take away the lenient
bankruptcy laws that let corporations avoid the consequences of bad
decisions, take away the protection that corporate officers have for
being prosecuted as criminals for what their corporations do and moving
away to leave problems for others will not be possible, much less
profitable.

Abolish the EPA and use tort and (especially) criminal law to go after
polluters and you'd see a quick reduction in new strip mine projects (as
well as other polluting projects) .

Explain, using a polluter that isn't falling into disuse like strip mining.
What crimes?  As a libertarian, shouldn't you think that the government
should stay out?

As a libertarian I want government to assist in preserving the basic
rights of its citizens. And that means property. All rights are property
rights in the final analysis.

If I sell you a product that I make explicit claims about, to wit, that
it is safe, but I know for a fact that it is not safe, but instead is
dangerous and WILL harm you, and you come to harm, I am guilty of
assault. Not pollution, not product liability, not violating an OSHA
regulation, just plain old common law assault.

If I operate a facility in such a way that it emits toxic material from
the facility and I have not secured permission from all adjacent
landowners to do so (and they in turn make provisions that it does not
leave their property or get permission from THEIR neighbors, all the way
around the world, if need be, (therefore impractical and ruled out, in
reality) ) then I am guilty of trespass because I am putting material
that is not desired on the property of another. Not pollution, just
plain old common law trespass. Should a landowner or his authorised
agent suffer harm, then I am guilty of assault, or negligent homicide or
murder, depending.

We need strict enforcement of exising law, not regulations that shield
companies. Minimum standards always turn out to be a shield that
companies hide behind, they compete to hit the minimum, just barely.

So, in other words, if you drop or eliminate the MW, companies won't even
have to worry about hitting that, and can drop wages as they please.  That,
and market forces in a good economy won't force prices above the minimum?
This doesn't sound libertarian to me.

I was referring to product standards not wages.

If there is a process for packing meat that has a tendency to include
bone slivers, (0r costs more not to) but a regulation says that no more
than .1% bone is allowed in meat, then all packers will set up their
equipment to hit .1%, and the media will not report it because after
all, it's within spec. The packers are competing on price.

Absent the regulation, Consumer Reports will run a study, and soon
enough, the packers will be competing with each other on quality
instead, because I and many other consumers will pay more for meat that
has 0% bone slivers in it.

SO instead of competing to hit the minimum they are competing to hit 0%
based on consumer preference. Far better.

In a booming economy (remember that premise, we won't HAVE any non
booming economies in Libertopia) any employer foolish enough to pay less
than what a job is worth will soon find herself without workers, and out
of business.

--
Larry Pieniazek    http://my.voyager.net/lar
For me: No voyager e-mail please. All snail-mail to Ada, please.
- Posting Binaries to RTL causes flamage... Don't do it, please.
- Stick to the facts when posting about others, please.
- This is a family newsgroup, thanks.



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Fixing the world (was Re: Ldraw cannon
 
Larry Pieniazek wrote in message <366C4892.B09B99C3@c...AM.com>... (...) I do think that people have a sense of right and wrong, and that when they do wrong they usually know it. But if people are good, then they should choose to do good. We have (...) (25 years ago, 7-Dec-98, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Ldraw cannon
 
(...) I have a shooting cannon in my to-render-bucket, but unfortunately, it has low priority. Also, at the Tracked Parts List at (URL) it says: 3 Cannon Zach Coakley Planning to Work On 1/7/98 I'll never learn if that means January 7th or July (...) (26 years ago, 6-Nov-98, to lugnet.cad)

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