Subject:
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Re: Resolved: Tall SUVs should not be a priori banned
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 22 Sep 2000 18:01:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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479 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz writes:
> Larry Pieniazek wrote:
> I haven't thought deeply enough on the subject to know if items other
> than strategic nukes fit that class. Of course an interesting issue to
> raise is if we don't trust an individual to posses a nuke, how in heck
> do we trust a government, which is ultimately just a collection of
> individuals. Obviously there is some weight to the argument that if you
> make the firing of such a weapon require action by more than one person
> and that you have sufficient inspection to see that the regulations
> regarding that weapon are followed, then one can expect that it is less
> likely that the weapon will be used improperly (on the other hand, the
> military does a lot in its training to train its members to use group
> think and not question orders, which reduces the possibility that one of
> the required people will say "hey, wait a minute, we've got no reason to
> nuke Boston just because Todd took too long to get the AucZilla MCM
> parts out.").
Do you hear that, Todd? People are joking about nuking Boston due to your
tardy delivery times! :-)
> Of course if the danger isn't actually that high, the lawsuits won't go
> very far, and the insurance rates will be reasonable, and we'll all have
> the comfort of knowing that the market and real experience determined
> the danger level, not some set of people who think that the danger is
> much worse, and who also perhaps have a bone to pick about SUVs (perhaps
> because THEIR parents didn't buy them one for a graduation present? -
> Please note, I'm not ridiculing the possibility that SUVs really do
> present a significantly higher danger, but more the process of how we
> decide what is and is not too dangerous to allow).
Right. Those that call for regulation seem to think that some bureaucrat knows
better what is safe and what isn't than the marketplace does. I just have a
lot of trouble with that view and its somewhat distorted sense of reality.
Saying "well it's OK to regulate X because we're already regulating U, V and
W" ignores the fact that it's a bad idea to regulate U and V, and W was
something that the insurance companies asked the car companies to do well
before it was a regulated matter anyway, and takes us further down the
slippery slope. We need to be sunsetting existing regulations, not sitting
around whining about how unfair life is and suggesting new ones. That just
makes the tax and regulatory regime more complex.
Don't you guys calling for regulation get it? Governments love to regulate and
love it whenever something bad happens so that they can regulate something
else... When Reagan called for less regulation 20 years ago, we had 1/2 the
regulation we do now. If that.
I *loved* the French government response to the petrol protestors who pointed
out that the goverment gets more tax revenue with higher fuel prices, because
the tax is a percent, not a cents per (like we use in the US)... did they cut
the tax overall? Nope! They just cut it for those classes of people (taxi
drivers, truck drivers, farmers) who happened to be protesting, by putting a
subsidy in place (said subsidy requiring more forms, more drones to administer
it, etc) to keep them quiet. Too bad if you're just a regular joe, you don't
get a break.
That's pretty typical government behaviour (which I just trotted out to make a
point about how pernicious government is, not because it has anything to do
with SUVs... but this is debate where we strain at gnats and change topics at
the drop of a gnats hat).
++Lar
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