No, I didn’t watch it.
So, tell me…did anyone ask them if they did not believe in evolution? Did anyone raise their hands?
Which one am I most likely going to have to vote for in the next election?
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Nope. They got different silly questions instead. Here is the transcript.
I wish they had been asked about evolution. It would have been interesting no matter what responses were given. The nice thing is that a quick word search of the transcript reveals that the words faith and religion were never used. Church only shows up when Edwards argued that churches should be able to marry homosexual couples if they want to, and God was only used by a candidate once in an exclamatory manner.
It really was a nice change to have a group of politicians who don’t try to justify everything by invoking their particular Magic Man. I don’t expect it to last though. I’m sure we will see plenty of pandering to the God-deluded when Obama, Clinton, and Edwards field questions at Jim Wallis’ forum on “Faith, Values, and Poverty.” (CNN June 4 7pm ET) This is part of a four day event called “Pentecost 2007: Taking Vision to the Streets.” Ugh.
You’re going to vote for Al Gore, who will enter the race in the fall.
Next question?
I didn’t watch it either (but I’m Canadian so I’ll excuse myself). I did, however, see parts of the Republican debate and they were asked about evolution – most of them, including Senator McCain (theistic evolution, of course), admitted to believing in evolution (at least in one form or another).
By the time the caucuses get to Minnesota, the choice will pretty much have been made what with all of the primaries. So, I don’t really pay close attention to these things. Gravel from Alaska wanted to play the negative role, I guess to get some attention. He really came off as a crank.
The topic of impeachment never came up, and I thought the most spirited exchange was over Darfur; especially between Richardson and Biden. Richardson wants to boycott the Olympics if the Chinese don’t apply more pressure on the Sudan (since they buy a lot of their oil from Sudan.) Biden wanted a military solution.
It’s all just entertainment at this point, anyway.
Christian Burnham, I hope you are right about Al Gore. I think he is smart not to have entered the race yet, but I really hope he does so eventually.
Mike H- It is a bummer that some states vote on the primaries so late. One fun, educational thing I did with my kids during the last presidential democratic primary was to go to Iowa to campaign for a day. There are unheated places volunteers can stay but I just stayed in a regular motel because I had reluctant teenagers. We treated it as a mini-vacation. The kids seem to have enjoyed the experience, and the whole family paid much more attention to politics after campaigning.
By the way, Mason City is only about 135 miles from the Twin Cities, and that is one of the places where they needed volunteers during the last presidential democratic primary.
When a person’s religion is the worship of government and their unthinking, automatic adherence to the pronouncements of its high priests, I suppose Christianity becomes superfluous. When their faith lies in the righteousness, benevolence, omniscience, and power of rulers, I just can’t credit them with being non-religious. People who trust and believe the promises of politicians to vanquish evil and save them from all trouble, who pray at the polls, and who are delighted to double-tithe their income as a show of their heartfelt devotion to political forces they’re not allowed to understand, are no freer than peasants under the foot of the Church in the Middle Ages.
That wasn’t meant to be a troll. I’m just sick of people bowing down to strangers who they trust to know what’s best for them.
You don’t have to vote for any of them. It is neither required nor necessarily desirable. There are always other options.
Here’s one we’re all going to want to pay attention to: tonight on CNN’s “Situation Room” the topic is going to be “Faith and Politics” with the big three, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room/
Most people want to be slaves. The genius of our system is that people can choose the system that enslaves them – making even harder to wean them away from it, and ensuring that most people have no interest in changing the deeper system.
Know why there’s no rioting in the streets? Two reasons: most people feel no personal threat from the war in Iraq, and those that are dissatisfied have been taught that the way to express their dissatisfaction is to vote.
> Know why there’s no rioting in the streets?
> … those that are dissatisfied have
> been taught that the way to express
> their dissatisfaction is to vote.
Yeah, it’s a real shame we’ve been deluded into peaceful means of resolving our differences. Too bad we Americans can’t enjoy civil war, car bombings, and death squads, huh? Or even a nice, bloody riot on the weekends…
Have those differences been resolved? Is the government carrying out its most basic obligations to the people? Is the government prevented from doing that which it should not?
If the answers to those questions are ‘no’, what is the benefit of your “peaceful means”?
Have you read his new book? He sure doesn’t write in the careful, bland manner of someone who’s running for office. And honestly, I think he’s more effective as a gadfly than as a politician, anyway.
“I’m just sick of people bowing down to strangers who they trust to know what’s best for them.”
Speedwell, I take it you don’t debase yourself or compromise your principles by going to the polls, then.
Please, don’t reply to Caledonian. The reason he’s upset at democracy is (I believe) that he imagines he’d be a ruler in a new feudal system, and thus would be much better off. Of course, it has never occurred to him that he could not end up on top after the American genocides he fervently pines for, and thus end up getting the ‘royal shaft’.
Thus, again, it is a catastrophic failure of empathy that defines this crank.
Speedwell, I take it you don’t debase yourself or compromise your principles by going to the polls, then.
I’m sorry, was that supposed to have been some sort of clever slam?
I vote with my wallet, to the extent that I vote. I support the people and causes I care about directly, not by punching a little hole in a little card. Although I pay the legally mandated taxes, I don’t entrust my voluntary contributions to private and public welfare to bureaucrats who can be trusted only to waste them or to bind the hands of the people who actually want to use them to do acts of compassion and production.
I don’t, in short, have faith in the magical power of Diebold to accurately record my vote or the benevolence and wisdom of politicians to care about it once they have it. I’m surprised that you do.
“If the answers to those questions are ‘no’, what is the benefit of your “peaceful means”?”
Cal: I’m sorry to say that, most likely, as long as human beings are human beings, any government we ever create will fail to acheive perfection in some way or another. None can seriously deny that racism still exists in this country, for example, yet would you honestly say that the racism we exhibit nowadays is “just as bad” (for lack of a better term) than it was forty years ago? At the Democratic debate last night, pretty much all the candidates were openly in favor of gays in the military. Do you think that could possibly have happened even four years ago? Our government may suck in many ways, but I’d prefer it to the vast majority of other systems we humans have devised. Violent revolution has a spotty history at best (for every George Washington there’s a Robespierre, Lenin, Khomenei, Mao, Pot, and on, and on…); I’m afraid the best we can hope for is to make our world a better place in fits and starts, so we might as well do our work in peace rather than bloody chaos.
I’m sorry to say that, most likely, as long as human beings are human beings, any government we ever create will fail to acheive perfection in some way or another.
Libertarians do not expect the free market to evolve a perfect government any more than scientists expect evolution to produce a perfect organism. All we want is a system that respects the individual personal and property rights of its citizens as much as possible. Is there something in the preservation of human rights that you disagree with?
Is there something in the preservation of human rights that you disagree with?
No, but libertarians often appear to have a cleverly sized blind spot exactly the size of private tyranny. I suspect that we’d also disagree as to what human rights are; for instance, I know quite a few libertarians who believe it’s a basic right to be able to develop one’s property as one chooses, even at the expense and risk of the commonweal and one’s neighbors. I disagree entirely. That tends to be an insurmountable point of contention.
Is there something in the preservation of human rights that you disagree with?
Posted by: speedwell
Property rights are only human rights if humans are property.
SO, Libertarians support slavery.
Property rights are only human rights if humans are property.
Abortion rights are only human rights if humans are abortions?
Privacy rights are only human rights if humans are privacy?
Nope, doesn’t make any sense.
Which one am I most likely going to have to vote for in the next election?
Maybe Obama. He talked about what Americans want, which is refreshing. Clinton II talked about politics. A lot. Bleh.
Now if Obama would only stop with the God crap…
Speaking of which, they are making their presence felt:
People of Faith for Barack
http://faith.barackobama.com/page/content/faithhome
All we want is a system that respects the individual personal and property rights of its citizens as much as possible. Is there something in the preservation of human rights that you disagree with?
Yes, there is. I do not think people have the right to take away the rights of others. A purely free-market economy cannot and will not (if you look at history) prevent such a thing from occurring. Laws are required to protect people from having their rights stolen from others. I agree personal property rights are important but they do not trump rights to a safe environment, rights to make your own decisions about life, and other such rights. A fully free-market economy has not protection for such rights and if you look at history those sorts of rights were taken away. Rules need to exist or people can and will abuse each other for economic gain.
Our electoral system will never fully function until more than two major parties exist. This is not to say that we need 47 parties like several European countries have but it is impossible to vote for someone who represents your beliefs when the choices are so severally limited. More often then not, people say that they are voting against someone or something rather than voting for an idea or person. Towing the party line is far to common amongst BOTH parties. Sometimes not voting is the only way to get these assholes to listen. The moment that the majority of people in this country registered independent then we might actually see some much needed changes. Frankly, so far I have yet to see a single candidate that I want to vote for. The lesser of two evils I guess.
A fully free-market economy has no[] protection for such rights and if you look at history those sorts of rights were taken away. Rules need to exist or people can and will abuse each other for economic gain.
Actually, Cat, you’ve put your finger on the hardest thing for me to understand about how to reconcile freedoms in a free world. I look forward to a fruitful discussion on this, but I have to go to lunch RIGHT NOW OR ELSE. :)
The problem with parliamentary systems, Chaoswes, is that it just moves the problem up one notch. It is very rare for any one party to have enough seats to get anything done. So they have to make concessions and compromises in order to build a large enough voting block to get anything done. And ultimately you end up with a a majority voting block and a minority one. So in the end the same problem exists, it is just that the politicians are deciding how to group the issues instead of the voters.
Speedwell, I have no interest in slamming you – I like and respect you. Sorry if my question (which I thought might make you chuckle) came off all wrong. My bad. I was simply wondering whether or not you do vote, and why or why not. Next time I’ll be more direct… Anyway, my guess appears to have been correct. You don’t go to the polls.
As for me, the short answer is this: Whatever problems may exist with the system(s) under discussion, the one way I can ensure my vote doesn’t count is to not cast it. Maybe I’m hopelessly idealistic about that. Do I trust Diebold? No, but my area doesn’t use those new-fangled contraptions. However, I’d like to point out that neither accuracy nor reliability require actual magic. I live in Massachusetts, and twice now we have managed not to vote for GWB. (Once, in my case.) If my having voted in the last election makes me a mindless government-worshipping sheep, then so be it.
As for Libertarians, IMO the burden of proof is on them to somehow demonstrate that the Libertarian vision, if implemented and pursued, won’t result in Love Canal around every corner in a capitalist paradise controled by robber barons who are answerable to no one. Given the nature of the discussion so far, how could you possibly respect me if I wasn’t skeptical?
More than that, I think we need a parliamentary rather than a presidential system. Not that I’m holding my breath waiting for that to happen.
To clarify I meant more than just that is needed; parliamentary systems like the UK’s that are jiggered to allow only two parties with any hope of forming a government also tend to suffer from a deficit of democracy.
I had not thought of that TheBlackCat good point. However, one could argue that doing nothing is sometimes better than what is being done. Personally, I think a strong three party system forces them to cooperate a little more and compromises can be found. People that I know, for the most part, are very middle of the ground people that really just want what would benefit the most people. Given, I don’t really hang around pigheaded one dimensional morons.
Steve, while a “safer” system, it too can be abused by the people elected to safeguard it.
There is no truly “safe” system and we will always be foced to choose the lesser of two evils by a man can dream can’t he.
Oops. Should have read … but a man can dream can’t he.
As for Libertarians, IMO the burden of proof is on them to somehow demonstrate that the Libertarian vision, if implemented and pursued, won’t result in Love Canal around every corner in a capitalist paradise controled by robber barons who are answerable to no one.
I agree, as I mentioned to Cat a few posts ago. I see no reason for the free market to result in paradise, or for it to turn the human race into anything it isn’t. I don’t think any political system can result in Utopia or universal virtue.
But in a society where the majority respects freedom and the rights of individuals, those who transgress freedom and harm individuals can be dealt with in a fair and just way that respects, as far as possible, their own liberty and property interests. The goal is not for perfection, but for a maximum respect for justice and for the individual.
The biggest fault I see among my fellow libertarians is a tendency to think there is a goal of a perfect society that can and someday will be attained. That is not a realistic goal. That is Heaven. I don’t believe in Heaven.
It’s true that the robber baron can come to power in a capitalist society. History has shown us that monsters of greed and power arise in anticapitalist and non capitalist societies, also. But only the system that recognizes and legitimates the property rights of the robber baron’s victims can force him to pay back what he stole. Only the system that respects the property rights of business owners can become economically profitable in a sustainable way. If you punish productive industry by imposing punitive taxes and regulations, for example, then after a while innocent people will get sick of you and leave, and you’ll be left with psychopaths who don’t care about breaking your little rules, and then you’ll make more and more regulations that they won’t bother to follow.
A system that offers only to confine the fraudster and make him “pay his debt to the State” doesn’t make anyone whole. If I was to steal your paycheck and cash it and spend the money, and the court would fine me, and I would pay them the fine, then how would that be different, in the end, from a policeman walking you up to City Hall and making you write a check to the clerk of court?
But that’s a question, possibly, for another time. The main thought I want to leave you with is the idea that people’s rights belong to them personally, and not in the aggregate to some company, group, or government.
Given the nature of the discussion so far, how could you possibly respect me if I wasn’t skeptical?
I do respect you… and I respect you even more for obviously remembering our common ground. Thanks much!
speedwell, the problem is I don’t see how your proposed system is any different from an idealized version of our existing system. If someone steals your paycheck there are civil means by which you can get the money back in addition to criminal prosecution. If we just limited it to giving back what you have taken, then there is no incentive not to steal. Say you live under such a system and you steal $100 from 100 people. The worst-case scenario is that all of them find you and force to give the money back. In the end you are no worse off than when you started. But say 99 of the people find you but you manage to elude one, or through some legal maneuvering get off from having to pay you. You are now $100 richer. Punishment is needed in order to make a crime worse than not committing a crime. Otherwise people are economically better off committing crimes than not.
There are also more practical concerns. When someone steals money, they don’t just stick it all in a safe somewhere. They often spend it. And it can be spent on services and consumable products like food and drugs. How will you get the money back then? What if they send it overseas to a bank the government has no authority over? What if they hide it? They are not going to just sit around and wait for you to get the money back, they are going to either make it as hard to get as possible or make the most of it while they have it. And you can’t just get the money back later, if they had the money they would not be stealing in the first place. They will probably just steal from someone else, since they have nothing to lose.
I’m not sure what you are talking about with respect to punishing businesses.
…if they had the money they would not be stealing in the first place…
Petty thieves steal petty amounts. It takes a truly powerful and influential thief to steal staggering amounts.
If the civil methods work well and serve justice in that the thief is made to give back what he stole and (presumably) bear the costs of litigation, then what “debt” is being “paid” by the criminal during his time in jail? Maybe calling it a “debt,” as people tend to do, is just misleading.
One possible market-based alternative is to allow people to quickly access via the Internet the criminal records of people with whom they want to do business. These records are supposed to be public. I know you and I would prefer not to use a mortgage broker who has been repeatedly convicted of mortgage fraud, for example, or to accept a check for our secondhand furniture from a habitual paper passer. If someone thinks they can make this sort of thing profitable, then they will undoubtedly find some way to offer subscriptions and make a buck off of it. This benefits everyone but the criminal, who it punishes. it respects everyone’s property rights. If the thief can still find someone willing to do business with him at some price point or other (perhaps inflated as a measure of risk insurance), then nothing would prevent that.
That’s just one thing I thought of off the top of my head while attending to someone’s database problem. Real entrepreneurs and economists could run circles around me.
I’m not sure what you are talking about with respect to punishing businesses.
Well, to oversimplify a bit, very profitable businesses that make a lot of money pay proportionately more money on their profit to the government than businesses that are not as profitable. Businesses that make a loss are not forced to pay. This makes profitability, which is the measure of productivity, like a crime for which a fine is assessed according to the gravity of the “offense.” Also, if a company grows large, its regulatory burden is increased. It has to hire lawyers and accountants and IT staff to help it keep in compliance. It has to keep records and hire clerks and real estate to maintain and store them. This is a government-imposed “cost of doing business” that is passed on to consumers or taken out of operating funds. Businesses that fail due to these pressures lay off staff and stop paying taxes and stop contributing to the economy and stop making things people want. It’s not quite like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs; it’s more like locking the door and not letting her go outside because of foxes, not realizing that the stress of enforced isolation in a small dark room makes her too sick to lay well.
I must be missing something here. This seems illogical and has the ring of dogma, but perhaps that is because I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why would the innocent be punished? Are you saying any and all taxes and regulations are punative? Or are you saying there’s some threshold beyond which a reasonable tax or regulation becomes “punative” in the sense of being unreasonable burdens to place upon compliant entities? If so, what is that threhold and how is it determined?
I guess I need to know a) how you’re defining these terms, and b) more details about your proposed system.
Ah, I see Speedwell is a mindreader, for she answers my questions as, or possibly even before, I type them… LOL
So that’s why the dinosaurs went extinct!
Seriously, though: Is that burden increased non-linearly, disproportionately? If so, what evidence do we have to support this claim? Regardless, experience has taught us that some regulation is necessary. How do we manage the regulatory function of government so that unreasonable burdens are not placed upon compliant entities?
If the civil methods work well and serve justice in that the thief is made to give back what he stole and (presumably) bear the costs of litigation, then what “debt” is being “paid” by the criminal during his time in jail? Maybe calling it a “debt,” as people tend to do, is just misleading.
I won’t argue semantics here. If people are using bad terminology that doesn’t change the reality of the situation. As I explained before, unless a thief, be it a small crime or large, is punished above and beyond merely giving back what was stolen then it is in his or her best interest to commit the crime. That is because they have nothing nothing to lose and possibly something to gain by stealing. This applies just as well to big-time criminals as small-time ones.
Well, to oversimplify a bit, very profitable businesses that make a lot of money pay proportionately more money on their profit to the government than businesses that are not as profitable.
Obviously. It’s called progressive taxation, and in my opinion it is the only logical and fair way to do things. Let’s say a company that makes $100,000 has to pay 50% of that back in taxes (a huge exageration) while a company that makes $10,000 has to pay nothing (this is not too far off for people, I don’t know much about companies). After taxes, the company that made $100,000 now has $50,000 while the company that made $20,000 still has $20,000. The more profitable company still made far more than the less one even with an insane and unrealistic level of taxation. Now lets imagine that they both had to pay 50%. This is called a “flat tax”. The small company now only has $10,000. That $10,000 loss is far worse for that company than the larger $50,000 loss is for the big company because it had so much less to begin with. I think it is completely unfair to expect the poor to pay the same percentage of taxes as the rich. The rich end up benefiting more because there are far more poor people and because they will end up with far more in the end. If taxes were such that the rich company made the same amount after taxes as the small company, or less, then you would be in a position to call that a punishment. But even though larger companies pay a larger fraction of taxes relative to their gross revenue they still wind up with far more money in the end. That is not a punishment, they still come out way ahead.
Also, if a company grows large, its regulatory burden is increased. It has to hire lawyers and accountants and IT staff to help it keep in compliance. It has to keep records and hire clerks and real estate to maintain and store them.
I disagree with your premise here. There is something called “economy of scale”. The more of something you have, the less it costs per unit. For instance a company that only has 5 employees will still need an accountant to help with their taxes. A company with 20 employees could probably get by with 1 accountant as well. Which company do you think will be using the accountant more efficiently. A company with 1000 employees made need a few accountants. But these will be organized into an efficient group with division of labor and possibly specialization, improving their efficiency further. So in reality the larger the company is the less such things will cost as a fraction of their revenue. So far from it being a punishment, it is actually a benefit.
I also do not see how you can get around this problem. Are you saying we just shouldn’t regulate companies over a certain size? Just let them do whatever they want? It may be a government-mandated “tax”, if you want to look at it that way, but unless we do away with government regulation entirely (which you say we need) then I don’t see any way around it.
To BlackCat:
But even though larger companies pay a larger fraction of taxes relative to their gross revenue they still wind up with far more money in the end. That is not a punishment, they still come out way ahead.
Oh, I see, I see. OK, I’m a bit confused about something here. You propose that a company who profits to the tune of a hundred thou is, in your sights, way ahead of a company that only made ten thou, and that the tiny company ought not to be taxed at all while the merely small business (face it, this isn’t huge profiteering to anyone but an eleven-year-old with his first paper route) ought to be hit up to the tune of fifty percent of its entire profit.
What, then, in your opinion, is the exact dollar amount of profits that a business is entitled to make before it forfeits the remainder to the government? Does it matter if the company is broken up into divisions? Does it matter if the company is made up of franchisees? Does it matter whether the company is in manufacturing or service or technology, or if it is a nonprofit? How would your answers change if you were an employee of either business? No, wait, that’s too sophisticated a question for you. Let’s say, how would your answer change if you were the owner of either business?
Oh come on, I repeatedly said that the example was an extreme exaggeration. I don’t think those are reasonable amounts, I simply chose them because they made the math easier. Don’t try to present those numbers as the numbers I support when I specifically said I don’t support them. I am no expert on taxes, I don’t have the knowledge to say the exact amount that would be reasonable. It would require a much more detailed economic analysis than I have the background to undertake. My point is that the current system of progressive taxation is not as unreasonable as it might appear at first glance.
And my opinions didn’t change depending what sort of business I was an employee of, I have been employed by businesses in both categories as well as non-profit businesses and my opinion stayed the same throughout.
Oh, I typed a big post to Kseniya but I crashed and lost it all! Let me see what I can get back…
Is that burden increased non-linearly, disproportionately? If so, what evidence do we have to support this claim?
That’s a terrific question. My experience has been that really little businesses can get away with a software package or two and a trip to H&R Block with their files in a box once a year. As businesses go up in size, they start needing to do things like pass health inspections (almost always a good idea, but since it’s so subjective, sometimes a way for inspectors to lean on people they don’t like), keep up with immigration and payroll issues, deal with OSHA, deal with FMLA, deal with disabled access issues, deal with lawsuits based on stupid crap, all the way up to the celebrated Sarbanes-Oxley act that makes my job miserable each and every day because I can’t do the obvious, sensible thing instead of having to second-guess and tell my userbase NO, all because some fraudsters stuck their hands in the corporate till. Whose idea was it to burden innocent people along with them? I thought we were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty… but these regulations presume us guilty right away and I don’t understand that.
I spent some time years ago, incidentally, checking out the regulations governing something so simple as barter. I could teach you how to use 3D Studio Max and bring along a bag of my garden produce each week, and you could give me Russian lessons and bake me pastry, and we could get some of our other friends in on the act too. Technically we would have to file the monetary value of the transactions on our taxes (taxed both ways and not just on “profit”). There are other regulations but I’m getting tired just thinking about it.
I’ve heard silly stories… you hear them every year… about some kid’s lemonade stand getting shut down, or a college student selling homemade cookies to pay for books getting in trouble for lack of permits, or an immigrant woman supporting her family with an illegal clandestine restaurant that everyone in the neighborhood can’t get enough of. How much is enough?
Which brings me to the other half of your question:
How do we manage the regulatory function of government so that unreasonable burdens are not placed upon compliant entities?
That’s an even better question. I think we shouldn’t assume the worst of people. You know what happens when you treat children like they’re bad and need to be grounded to keep them out of trouble they might or might not ever get into. I know that it seems like a fine idea to prevent bad things from happening. But you can’t raise a healthy child, or a healthy society, by strapping pillows to its ass and a bicycle helmet to its noggin, never letting it outside, never letting it watch TV, and taking everything it likes away so it can never misuse or break them or hurt itself.
Why don’t we start by only treating people like blockheads and criminals after they do something wrong, instead of before?
I am no expert on taxes, I don’t have the knowledge to say the exact amount that would be reasonable. It would require a much more detailed economic analysis than I have the background to undertake.
Yeah, I’ll say. You sure sound like you think you’re an expert in how much money people should have, though. Why don’t you start by telling us how much you think you should have, and how that number compares to what you have now? Why do you think you’re entitled to more, if that’s the case, and who do you think you should take it from? And if you think you have more than you should, what steps are you taking to give it away to those less fortunate?
…attention…span..wearing…thin…must…take…nap…and…stop…thread…hogging………..
I don’t understand. Can the politicians tell the churches what they should do to their dogmas? Or can’t you marry in the registrar’s office in the USA???
I don’t understand. Can the politicians tell the churches what they should do to their dogmas? Or can’t you marry in the registrar’s office in the USA???
Argh. Opened one too many blockquote tags. I’m with comment 44. Good night, everyone.
Argh. Opened one too many blockquote tags. I’m with comment 44. Good night, everyone.
Why don’t we start by only treating people like blockheads and criminals after they do something wrong, instead of before?
Because by that point the damage is often already done. People’s lives could be ruined, their health harmed, they could even be dead. Do you think putting locks on your door is a bad idea? That is treating people like criminals. Security cameras at banks? Magnetic tags on stuff in stores? VIN numbers on cars? Identity theft protection for credit cards? Does your email account have a password? The fact is that people do bad stuff, and people take steps to prevent that stuff from happening because if they don’t the damage might never get fixed. Claiming that we should only treat people like criminals after they have created a crime is a nice idea, but it doesn’t work in the real world.
You sure sound like you think you’re an expert in how much money people should have, though.
Now you are putting words in my mouth. I never said that I knew how much money people should have. I never said I should have more or less money than I do. I never said money should be taken from anyone and given to anyone else. All I said is that flat taxes, which you are in favor of, are unfair. That is it. And you have yet to address the argument I made supporting this position.
Um, not to change the subject but here’s some woo from Hillary. Given the audience this was bound to be whored, um, mentioned.
(Speedwell, I feel your pain. I lost a page of writing earlier tonight, on another website, and I’m not even sure how. And burned my dinner while I was writing it. Argh.)
Here’s a simple example of a regulation that isn’t based on expecting the worse of people, or and doesn’t treat people like criminals before the fact:
“Thou shalt not dump toxins into the water supply.”
For those who would never do such a thing, the regulation is no burden at all. For those who would have done so, but instead comply, the regulation is a necessary behavior-limiting factor. For those who do not comply, some unspecified but presumably appropriate punative measures associated with the regulation are invoked by the transgression. These measures should provide the non-compliant entity with sufficient motivation to comply, without being draconian.
Keep in mind that before toxin-dumping was regulated, toxin-dumping entities regularly dumped their toxins into the water supply, and that this is the ONLY reason the regulation even exists.
Right.
The good ship Unregulated Toxin Dumping left port well over a century ago. We have no reason NOT to err on the side of caution with regard to Toxin Dumping Entities.
Laws represent behaviors. You’d be hard-pressed to find many laws on the books that prohibit something that no-one has ever done. Did you know that in Boston, there’s a law against flying? Yes, it’s a stupid law, though the story behind it is quite charming… but I digress.
Profound changes in society may happen when the need for change overpowers the inertia of the status quo. Women’s suffrage. The Civil Rights movement. Likewise, labor unions exist for a reason (see “robber barons”) and so does the EPA. These institutions are flawed, too, but they can be tuned and repaired as needed. We are not so enlightened that we can do without them. It is not universally true that Capitalist entities acting in their own self-interest will inevitably have beneficial effects on the society of which the entity is a part. More to the point, unfettered capitalism has not shown that it is capable of generating sets of checks and balances that benefit the society as a whole.
Kseniya, it appears that you have misinterpreted speedwell’s comment about the burden of proof. Almost all justifiable laws are prohibitive in the same fashion as the anti-toxin dumping example you provided. We’ve got laws against murder and theft that operate on the same principle. However, we do not assume that everyone is a closet toxin-dumper, murderer or thief just because we have laws against these activities, nor do we require everyone to spend any time demonstrating their upstanding moral character unless a specific charge has been brought, and in the event that a charge is leveled, the burden of proof rests with the accuser, not the accused. It doesn’t matter if the defendant is an individual or a corporation. That is the American system as it was originally conceived. Also, your assertion that unions protect workers against exploitation is simply not accurate. Unions are extortionary entities that secure benefits for one group at the expense of all others. Government regulation, likewise, often ends up as a tool for bureaucrats to indulge their appetite for power at the expense of market efficiency and individual liberty.
No one is claiming that laws are based on an assumption that everyone is a criminal. They operate on an assumption that someone, somewhere is a criminal and some steps have to be taken in order to prevent that person from breaking the law. It may place some small burden on people who don’t, but in the end society feels that the burden is worth preventing or minimizing the crime. We don’t have laws that require people to prove they are not a thief, for instance, because we have locks on our doors and security cameras at stores. But how do you put a lock on the open ocean to prevent dumping of toxic waste? Magnetic strips on goods in stores treats everyone who enters the store as shoplifter, yet I have never heard anyone complain. You can put magnetic strips on good at stores to prevent shoplifting, but how do you put magnetic strip on every object entering and leaving ports to avoid smuggling in dangerous counterfeit medicine?
It is nice to think that everyone just assumes everyone else is good unless proven otherwise, but that is not how anyone does it in practice. Everyone takes measures to protect themselves from others even if they have no specific threat in mind. People keep money in banks, use passwords on their email accounts, etc. If a complete stranger with a big knife came to your door and asked if you wanted him to cut your food for you, would you let them in? Would you presume he’s innocent? For crimes that involve one person or a few people there are generally steps we can take as individuals to protect ourselves to a reasonable, albeit imperfect, degree. And people do them, despite rhetoric about “presumption of innocence”. But there is generally nothing we as can do individuals to protect ourselves from crimes that affect thousands, millions, or even billions of people. For crimes of that sort the government has to be the one to institute preventative measures, regulations, checks. These regulation are fundamentally no different than what we do as individuals to protect ourselves from crimes even though we have no specific reason to think a specific person is going to commit a specific crime.
To TheBlackCat, you bring up some good points regarding the scale of the potential crime that could be taken into consideration when contemplating preventive measures, and there certainly are some situations in which governmental regulations might promote the internalization of negative externalities and so lessen the probability of their occurence or at least provide funds to help mitigate their impact.
Of course, negative externalities are not typically considered criminal activity. Not to say criminal negligence is impossible, but merely that people who drive Hummers are not generally regarded as malevolent polluters intentionally seeking to damage the environment and harm their neighbors. Therefore, considerations of scale, if they’re to be employed, should work in both directions, and I think speedwell was right in calling Sarbanes-Oxley draconian.
I do not believe that the presumption of innocence derives from our ability to protect ourselves. Shop owners did not ask their customers to empty their pockets or submit to a strip search prior to the invention of security cameras. The presumption of innnocence is properly grounded in the recognition of universal human dignity and often impractical and unjust demands of providing a satisfactory proof of a negative.
In any case, (and I know you did not originally suggest this so feel free not to answer), how would reversing the burden of proof justify unions which operate more by force than their alleged adversaries the “robber barons”? Shouldn’t they be required to demonstrate that they are likewise doing no harm before engaging in licensing restrictions and intimidation of non-union workers?
Huh? Unions help those bosses who aren’t as smart as Henry Ford figure out who will buy their products. I can’t see “at the expense of all others” in there.
US unions are a strange bunch.
Huh? Unions help those bosses who aren’t as smart as Henry Ford figure out who will buy their products. I can’t see “at the expense of all others” in there.
US unions are a strange bunch.
I’m not arguing the system is perfect. There are certain things that the government does too much of, and others that it does too little of. That is inevitable since there are many conflicting interests that all want different things. And it is good goal to try to fix problems as much as any sort of solution can be determined. But I am not aware of anyone who doesn’t feel that way. What I am trying to determine is what speedwell thinks is so fundamentally different about his political and economic philosophy that warrants giving it is own category.
Atlas:
No. I have not. You have misinterpreted mine.
Furthermore, please review my comments about labor unions as such: “These institutions are flawed, too, but they can be tuned and repaired as needed.” Unions were created to fill a need. The fact that they grew beyond the scope of that need and began to exert undue influence is another matter. Ditto regulatory agencies.
sigh… make that “labor unions etc.” … once again, haste makes waste in bloglan :-D
To TheBlackCat, what precisely do you feel the government does too little of? I ask, not to appear snide, but to see if I can’t shed a little light on what distinguishes speedwell’s philosophy (to the extent that it is libertarian) from other political approaches. You assert that you don’t know anyone who doesn’t think it isn’t good to try to fix problems to the extent that solutions can be developed. To the extent that you are talking about individual people, I would agree; however, and perhaps this is a syntactic misreading if so I apologize, it appears to me that in that claim you submit the government as the medium through which these problems are examined, and the agent by which they are fixed. Libertarians reject collective action compelled by force. Governments should take on the role of restricting individual action if it infringes upon the equal personal property rights of others, but in the absence of such transgressions they should not force people to do anything. That, at least, is the starting point. Of course different people, even within the framework of classical liberal philosophy, are sure to have different responses to particular policy proposals, but all will begin with something similar to that premise.
To Kseniya. I apologize if I misrepresented your position. I had read it as an endorsement of labor unions, government regulation, and the general perspective that individuals should be required to demonstrate their good will and the positive (or at least neutral) consequences of their actions before acting. I am skeptical of the ability of most government institutions and labor unions to be reformed to the point of functioning as positive forces for the promotion of a free society, but I am always open to new ideas, and I’d be glad to learn how you would go about setting things straight.