Revel to allow Smoking starting Valentines Day-Staff
Quote: boymimboToday's form of libertarian does not want any more laws imposed on them, but seem to be fairly happy with the laws that are in place "the status quo".
The two libertarians I know would not concede to any useful form of government. When I asked about such things as the police, schools, firefighters, and the military both basically said they can fend for themselves just fine and don't want to pay for a service they don't use. I honestly thought they would be better classified as anarchists, but it seems that movement has gone out of style.
Quote: bigfoot66Another great example is credit scores. People who screw over their creditors are not dealt with violently by Big Al breaking their knees, and no civilized person believes in Debtors prison. But if we lived in the time of Debtor's prision and I was trying to argue in favor of ending a violent response to people not paying debts, you could challenge me with something like, "How would the free market handle people not paying their debts? No one will ever pay their debts! It will be chaos! The fear of not being repaid means that the credit markets would evaporate and the economy would stop growing because no capital would be available". I never would have had an answer for that, I am not smart enough to come up with the idea for credit scores. But the market came up with the system and it works pretty well. Again, I don't even know that ostracism will be the tool of choice, but I suspect it will be at least attempted.
Pretty well? If you've ever dealt with a mistake on your credit report, you already know how difficult it is to get your scores cleared up. The formula is opaque and secretive, and the mechanism for redress is inefficient and difficult. The credit scoring system is a perfect example of a privately-run institution which has less due process than the state legal system.
Groupthink-derived ostracism flies in the face of due process and, therefore, justice. It is a poor substitute for a mutually-agreed-upon set of rules, codified and enforced by a mutually-agreed-upon mechanism. That's what (our) government is. The checks and balances you learned about in grade school are a superior technique for managing the growth and evolution of society than letting mob mentality hold sway. A free market might sound like a noble ideal, but a perfectly free market is only efficient in theory, and only given perfect information. Any asymmetric-information situation (in which we necessarily live) unavoidably leads to asymmetric trades and exploitation. Regulating that is more just than leaving it alone.
At the risk of making an on-topic post:Quote:Would still love to hear all about how some greedy capitalist in a free society would kill 500,000 Iraqi children in his quest for profits like our government did with its rotten foreign policy in a quest for more power.
Worldwide, tobacco use is responsible for 5,000,000 deaths per year.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/
Not much more to say, really.
Quote: MathExtremist
At the risk of making an on-topic post:
Worldwide, tobacco use is responsible for 5,000,000 deaths per year.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/
Not much more to say, really.
Supposedly two thirds of all deaths are from natural causes, yet people still advocate eating natural foods. I have never heard of anyone dying from preservatives.
Furthermore, in my opinion (the) Baltimore (Ravens) must be destroyed.
Quote: iluvdisco33You may have forgotten something important: Many people who work among foolhardy smokers, such as in casinos which is a primary thought among all of us here, are in a no way out work situation, and due to the current administration they will remain in such a status.
I don't understand what you mean by, "No way out," work situation. Can they not go work at a grocery store? Maybe things are different in Nevada, but I've never personally seen a supermarket that allowed smoking inside of it. Can they not work at a casino in Ohio, (if it is that important to them) where people may not smoke indoors? Did they not know that smoking was permitted at that establishment prior to applying/interviewing/being hired/first day of work?
Quote:I did not say all workplaces allow smokers.
I didn't say you did, I said that I don't understand your statement that any individual is required to work at a place where people are smoking when there are plenty of jobs in locations in which people do not smoke.
Quote: WizardThe two libertarians I know would not concede to any useful form of government. When I asked about such things as the police, schools, firefighters, and the military both basically said they can fend for themselves just fine and don't want to pay for a service they don't use. I honestly thought they would be better classified as anarchists, but it seems that movement has gone out of style.
That philosophy denies the fundamental (and unavoidable) fact that our lives are necessarily entangled. Someone who doesn't want to pay highway taxes because they don't own a car is ignorant of the society in which they live, specifically of the trucking companies that deliver their food to the supermarket and the mail carriers that deliver their postage. We live in an interconnected world and you can't just disconnect from parts of it at will. Similarly, at least in most suburban and urban settings, fire and police are not private but public goods. Allowing you to skip paying for the fire department would be unjust to your neighbors.
I should add that all of the little-L libertarians I know accept that some goods are public. Their philosophy simply seeks to shrink government to the provision of public goods and nothing more.
Quote: rxwineWell, if you've ever used resources in the U.S. that you didn't directly pay for you're a stealer too so don't be hypocrite. I drove on roads and sidewalks on my bicycle as a teen before I actually paid much taxes and used city lighting , went to public school, watched a parade helped and funded by the city taxes etc.,? Didn't have any fireman show up to put out a fire, but I could have called them.
C'mon, I just know that you are smarter than this. If I rob a bank and then go to the middle of the town square and start handing out money to strangers, who is the thief? The government regulates every aspect of our lives, and subsidize or tax virtually everything. What you are suggesting is that I cannot engage in any commerce, buy food that is FDA inspected, go to a licensed doctor, take prescription medication....By your logic I must either believe everything the government does is wonderful or else die.
Quote: WizardThe two libertarians I know would not concede to any useful form of government. When I asked about such things as the police, schools, firefighters, and the military both basically said they can fend for themselves just fine and don't want to pay for a service they don't use. I honestly thought they would be better classified as anarchists, but it seems that movement has gone out of style.
Penn & Teller?
when it becomes even a little prosperous, is the
men take up smoking. Look at China. They smoke
2.2 TRILLION cigarettes a year. They are nuts for
smoking. They are the world leaders in counterfeit
cigarettes. Marlboro, Newport, Camel, they're fake
and sold cheaply in China and all over the world.
The state owned tobacco industry brings in 8%
of China's budget. 8%! Sound familiar? Anybody
think China will kill that cash cow because a few
people die from smoking every year? Get real.
Quote: Wizard
Likewise, travel websites that accept reviews from the public get a lot of false reviews. Some unscrupulous hotels pay people to write good reviews of their own property and bad reviews of competitors. Perhaps Mission can comment on that.
That's 100% accurate, at least, that it occurs some of the time.
You don't even necessarily have to pay people to do it, there are companies out there that do the exact same thing. I don't know if ReputationDefender is one of them, so I'm not saying that, but there are companies out there where you pay a monthly fee and the first thing they will do is spread out a few good reviews about a property on each of these websites to initially boost the score. After that, they'll go in and check the travel websites every month, or so, and then if there is a bad review, the ompany goes in and offsets that with a couple of good reviews. They also try to keep the good reviews more recent because some people are more concerned about recent reviews that the overall score, anyway.
You would think that third-party websites such as Hotels.com, Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Orbitz.com, Priceline.com and others would be immune to this because a, "Member," of such site must actually book a room at said hotel in order to post a review, but they are not immune. Basically, if it is a third-party website with which the hotel has it arranged that the hotel charges the guest and pays a commission on the booking, then anyone that ownership/management knows can set up an account, book the room, and the hotel will simply not charge the room. By doing that, you now have access to put a positive review on a booking site at the cost of on night's commission on that site.
It would be a little more complicated with the sites that charge the guest's credit card up front, but not much. Basically, they allow the credit card to be charged, the third-party website sends in the one-shot credit card, which then also gets charged and the hotel can use a Folio from a year or two back (that the guest will have no need to ever see again) and reverse whatever amount was charged to the individual's card via that folio. The guest can then write a review, and again, the hotel is only out the commission on that one night.
I guess I should throw out a quick disclaimer by stating that I don't do any of this, nor do the on-line reviews concern me in any way whatsoever. Even the ones that are, "Legitimately posted," are almost never objective and involve a customer who is basically pissed off about one specific thing and decides to laundry list a bunch of crap...some of which is almost always untrue.
Further, I'll get people that will call here and inquire about the on-line reviews and ask me to explain them. I usually explain them by stating, "If it worries you that much, then call and book at some other area hotel with better on-line reviews." If they persist, then I just say, "Look, what website." They'll tell me, and I'll say, "There are two negative reviews on that website for all of last year, a year in which I rented over 17,000 room nights. In other words, not a great number of room nights result in complaints, but I'm not going to waste my time going through and addressing the specifics of every single negative review."
Quote: bigfoot66C'mon, I just know that you are smarter than this. If I rob a bank and then go to the middle of the town square and start handing out money to strangers, who is the thief?
Well, it sounds to me, in the future I could be driving 70mph and the superhighway will turn to dirt unexpectly, or worse woodland. Because of arbritary values on who is paying for what and why they don't want to pay it.
How do 20 year old newly married libertarians pay for something unexpected like a severely disabled child? Don't be coming back for other people's taxes from NH.
Quote: MathExtremistPretty well? If you've ever dealt with a mistake on your credit report, you already know how difficult it is to get your scores cleared up. The formula is opaque and secretive, and the mechanism for redress is inefficient and difficult. The credit scoring system is a perfect example of a privately-run institution which has less due process than the state legal system.
Beats the hell out of rotting in a jail cell or being murdered by the state based on a wrongful conviction, or being scared into pleaing guilty to something you may not have done becuase the state stacks up 8 charges where 1 would suffice. Again, you are comparing my system to perfection. Of course it comes up short. I am comparing it to the government system, where it is an incredible improvement.
Quote: MathExtremistGroupthink-derived ostracism flies in the face of due process and, therefore, justice. It is a poor substitute for a mutually-agreed-upon set of rules, codified and enforced by a mutually-agreed-upon mechanism. That's what (our) government is. The checks and balances you learned about in grade school are a superior technique for managing the growth and evolution of society than letting mob mentality hold sway. A free market might sound like a noble ideal, but a perfectly free market is only efficient in theory, and only given perfect information. Any asymmetric-information situation (in which we necessarily live) unavoidably leads to asymmetric trades and exploitation. Regulating that is more just than leaving it alone.
Democracy is little more than groupthink/mob mentality, freedom allows for diversity. Democracy is little more than two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for dinner. There is nothing moral about laws Look at presidential candidates like Mitt Romney, John Kerry, Bob Dole. These men are the prime example of mediocrity, and look like they were in fact designed by a presidential design committee. Freedom allows mavericks to succeede. College Dropouts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs can make it!
How in the world is the government mutually agreed upon. I have told you time and again that me and my friends do not agree, and you keep calling it a "mutually agreed upon set of rules". It is not, it is a set of rules that is forced on me and my friends at the point of a gun with the threat of a cage!!!! Respectfully, I think you are experiencing some major cognitive dissonance around this issue, and frankly it goes to show that I hold the moral high ground here: You pretend that your theory is mine. You cannot accept that the government rules are in no sense voluntary, consenual, 'mutually agreed upon', etc. They are forced on us. If they were mutually agreed upon I would not object. You may not end up agreeing with me, but I do challenge you to try to see the government for what it is, an agency of force and violence. The iron fist in a velvet glove.....
Quote: MathExtremeist
At the risk of making an on-topic post:
Worldwide, tobacco use is responsible for 5,000,000 deaths per year.
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/
Not much more to say, really.
The moral code you are invoking here is frankly appalling. Tobacco companies offer people a dangerous product that has a warning label on the side and people choose to take the risk for the benefit. I am not saying the tobacco companies are saints, they ain't. But If they are evil so are the car manufactures, as 40,000 Americans a year die on the roads. The government killed innocent children, who had done absolutely nothing wrong. How can you compare the sheer evil of this to a company producing a product that people choose to consume knowing the risks? Again, respectfully, I am a bit upset by the fact that everyone here just writes off the deaths of half a million innocent kids...Oh well, you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omlet right? The hours it takes to clear up the false negative on my credit report is an outrage, but half a million dead kids should probably be little more than a footnote in the history books, right? Anything to get rid of that evil Saddam and replace him with....well, something not much better.
Quote: NareedActually life is the major cause of death. Scientists have established that non-living things rarely die.
BEHOLD, wisdom from Nareed.
Quote: Mission146That's 100% accurate, at least, that it occurs some of the time.
You don't even necessarily have to pay people to do it, there are companies out there that do the exact same thing. I don't know if ReputationDefender is one of them, so I'm not saying that, but there are companies out there where you pay a monthly fee and the first thing they will do is spread out a few good reviews about a property on each of these websites to initially boost the score. After that, they'll go in and check the travel websites every month, or so, and then if there is a bad review, the ompany goes in and offsets that with a couple of good reviews. They also try to keep the good reviews more recent because some people are more concerned about recent reviews that the overall score, anyway.
You would think that third-party websites such as Hotels.com, Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Orbitz.com, Priceline.com and others would be immune to this because a, "Member," of such site must actually book a room at said hotel in order to post a review, but they are not immune. Basically, if it is a third-party website with which the hotel has it arranged that the hotel charges the guest and pays a commission on the booking, then anyone that ownership/management knows can set up an account, book the room, and the hotel will simply not charge the room. By doing that, you now have access to put a positive review on a booking site at the cost of on night's commission on that site.
It would be a little more complicated with the sites that charge the guest's credit card up front, but not much. Basically, they allow the credit card to be charged, the third-party website sends in the one-shot credit card, which then also gets charged and the hotel can use a Folio from a year or two back (that the guest will have no need to ever see again) and reverse whatever amount was charged to the individual's card via that folio. The guest can then write a review, and again, the hotel is only out the commission on that one night.
I guess I should throw out a quick disclaimer by stating that I don't do any of this, nor do the on-line reviews concern me in any way whatsoever. Even the ones that are, "Legitimately posted," are almost never objective and involve a customer who is basically pissed off about one specific thing and decides to laundry list a bunch of crap...some of which is almost always untrue.
Further, I'll get people that will call here and inquire about the on-line reviews and ask me to explain them. I usually explain them by stating, "If it worries you that much, then call and book at some other area hotel with better on-line reviews." If they persist, then I just say, "Look, what website." They'll tell me, and I'll say, "There are two negative reviews on that website for all of last year, a year in which I rented over 17,000 room nights. In other words, not a great number of room nights result in complaints, but I'm not going to waste my time going through and addressing the specifics of every single negative review."
Keep these things in mind when discussing the "Gaffed Software" thread.... there are many parallels, and shared concepts.
Quote: rxwineWell, it sounds to me, in the future I could be driving 70mph and the superhighway will turn to dirt unexpectly, or worse woodland. Because of arbritary values on who is paying for what and why they don't want to pay it.
How do 20 year old newly married libertarians pay for something unexpected like a severely disabled child? Don't be coming back for other people's taxes from NH.
I don't understand your 1st objection. If I owned a great private toll road that was making money why would I destroy it and drive away my customers? What if all the grocery stores decided to shut down tonight? People would starve!
You second objection is fine, but Americans are very charitable people. Someone will take care of these kids.
Quote: Bigfoot66The moral code you are invoking here is frankly appalling. Tobacco companies offer people a dangerous product that has a warning label on the side and people choose to take the risk for the benefit. I am not saying the tobacco companies are saints, they ain't. But If they are evil so are the car manufactures, as 40,000 Americans a year die on the roads. The government killed innocent children, who had done absolutely nothing wrong. How can you compare the sheer evil of this to a company producing a product that people choose to consume knowing the risks? Again, respectfully, I am a bit upset by the fact that everyone here just writes off the deaths of half a million innocent kids...Oh well, you gotta crack a few eggs to make an omlet right? The hours it takes to clear up the false negative on my credit report is an outrage, but half a million dead kids should probably be little more than a footnote in the history books, right? Anything to get rid of that evil Saddam and replace him with....well, something not much better.
But, tobacco has an addictive ingredient called nicotine in it that would cause a casual smoker to become an addicted smoker. I ask you, and others here, "Has the tobacco industry ever marketed a non-nicotine cigarette or tobacco product?"
Quote: bigfoot66How in the world is the government mutually agreed upon. I have told you time and again that me and my friends do not agree, and you keep calling it a "mutually agreed upon set of rules". It is not, it is a set of rules that is forced on me and my friends at the point of a gun with the threat of a cage!!!!
My high-school civics teacher put it succinctly: our government is based on "majority rules, minority rights." The solution you propose is "majority rules, period." I submit the present system is superior.
Quote:The moral code you are invoking here is frankly appalling. Tobacco companies offer people a dangerous product that has a warning label on the side and people choose to take the risk for the benefit. I am not saying the tobacco companies are saints, they ain't. But If they are evil so are the car manufactures, as 40,000 Americans a year die on the roads. The government killed innocent children, who had done absolutely nothing wrong. How can you compare the sheer evil of this to a company producing a product that people choose to consume knowing the risks? Again, respectfully, I am a bit upset by the fact that everyone here just writes off the deaths of half a million innocent kids...
I think you'd find, if you cared to actually do the math, that secondhand cigarette smoke solely from addicted parents has killed far more than 500,000 innocent children in our country alone, and all of that before the tobacco companies were forced to admit that cigarettes caused cancer (forced by the government, no less). But I'm not inclined to play "let's name the biggest atrocities" in order to carry out a political discussion. We can be done.
Quote: 98Clubs
But, tobacco has an addictive ingredient called nicotine in it that would cause a casual smoker to become an addicted smoker. I ask you, and others here, "Has the tobacco industry ever marketed a non-nicotine cigarette or tobacco product?"
Fine, I am not defending tobacco companies here. I am objecting to the fact that they are held up to be the same morally as an organization that killed 500,000 innocent children and defended it as "an acceptable price" to pay for a failed attempt to remove a despot that it had supported a decade earlier.
Quote: aceofspadesI am of the opinion that the government itself is anarchistic
You aren't using the word correctly in that case (or at least not in the political definition of anarchy).
Quote: MathExtremistMy high-school civics teacher put it succinctly: our government is based on "majority rules, minority rights." The solution you propose is "majority rules, period." I submit the present system is superior.
Fine, but quit calling it consenual. It is not. It is top down and based on force. I cannot stop you from being a statist, but I request you accurately describe the system you believe in.
I read the below, and thought, well obviously insurance was a conspiracy to steal. The reason given is made up by people in the 19th century.
Quote:With the invention of the automobile in the late 19th century came the inevitable side effect of automobile accidents.[10] As automotive accidents increased in frequency, it became clear that, unlike other torts, which relied on personal responsibility, there was a possibility that automobiles would need to be governed by laws because "[t]here was no way of assuring that even though fault was assessed the victim of an automobile accident would be able to collect from the tortfeasor."[10]
This led Massachusetts and Connecticut to create the first financial responsibility and compulsory insurance laws. Connecticut's 1925 financial responsibility law required any vehicle owner involved in an accident with damages over $100 to prove "financial responsibility to satisfy any claim for damages, by reason of personal injury, to, or death of, any person, of at least $10,000."[11] This early financial responsibility requirement only required vehicle owners to prove financial responsibility after their first accident.[10] Massachusetts also introduced a law to address the problem of accidents, but theirs was a compulsory insurance, not financial responsibility law. It required automotive liability insurance as a prerequisite to vehicle registration.[12]
Until 1956, when the New York legislature passed their compulsory insurance law, Massachusetts was the only state in the U.S. that required drivers to get insurance before registration. North Carolina followed suit in 1957 and then in the 1960s and 1970s numerous other states passed similar compulsory insurance laws. Since the genesis of automotive insurance schemes in 1925 nearly every state has adopted a compulsory insurance scheme.[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_insurance_in_the_United_States#A_brief_history_of_car_insurance
Quote: bigfoot66Fine, but quit calling it consenual. It is not. It is top down and based on force. I cannot stop you from being a statist, but I request you accurately describe the system you believe in.
I'm less of a statist than you might believe, but I'm more of a statist than an anarchist. Unlike you, I accept the truth that in any society, I will necessarily be subject to force being imposed upon me. I prefer that force imposed by an organization which is at least somewhat of my choosing than one which is solely directed toward profit maximization. You assume that you can live in proximity to other humans and never be exposed to force of some sort. That is false.
Whatever system you divise, seems to me there are built in problems that lead to a modification.
Quote: WizardIs my position so radical that there is some optimal balance between the private sector creating wealth and government to regulate it?
Wasn't that already tried in the old Soviet Union? Why do
we need the gov't to regulate what I make selling widgits?
The gov't is people, usually undereducated, under qualified,
under achievers who prove the Peter Principal as soon as
they're hired. Why would I want boobs I don't like or respect
involved in any aspect of my business.
Quote: EvenBobWasn't that already tried in the old Soviet Union? Why do
we need the gov't to regulate what I make selling widgits?
The gov't is people, usually undereducated, under qualified,
under achievers who prove the Peter Principal as soon as
they're hired. Why would I want boobs I don't like or respect
involved in any aspect of my business.
Nope, the Soviet Union didn't really have the private sector creating wealth, it was all centrally driven. The new Chinese Communism is closer to a mixed economy, but still defines very carefully -what- is produced even if no longer defines the -how-. Central planning is a key feature of most Communist systems (which aren't always pure socialism any more if the means of production itself is privately owned, even if the allowance to produce is government controlled).
The regulation I -think- the Wiz is talking about is making sure widgets are safe, useful and made by people who are properly paid, and in decent working conditions. It's an argument to say that government shouldn't have any say in that area at all. But then we are back to the question of government sizing and how much regulation/interference you allow the government to have on private business. From none - libertarian land, some - 'liberal' democracies over a wide spectrum from right to left, all - Chinese Communism and back to none -Collectivist/Socialist states where there is no private business.
How that control is occurs is also a factor in the type of economic system you believe in...
And you could still have a unregulated private business with both a Conservative or Progressive government, where the amount of taxation is the only control, and the government provides a lot or a little to the social safety net (government help for the economically poor, or private/charity/self help).
Quote: EvenBobWhy do we need the gov't to regulate what I make selling widgits?
What if widgits are a critical airplane part and if you don't make them to certain safe specifications the plane that has them stands a significant probability of crashing as a result?
Quote:The gov't is people, usually undereducated, under qualified, under achievers ...
Having worked in the Federal Government for ten years, and recently a major corporation, which shall remain nameless, I feel the government was staffed with better people and was better at advancing those who were truly qualified.
Quote: WizardWhat if widgits are a critical airplane part
And how much of the private sector does this for a living.
Quote: WizardHaving worked in the Federal Government for ten years, and recently a major corporation, which shall remain nameless, I feel the government was staffed with better people and was better at advancing those who were truly qualified.
My son works for the fed's, he's a Major in the AF. He's
appalled on a regular basis at the horrific ineptness at
every level of gov't that he deals with. Waste is out of
control. Caring about the waste is totally absent. He's
disgusted by everything the gov't does and is only there
to get his pension in 3 years. And he doesn't even deal
with the PO. I have another friend who's son works for
the Housing Administration. He says the corruption at the
administration levels is mind boggling. They constantly
bust supervisors that are on the take from somebody and
we never hear about it because its brushed under the rug.
His latest is a supervisor who hasn't worked in 2 years and
calls it in on his cell phone from his fishing cabin. I kid you
not.
These are just two people I know personally. Which do you
think would outweigh the other, people with experiences
like yours, or like the two I named.
Quote:His latest is a supervisor who hasn't worked in 2 years and
calls it in on his cell phone from his fishing cabin.
So, he doesn't come to work for 2 years, and everyone knows about it.?
Hmm, and you want us to choose between your story and the Wizards.
Okay, the Wizards! That was easy.
LOL.
Quote: rxwineSo, he doesn't come to work for 2 years, and everyone knows about it.?
Nobody knew about it. He was a roving supervisor, he didn't
have an office. He'd been there 20 years and its a position
everybody wants, nobody to answer to. His job was to do
inspections checking up on inspectors. He was rarely seen
anyway so he just quit doing it and falsified his reports. Even
his wife thought he was working.
And that reminds me. I knew an roving OSHA inspector 20 years
ago who rarely worked either. I went to a lot of auctions in those
days and he was always there, at every one. He had a cooler of
beer in his car and was a beer alchie. He had been at OSHA
forever too. He'd do a real inspection once in awhile and falsify
the rest. This went on for years and somebody finally turned him
in, or a bunch of people did. Nobody liked him, we were paying
him to make businesses safe and he went to auctions and drank
all day. The funny part is, after he was fired, he went to work
for an auctioneer.
Quote: bigfoot66College Dropouts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs can make it!
Bill Gates learned his programming chops by sneaking in computer time on a University of Washington computer, funded by the taxpayers.
Quote: EvenBobQuote: rxwineSo, he doesn't come to work for 2 years, and everyone knows about it.?
Nobody knew about it. He was a roving supervisor, he didn't
have an office. He'd been there 20 years and its a position
everybody wants, nobody to answer to. His job was to do
inspections checking up on inspectors. He was rarely seen
anyway so he just quit doing it and falsified his reports. Even
his wife thought he was working.
And that reminds me. I knew an roving OSHA inspector 20 years
ago who rarely worked either. I went to a lot of auctions in those
days and he was always there, at every one. He had a cooler of
beer in his car and was a beer alchie. He had been at OSHA
forever too. He'd do a real inspection once in awhile and falsify
the rest. This went on for years and somebody finally turned him
in, or a bunch of people did. Nobody liked him, we were paying
him to make businesses safe and he went to auctions and drank
all day. The funny part is, after he was fired, he went to work
for an auctioneer.
There are plenty of people in the private industry who are exactly the same. I am sure there are people in every major corporation who basically manage to have zero output and keep their jobs, and the private industry does just fine.
I think that really, if we just put our trust in corporations and business and sideline government, we would be in a great deal of hurt. Why? Because without a justice system, businesses have no externalities or responsibilities for the effects it has on its customers.
A restaurant without government food inspectors can go on with terrible standards in its kitchen. A few people may get sick and die, but there's no regulatory authority to prove that the restaurant is responsible for the deaths. So the restaurant gets to go on killing people or at least making them sick.
A widget maker who makes parts for Boeing decides to use an inferior brand of steel imported from Borneo because it's 50% cheaper than the stuff made in Gary, Indiana. Five years later, the widget fails in an airplane and 300 people die in a terrible crash. Government standards were not there to impose the standard on Boeing. Boeing claims it has not responsibility and it falls on the widget company.
Government plays roles in our lives at every level, and paying taxes is part of it. Certainly, we who are employed can decide to get pissed off at paying taxes to services that you deem are useless, but to me, in many cases, I recognize that my tax dollars are helping out the fabric of society as a whole. I may never call the police, but I know that they are preventing crime around me. I may never use that road, but others are. I may never collect a single dollar from unemployment insurance (I never have) but someone who was laid off due to inept management will be. That "charity" lets society stay together. It keeps people off the street.
Yep, absolutely, some tax money goes to waste. The infrastructure itself can be seen as wasteful. But private corporations are not much better, but at least we have a choice (or think we do -- look at the oil companies and banks who work together to make money). I know this because I consult both for Private companies and government and I see the waste on both counts, especially in business processses. Walmart is a great example of a company that works well, thanks to its state of the art technology and its sheer size which can dictate the market to lower prices so that it can lower its prices to its consumers. It's trickle down at it's worst. That forces the supplier to source its labor and its parts to the lowest common demoninator and just pushes them to the brink as well.
We have a right to complain about the waste, but waste is just part of everything we do. I'm wasting my time now, when I should be working.
We look at private corporations and think that all of the workers are busy bees. Alot of them are. The same is true about government workers. My best friend works for the Government of Canada in customer support, working at the Service Canada counter. His breaks total one hour every day. He's worked for the government for 15 years. They gave him a watch for his service award and celebrated his 15th anniversary for him and two other individuals with a cake, after hours. I call that thrifty, not wasteful. He makes less than $50K (but man, I dream for his pension).
But there's laziness too in private corporations. Insurance Companies are notoriously lazy yet they remain very profitable, for example.
Quote: MathExtremistI'm less of a statist than you might believe, but I'm more of a statist than an anarchist. Unlike you, I accept the truth that in any society, I will necessarily be subject to force being imposed upon me. I prefer that force imposed by an organization which is at least somewhat of my choosing than one which is solely directed toward profit maximization. You assume that you can live in proximity to other humans and never be exposed to force of some sort. That is false.
Yeah, I get a little heated when I am arguing on the internet. pounding away at the keyboard knowing that 99% of people think I am nuts when I am just so convinced that I am right (aren't we all). So that you understand where I am comming from, I am very passionate about this issue and feel that it is a moral outrage that so many peaceful drug users/sellers, prostitutes, etc who never hurt anybody are subject to jail. I also believe that people subject to taxation are basically slaves. I have believed this for probably the last 6 of my 28 years so it is not just a intellectual excercise, I really do feel like I am the property of the government (or at least they view me as such). Imagine if you found yourself in Georgia 200 years ago trying to argue against slavery to a society very tolerant of it. I do not mean to insult your position with the comparison, merely to show you why this is an emotional issue for me. While I believe everything I wrote, I probably should have used a softer tone.
However, again, I do not pretend that in a free society there will be no coercion or violence, you mischaractarize my position. I believe that the initiation of force, violence, theft, etc should be recognized as universally wrong. You believe that it is morally good for the government people to put a gun in my ribs and take approximately half of my income and use the money to kidnap me and put me in a cage even if I never hurt anybody. They claim the right to force me to go kill innocent foreign people on their behalf, and they claim the right to take my children to do the same should I choose to have children. They have managed to convince my neighbors through their propaganda that if I resist these attempts, I am a low-life "draft dodger". I just want people to stop saying "It's not theft when the government people take your money." "It's not murder when they kill people halfway around the globe". It is. We are all subject to the same moral code. If you want, you can argue that society will fall apart without these people stealing our money, taking our children to fight their wars, and fining us for not wearing seatbelts. Indeed, we would all be illiterate, working in the salt mines starting at 6 for 12 cents an hour if it wasn't for the government, fine, you can make the argument. But the propaganda is so strong that most people do not recognize this behavior as the moral outrage that it is despite the fact that it occurs daily right in front of us. These are the things that I am objecting to. It does not have to be like this.
Quote: WizardWhat if widgits are a critical airplane part and if you don't make them to certain safe specifications the plane that has them stands a significant probability of crashing as a result?
That would be disastorous for that company. In situations like this, the airline has a huge potential liability if it kills its passengers, does it not? They are much more heavily incentivized to keep the planes in great, safe shape than is some bureaucrat.
You may be suprised to read this but I actually disagree with Bob about the government workers. It is not a different class of people working for the state versus private industry, they all draw from the same labor pool. Maybe 50 years ago it was different, but with the huge pensions, great wages, scores of holidays, etc that the government employers offer they actually draw many very good workers. These organizations are vast, bureacratic, inefficent, etc. because they do not have the proper market forces to discipline and incentivize their organizations, not because they are bad people.
Quote: boymimbo
I think that really, if we just put our trust in corporations and business and sideline government, we would be in a great deal of hurt. Why? Because without a justice system, businesses have no externalities or responsibilities for the effects it has on its customers.
Just wanted to point out real quick that "Corporations" are a creation of the government. I know that people use the term to simply mean "large businesses" but a 'corporation' as an organizational structure was created by the state, and it is difficult for me to imagine that something similar would exist in a free market.
And then the widget company is no longer truted by airline supply companies and goes out of business. This would also serve as a lesson to the competitors as wellabout the high long term costs of short term cost cutting like this.Quote: boymimboA widget maker who makes parts for Boeing decides to use an inferior brand of steel imported from Borneo because it's 50% cheaper than the stuff made in Gary, Indiana. Five years later, the widget fails in an airplane and 300 people die in a terrible crash. Government standards were not there to impose the standard on Boeing. Boeing claims it has not responsibility and it falls on the widget company.
Quote: bigfoot66You believe that it is morally good for the government people to put a gun in my ribs and take approximately half of my income and use the money to kidnap me and put me in a cage even if I never hurt anybody.
No I don't: I believe taxation is amoral. I also believe that taxation is a necessary aspect of any civilized society because that's how you pay for public goods. It is just that the beneficiaries of a society's public goods pay their fair share for those goods. It's one thing to argue that your taxes are too high, but if you have a moral problem with taxation as a concept then you're going to be morally outraged all the time.
Quote: bigfoot66And then the widget company is no longer truted by airline supply companies and goes out of business. This would also serve as a lesson to the competitors as wellabout the high long term costs of short term cost cutting like this.
You seem to believe that markets are always efficient but any economist worth the title will tell you otherwise. I recommend learning about market efficiency in view of negative externalities. The textbook case of a polluting factory, for example.
Quote: bigfoot66You must think taxation is morally good, you have stated before that without it mankind would exist in chaos. If a thing is essential to building a society for men then is it not a moral good? Perhaps I am splitting hairs here.
I don't know what kind of hairs you're trying to split, but something doesn't necessarily need to be "moral" in order to be beneficial. Life on this planet would cease to exist without blue-green algae but nobody would say they're a moral good.
I suggest Guns, Germs and Steel: the fate of Human Socieites by Jared Diamond.
The book also suggests that organized religion was necessary for the existence of modern societies...
Quote: MathExtremistI don't know what kind of hairs you're trying to split, but something doesn't necessarily need to be "moral" in order to be beneficial.
He's not splitting hairs. There are importnat hierarchies involved here.
All human action is either moral, immoral or amoral. Amoral human actions are largely irrelevant. For example, do you favor the Steelers or the Colts? There's no intrinsinc relevance or importance to either. Do you like pie or cake? Same thing. But something that affects the lives and prospects of everyone, such as taxes, cannot be written off as amoral.
Quote: MathExtremistYou seem to believe that markets are always efficient but any economist worth the title will tell you otherwise. I recommend learning about market efficiency in view of negative externalities. The textbook case of a polluting factory, for example.
Thank you but my knowledge of economics does include the topic of externalities. Economics is a favorite area of interest for me.
Quote: MathExtremistI don't know what kind of hairs you're trying to split, but something doesn't necessarily need to be "moral" in order to be beneficial. Life on this planet would cease to exist without blue-green algae but nobody would say they're a moral good.
Morality is an idea that only applies to human behavior (or I suppose any other species of rational beings). You have stated here that the state provides incredible benefits to mankind, and perhaps human life itself would cease without the state. Therefore, to establish or promote the state must be morally good as this institution makes every other activity of mankind possible. It is infantile to wish for the end but not the means, and the means of maintaining a state is collecting taxes. Therefore, you believe that the tax collector, in threatening people and taking money from them, foreclosing on their homes when the property tax bill is past due, etc. is in fact doing something that is morally VERY GOOD, and his activity makes human life itself possible, or at least worth living.
I hope that it disturbs you to read it put this way, but based on what you have said in this thread your moral code demands this. I have trouble distinguishing between this moral code and that of the slave owner who claims the right to take the fruits of his slaves labor. For a very short and outstanding illustration of this, see Nozick's Tale of the Slave: https://web.duke.edu/philsociety/taleofslave.html Or if you prefer to watch it in video form, it is very very good : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxRSkM8C8z4 Though we disagree you are clearly very intelligent, would love to hear your thoughts on both my comments and your answer to Nozick's Question.
Edited for clarity after originally posted
Quote: bigfoot66Morality is an idea that only applies to human behavior (or I suppose any other species of rational beings). You have stated here that the state provides incredible benefits to mankind, and perhaps human life itself would cease without the state.
No, I never stated that, and I'm growing increasingly disinclined to argue with what you allege I said.
As to Nozick, perhaps he wasn't the best example to use. Were you not aware that he recanted that ideal later on?
Quote: Robert Nozick, "The Examined Life", Ch. 25The libertarian position I once propounded now seems to me seriously inadequate, in part because it did not fully knit the humane considerations and joint cooperative activities more closely into its fabric.
I'm certainly not going to put myself on the same level as Nozick but I've basically been saying the same thing all along: you can't practically divorce yourself from society unless you actually leave altogether.
If you have the time, I'd expect the Internet version of this popular political philosophy course to be as riveting as it was in person:
http://www.justiceharvard.org
Quote: MathExtremistNo, I never stated that, and I'm growing increasingly disinclined to argue with what you allege I said.
If you are tired of debating this I certainly understand that. I will make one more short post and I invite you to have the last word if you are interested. You have implied that a stateless society would not be a pleasant society to live in. You have have stated that in a voluntaryist society some kind of terrible an even worse government could emerge.
See here https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/other-casinos/12734-revel-to-allow-smoking-starting-valentines-day-staff/17/#post214373
and here https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/off-topic/other-casinos/12734-revel-to-allow-smoking-starting-valentines-day-staff/14/#post214202
You keep arguing that my ideas that there ought not be a state are unworkable so it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to say that you support the establishment of a government. I am not sure how the way I phrased it is at all unfair, but if you believe it to be then I apologize for mischaracterizing your position as it is true you did not write specifically what I attributed to you.
Quote: MathExtremistAs to Nozick, perhaps he wasn't the best example to use. Were you not aware that he recanted that ideal later on?
I am aware of this but it is beside the point. I am not a Nozickian (I am much closer to Rothbard and David Friedman than Nozick. I had the pleasure of spending a couple hours with Friedmand and drinking beer with him a few years back. He sure did not like Rothbard!) but the Tale of the Slave is a strong piece of writing. I have not heard a satisfactory answer to his question and you are not offering one here either.
Quote: MathExtremist
I'm certainly not going to put myself on the same level as Nozick but I've basically been saying the same thing all along: you can't practically divorce yourself from society unless you actually leave altogether.
If you have the time, I'd expect the Internet version of this popular political philosophy course to be as riveting as it was in person:
http://www.justiceharvard.org
Who is talking about leaving society? I have stated in this thread more than once that I believe man cannot live without trade. I am simply objecting to the violent and immoral activities of one family of institutions in the society, I think I have made that clear.
Thank you for the recomendation, your post suggests that you went to Harvard, is that right? I assume you studied math?
