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>The fundamental problem is that some people have a propensity to do stupid and dangerous things. How do we stop them? And fundamentally the only way to stop s
by learc83 10y ago
>The fundamental problem is that some people have a propensity to do stupid and dangerous things. How do we stop them?
And fundamentally the only way to stop some people from doing stupid and dangerous things is with force.
Let's say my neighbor sets up steel target in his backyard. Directly behind the target is my kid's swingset.
My neighbor insists that he is such a good shot that he will never miss. He hasn't actually caused any damage yet.
Let's assume my neighbor is an asshole and asking him (and other forms of social pressure won't work).
You've taken the libertarian anti-regulation stance much further than anyone I've ever met. Most libertarians would say that the mere threat of him missing the target causes me harm, just like the threat of swinging a sword around on a crowded sidewalk causes harm.
> Legal prohibitions don't seem to work very well.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. You can't seriously look at the history of regulation over the past century or so and not realize that there are some successes and some failures.
I used to be a hardcore libertarian when I was younger, but I've learned that the world is rarely binary. Dogmatic approaches to governance rarely work, and no regulation is just as bad as a command economy.
The search for a simple set of fundamental governing principles is a search for elegance--the same as trying to design an algorithm with no edge cases and no exceptions. The problem is that I've yet to encounter a system that didn't require edge cases and exceptions.
- pdonis 10y ago> fundamentally the only way to stop some people from doing stupid and dangerous things is with force. Yes, that's true. But the law is not the only way to apply such force. > Most libertarians would say that the mere threat of him missing the target causes me harm I don't think they would. But I think there are plenty of libertarians who would say that a homeowners association, neighborhood group, etc.--i.e., a private organization, not the government--has the right to tell your hypothetical neighbor that the rules prohibit him doing shooting practice in his back yard. And people who really, really can't live with such restrictions will, under a libertarian system, end up living far away from anyone else, because no one wants to live near them. > I've yet to encounter a system that didn't require edge cases and exceptions. I agree with this. But different systems can have very different edge cases and exceptions; and it seems reasonable to me to judge systems based on which ones have edge cases and exceptions that are more manageable. In our current system, the edge cases and exceptions are instances in which regulations prevent people from doing things which would benefit them but which some rare people can't be trusted to do safely. Such cases are common: for example, to go back to the topic that originated this discussion, lots of people get stopped for speeding that would not have caused an accident had they not been stopped. And the fact that everyone knows such edge cases and exceptions are common means that people have less respect for the law--which spills over into the cases that are not edge cases and exceptions. In the kind of libertarian system I envision, the edge cases and exceptions are instances in which private preemptive action is not sufficient to stop someone from causing harm. I would expect such edge cases and exceptions to be rare, since most people don't want to cause harm and will respond to reasonable requests to curtail potentially harmful activities. Furthermore, I would expect there to be much more respect for the law in such a system, because everyone understands that the law has a clearly defined boundary: cause harm, get punished.