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Whenever you say "government should do xyz", you're actually saying "the government should steal money from taxpayers to carelessly attempt to do xyz".

• azinman2 7y ago
  As opposed to... careful Amazon? Careful maker of these toxic kid supplies?! I don’t get this whole idea that government necessarily means poor quality. In using it to take away money, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s plenty that the gov already does well that we trust and depend on. If we had a bigger collective empathic view for others, a stronger notion of the value of civil service, and a closed wage gap between public and private, we could expect and get more from public institutions.
  • markjspivey 7y ago
    well technically then it shouldn’t be assumed one way or the other, so your comment also shouldnt imply one way or the other ... right ? the reality most humans “scientifically” should assume is that “governments” or “public institutions” aren’t people ... and that means something ...
• ebg13 7y ago
  Who the fuck else is going to do it? Clearly not the market or the products wouldn't be there right now. Every time you argue against governments regulating markets, you ignore the fact that regulations get written in blood.
  • johnisgood 7y ago
    Is this another instance of "who will build the roads"? https://mises.org/library/safety-and-market-economy https://mises.org/library/safety-and-market-economy https://mises.org/library/what-keeps-us-safe-0 https://mises.org/library/what-keeps-us-safe-0 https://mises.org/library/what-will-keep-our-food-safe https://mises.org/library/what-will-keep-our-food-safe https://mises.org/library/do-food-makers-want-kill-you https://mises.org/library/do-food-makers-want-kill-you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5OYdGevAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5OYdGevAQ Bonus: https://mises.org/wire/government-road-management-there-better-way https://mises.org/wire/government-road-management-there-bett... On top of that, your justification ("who the fuck else is going to do it?") of violence ("steal money from taxpayers") is quite alarming.
    • fzeroracer 7y ago
      The absurdity of what you pose only works in scenarios where the food makers have not already been found to be poisoning you for the sake of profit. If food makers (or the makers of school supplies in this case) didn't want to kill you, then why is there high levels of lead in the food, a substance which is known to be very toxic? The free market should've caused any lead products to be free market'd out of existence by now, given how much we know. Even more absurd is your claim of violence, considering you don't seem to consider people being exposed to dangerous levels of lead as being 'violent' in this scenario. Or is it just less violent then having to pay taxes?
      • johnisgood 7y ago
        You are making the assumption that there are high levels of lead in the food BECAUSE food makers want to kill you. How is this not absurd to you? We do not have free market, we have a pretty tightly regulated market. > Even more absurd is your claim of violence, considering you don't seem to consider people being exposed to dangerous levels of lead as being 'violent' in this scenario. Or is it just less violent then having to pay taxes? Excuse me? They are two different instances of violence. What you are trying to do is solve violence by more violence. How did that ever work out? It is funny how my claim of an instance of violence is absurd merely because of an assumption which is "you don't consider people being exposed to dangerous levels of lead as being violent". Governments stealing money at gunpoint is violent, regardless of the second part, which, again, was just an absurd assumption from you. I am not sure what you are trying to achieve here.
        • fzeroracer 7y ago
          No, online shopping for the most part is a fairly unregulated market. You can't seriously make the argument that a more free market would solve this problem, because lead poisoning is an open and shut case. There is no excuse for exposing people to lead like this. At this point, excessive amounts of lead should be seen as malice and regulated out of existence. What other excuse would there be for such phony products to be sold, other than to make a quick profit at the expensive of other's health? And no, they are not completely unrelated. This is a thread and topic about toxic school supplies having excessive amounts of lead. When people proposed regulations to fix this problem, you equated that to violence. You are directly connecting the two.
  • dgzl 7y ago
    You don't live a free life if someone else owns your money.
    • millstone 7y ago
      You get what you pay for.
      • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        The more accurate phrase is "you never get more than you pay for". It's perfectly possible to burn a bunch of money and get squat for it.
    • andybak 7y ago
      You also don't live a free life when the rigors of market logic dictate your personal safety. Most reasonable people understand that the are both benefits and costs to regulation and the tricky bit is striking the right balance. Let's not descend into "I've just read The Fountainhead and I think it solves all societal problems" rhetorical territory, eh?
      • Mirioron 7y ago
        Considering how haphazardly people demand regulation, I'm not sure reasonable people do understand the costs of regulation. Every time regulatory capture happens people are somehow really surprised and the excuse is always "we just wanted to help". There are undoubtedly regulations that are vital, but there are many that cause silly situations that can have bad consequences. Also, it's not like regulation is guaranteed to even solve the problem in the first place.
        • ptah 7y ago
          it does in europe and china
        • Angostura 7y ago
          > There are undoubtedly regulations that are vital, but there are many that cause silly situations that can have bad consequences. Mandating basic standards to ensure that products sold to children are non toxic seem vital enough. Whether this is the best way of managing that, is a different matter.
• matt4077 7y ago
  Taxation isn’t theft, and trying to reframe it as such is intellectually dishonest. Theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is almost tautologically lawful. You can argue for lower taxes, or even against all taxes, although the latter will probably just get you ignored in polite company. But don’t try to tap society’s consensus against actual crimes for your libertarian crusade.
  • Mirioron 7y ago
    So, if the government decides that all people with certain inborn characteristics should be killed, we shouldn't call it murder/genocide?
    • asark 7y ago
      Human language isn't math. Two things can be described with the same words and still very much not be equivalent. "Muggers use the treat of violence to take money, government threatens violence if you don't pay taxes, ergo, taxation is the same as mugging and you may now assign to taxation all the dislike you have for mugging" is a terrible argument. Some form of bad syllogism, specifically, I'd say. If you really want to advance these positions, get better at it—then let me know when you have, because I've not ever seen them advocated particularly well and that'd surely be interesting.
• dang 7y ago
  Please keep classic ideological talking points off HN. They're tedious to the limits of tedium. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html