8 ms·

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 mar

by 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.
      - johnisgood 7y ago
        Sigh. "Government stealing money from taxpayers" is what I equated to violence. Do you care to argue that it is not violent?
        llukas 7y ago
        No it is not. You can renounce your US citizenship (or most other citizenships for that matter) hat was forced upon you after birth - instead you chose stay and whine. Too bad you cannot renounce education, healthcare etc that were also forced upon you by the state.
        johnisgood 7y ago
        Yeah, or I could move to Mars, I know. I, for one, am happy to not fund the bombing of innocent people through the taxes I pay. I am not sure you could say the same. :) And for the record: > Renouncing U.S. citizenship doesn't free you from U.S. tax obligations and means that even after the renunciation, the IRS could still audit and assess taxes and penalties.
        llukas 7y ago
        Exit tax and anything you owed - yes. But you no longer need to pay tax to US on your worldwide income (assuming you move out and not have US assets) like citizens do. Even on Mars there would be society that will enforce its rules on you. See a pattern here?
- frostburg 7y ago
  Also bonus: https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it Parody libertarians should remember that the "violence" of taxation prevents actual violence of the blood in the (unpaved) streets kind.
  - johnisgood 7y ago
    I will keep that in mind when I refuse to pay my taxes and have them throw me in a metal cage, or shoot me were I to resist. If this is not actual violence to you, I am not sure what is. Maybe not resisting in this case would prevent another (but not all) "actual violence", too, completely ignoring the fact that it does not have to actually come to it in the first place. I am never going to understand people who propose that violence is a necessary evil in all cases to prevent further violence. Maybe the US needs to do more of that effective bombing of countries. Think smart: no humans to stick around to be violent! We successfully prevented violence!
    - maxdamantus 7y ago
      I'd rather have violence in the form of imprisonment due to tax avoidance than violence in the form of children being forced to work or starve due to being born into poverty. I wonder which one of us is being melodramatic here.
      - johnisgood 7y ago
        Are you implying that if it were not for taxation, we would have children being forced to work or starve due to being born into poverty? How come?
        maxdamantus 7y ago
        Because there would be no safety net. There would be no guarantee of access to education. I'm not necessarily saying that "taxation" is the best way to provide these things, but the .. ideas .. proposed by the website you linked certainly aren't. From what I read, it basically said things like: "government isn't doing a good job, therefore we should get rid of it" and calls for (direct quote) "government to get out of the way of the productive and ever-inventive energies of the public as expressed in voluntary market activity". Maybe we should stop prosecuting people for murder, since it's obviously not stopping it from happening. Maybe we should just allow the market to play betting games over subprime mortgages as it sees fit. Maybe we should just allow banks to launder money for drug cartels and terrorists as long as they're making a profit off it. Am I getting close to the unregulated dream?
- millstone 7y ago
  Ah yes the mises, where government infringes on our right to drive drunk. https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk-driving https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk-driving
  - johnisgood 7y ago
    Ah yes, another comment that fails to address the issues with the mentioned article. And... what? Right to drive drunk? Where did you get that from? If you have anything accurate to say regarding the article and you would like to have a discussion about it, please do so. You will get cookies for quotations.
    - millstone 7y ago
      I got it from the headline which is literally “legalize drunk driving.” No surprise these clowns hope to legalize lead in food too.
      - johnisgood 7y ago
        I will ask you again, with what exactly do you have an issue? Saying "I got it from the headline" is not enough. Please give me more than the title or headline. I need specifics. Calling them clowns is unnecessary and does not do you any good.
        millstone 7y ago
        "government in a free society should not deal in probabilities. The law should deal in actions and actions alone, and only insofar as they damage person or property." Drunk driving should be legal because sometimes you make it home safe. Lead in food should be legal because some people will eat it and not get sick. Putting others at risk isn't a crime, the government should not deal in probabilities. That job falls to "insurance companies to assess on a competitive and voluntary basis." Cripes, what a totally fucked up worldview.
        7y ago
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into ideological warfare. It's the last thing we want here. Long, tedious tit-for-tat ideological battles are right out. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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.

by ebg13 7y ago

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.
    - johnisgood 7y ago
      Sigh. "Government stealing money from taxpayers" is what I equated to violence. Do you care to argue that it is not violent?
      - llukas 7y ago
        No it is not. You can renounce your US citizenship (or most other citizenships for that matter) hat was forced upon you after birth - instead you chose stay and whine. Too bad you cannot renounce education, healthcare etc that were also forced upon you by the state.
        johnisgood 7y ago
        Yeah, or I could move to Mars, I know. I, for one, am happy to not fund the bombing of innocent people through the taxes I pay. I am not sure you could say the same. :) And for the record: > Renouncing U.S. citizenship doesn't free you from U.S. tax obligations and means that even after the renunciation, the IRS could still audit and assess taxes and penalties.
        llukas 7y ago
        Exit tax and anything you owed - yes. But you no longer need to pay tax to US on your worldwide income (assuming you move out and not have US assets) like citizens do. Even on Mars there would be society that will enforce its rules on you. See a pattern here?
frostburg 7y ago
Also bonus: https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it Parody libertarians should remember that the "violence" of taxation prevents actual violence of the blood in the (unpaved) streets kind.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  I will keep that in mind when I refuse to pay my taxes and have them throw me in a metal cage, or shoot me were I to resist. If this is not actual violence to you, I am not sure what is. Maybe not resisting in this case would prevent another (but not all) "actual violence", too, completely ignoring the fact that it does not have to actually come to it in the first place. I am never going to understand people who propose that violence is a necessary evil in all cases to prevent further violence. Maybe the US needs to do more of that effective bombing of countries. Think smart: no humans to stick around to be violent! We successfully prevented violence!
  - maxdamantus 7y ago
    I'd rather have violence in the form of imprisonment due to tax avoidance than violence in the form of children being forced to work or starve due to being born into poverty. I wonder which one of us is being melodramatic here.
    - johnisgood 7y ago
      Are you implying that if it were not for taxation, we would have children being forced to work or starve due to being born into poverty? How come?
      - maxdamantus 7y ago
        Because there would be no safety net. There would be no guarantee of access to education. I'm not necessarily saying that "taxation" is the best way to provide these things, but the .. ideas .. proposed by the website you linked certainly aren't. From what I read, it basically said things like: "government isn't doing a good job, therefore we should get rid of it" and calls for (direct quote) "government to get out of the way of the productive and ever-inventive energies of the public as expressed in voluntary market activity". Maybe we should stop prosecuting people for murder, since it's obviously not stopping it from happening. Maybe we should just allow the market to play betting games over subprime mortgages as it sees fit. Maybe we should just allow banks to launder money for drug cartels and terrorists as long as they're making a profit off it. Am I getting close to the unregulated dream?
millstone 7y ago
Ah yes the mises, where government infringes on our right to drive drunk. https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk-driving https://mises.org/library/legalize-drunk-driving
- johnisgood 7y ago
  Ah yes, another comment that fails to address the issues with the mentioned article. And... what? Right to drive drunk? Where did you get that from? If you have anything accurate to say regarding the article and you would like to have a discussion about it, please do so. You will get cookies for quotations.
  - millstone 7y ago
    I got it from the headline which is literally “legalize drunk driving.” No surprise these clowns hope to legalize lead in food too.
    - johnisgood 7y ago
      I will ask you again, with what exactly do you have an issue? Saying "I got it from the headline" is not enough. Please give me more than the title or headline. I need specifics. Calling them clowns is unnecessary and does not do you any good.
      - millstone 7y ago
        "government in a free society should not deal in probabilities. The law should deal in actions and actions alone, and only insofar as they damage person or property." Drunk driving should be legal because sometimes you make it home safe. Lead in food should be legal because some people will eat it and not get sick. Putting others at risk isn't a crime, the government should not deal in probabilities. That job falls to "insurance companies to assess on a competitive and voluntary basis." Cripes, what a totally fucked up worldview.
        7y ago
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological warfare. It's the last thing we want here. Long, tedious tit-for-tat ideological battles are right out. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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.