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If you accepted that it is okay to exchange people's lives for money, then yes. I don't. I do accept that monetary compensation is a decent enough equivalent to

If you accepted that it is okay to exchange people's lives for money, then yes. I don't. I do accept that monetary compensation is a decent enough equivalent to a suspension in liberty for a temporary period of time though Life is a more important right than liberty, but loss of any right must be compensated appropriately. The same is true for property. The government currently seeks to co-opt private property for its use fighting the pandemic. I think it is right to do so. However, any co-opting of private property (i.e., eminent domain powers) must be met with an appropriate compensation, as the constitution requires. Otherwise, you basically are calling for the legalization of civil asset forfeiture (which, if I'll remind you, the Supreme Court declared illegal).

duxup 7y ago
You don't "accepted that it is okay to exchange people's lives for money" but that's the incentive you're creating by your proposal. I don't think efforts to deal with a pandemic is "legalization of civil asset forfeiture" and it feels like your understanding of the law is swerving all over the road here.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > I don't think efforts to deal with a pandemic is "legalization of civil asset forfeiture" and it feels like your understanding of the law is swerving all over the road here. That is not at all what I said. I said that stopping the economy without compensation to deal with a pandemic is akin to civil asset forfeiture. This has nothing to do with law, but with ethics. You take something away, you have to pay it back.
  - duxup 7y ago
    There's a weird sort of thing here going where you seem to expect the government to act as a parachute for say a pandemic, but if the results are in any way negative they have to both eat the cost of the pandemic, and reimburse you if for some reason fighting it involves negatives for you. That seems like double dipping / transferring responsibility of all the problems of the world onto the government regardless if they created them or not.
    - honeyloop 7y ago
      They are saying that, due to restrictions put in place by the government, certain industries have been adversely affected and need to be made right. Closed restaurants, for example, have absolutely no revenue due to the actions of the government. How does that not warrant compensation by the entity that imposed the restrictions? Yes, it was for the best. But it still hindered certain industries ability to thrive (or make money at all).
    - tathougies 7y ago
      > but if the results are in any way negative they have to both eat the cost of the pandemic, and reimburse you if for some reason fighting it involves negatives for you. Yes, like how I expect the government to do things like conduct high speed chases of dangerous criminals, but if their police car hits me, I expect reimbursement. > That seems like double dipping / transferring responsibility of all the problems of the world onto the government regardless if they created them or not. The Government's checkbook ultimately comes from people's taxes, and yes, I expect people to be willing to float the cost of this economic shutdown. After all, the government's actions are undoubtedly keeping you safe. Taxes are a way of reallocating the cost. As someone making income during the shutdown, my taxes will be higher than someone who is not (even if they get a bailout). Thus I will help pay for them. This is good. Not every business is equally affected. Those that continue to remain active are able to do so because the government has taken massive steps to prevent a lot of people from dying. These businesses are unfairly benefiting from the current economic climate, while some businesses are being forced to suffer. The costs of this economic shutdown ought to be socialized, since the benefit of the shutdown is for society. This kind of economic action is unprecedented. I do not expect government compensation for natural disasters in general, because those are not the government's fault. I especially do not expect government compensation when people or businesses make mistakes. For example, in 2008, banks wrote bad loans, and irresponsible consumers took them on. There should have been no bailout at all. None of what happened was really the government's fault. However, if we did that, I don't see how anyone can escape responsibility here.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  forget about the legal technicalities for a moment. through no fault of their own, a subset of businesses are taking a disproportionate share of the burden of keeping us all safe. this is a direct result of government action that affects the employees as well as the owners. you don't think the government (ie, the taxpayers) have any obligation to make things right here?
  - duxup 7y ago
    The legal technicalities are how you decide things like liability and what to do in such situations. Without that it is just "something bad happened to me someone should pay". Do we ignore that the pandemic itself seems to call for the government to do a thing? The pandemic sure isn't government action.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      > Without that it is just "something bad happened to me someone should pay". it's a bit more specific than "something bad happened to me someone should pay". restaurants are going under as a direct result of government action. if they failed because people were too scared to go out to dinner, that would be a different story. can you not accept that it's possible for the government to do a good thing, but also owe compensation to people who are disproportionately harmed by that thing?
      - duxup 7y ago
        Government action, in response to an actual thing the government does not control, a pandemic. Just the basics of liability would seem to have to include being "liable". Hard to be liable for a pandemic.
        bavell 7y ago
        But the government does control it's response to the pandemic, right? Is it not liable for it's response? I don't know what the right answer is here but it's an interesting discussion.
- kortilla 7y ago
  There is no incentive issue there because the people in the government give zero shits about spending money in a time of crisis.

duxup 7y ago

You don't "accepted that it is okay to exchange people's lives for money" but that's the incentive you're creating by your proposal. I don't think efforts to deal with a pandemic is "legalization of civil asset forfeiture" and it feels like your understanding of the law is swerving all over the road here.

tathougies 7y ago
> I don't think efforts to deal with a pandemic is "legalization of civil asset forfeiture" and it feels like your understanding of the law is swerving all over the road here. That is not at all what I said. I said that stopping the economy without compensation to deal with a pandemic is akin to civil asset forfeiture. This has nothing to do with law, but with ethics. You take something away, you have to pay it back.
- duxup 7y ago
  There's a weird sort of thing here going where you seem to expect the government to act as a parachute for say a pandemic, but if the results are in any way negative they have to both eat the cost of the pandemic, and reimburse you if for some reason fighting it involves negatives for you. That seems like double dipping / transferring responsibility of all the problems of the world onto the government regardless if they created them or not.
  - honeyloop 7y ago
    They are saying that, due to restrictions put in place by the government, certain industries have been adversely affected and need to be made right. Closed restaurants, for example, have absolutely no revenue due to the actions of the government. How does that not warrant compensation by the entity that imposed the restrictions? Yes, it was for the best. But it still hindered certain industries ability to thrive (or make money at all).
  - tathougies 7y ago
    > but if the results are in any way negative they have to both eat the cost of the pandemic, and reimburse you if for some reason fighting it involves negatives for you. Yes, like how I expect the government to do things like conduct high speed chases of dangerous criminals, but if their police car hits me, I expect reimbursement. > That seems like double dipping / transferring responsibility of all the problems of the world onto the government regardless if they created them or not. The Government's checkbook ultimately comes from people's taxes, and yes, I expect people to be willing to float the cost of this economic shutdown. After all, the government's actions are undoubtedly keeping you safe. Taxes are a way of reallocating the cost. As someone making income during the shutdown, my taxes will be higher than someone who is not (even if they get a bailout). Thus I will help pay for them. This is good. Not every business is equally affected. Those that continue to remain active are able to do so because the government has taken massive steps to prevent a lot of people from dying. These businesses are unfairly benefiting from the current economic climate, while some businesses are being forced to suffer. The costs of this economic shutdown ought to be socialized, since the benefit of the shutdown is for society. This kind of economic action is unprecedented. I do not expect government compensation for natural disasters in general, because those are not the government's fault. I especially do not expect government compensation when people or businesses make mistakes. For example, in 2008, banks wrote bad loans, and irresponsible consumers took them on. There should have been no bailout at all. None of what happened was really the government's fault. However, if we did that, I don't see how anyone can escape responsibility here.
leetcrew 7y ago
forget about the legal technicalities for a moment. through no fault of their own, a subset of businesses are taking a disproportionate share of the burden of keeping us all safe. this is a direct result of government action that affects the employees as well as the owners. you don't think the government (ie, the taxpayers) have any obligation to make things right here?
- duxup 7y ago
  The legal technicalities are how you decide things like liability and what to do in such situations. Without that it is just "something bad happened to me someone should pay". Do we ignore that the pandemic itself seems to call for the government to do a thing? The pandemic sure isn't government action.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    > Without that it is just "something bad happened to me someone should pay". it's a bit more specific than "something bad happened to me someone should pay". restaurants are going under as a direct result of government action. if they failed because people were too scared to go out to dinner, that would be a different story. can you not accept that it's possible for the government to do a good thing, but also owe compensation to people who are disproportionately harmed by that thing?
    - duxup 7y ago
      Government action, in response to an actual thing the government does not control, a pandemic. Just the basics of liability would seem to have to include being "liable". Hard to be liable for a pandemic.
      - bavell 7y ago
        But the government does control it's response to the pandemic, right? Is it not liable for it's response? I don't know what the right answer is here but it's an interesting discussion.
kortilla 7y ago
There is no incentive issue there because the people in the government give zero shits about spending money in a time of crisis.