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> I've never met a libertarian who believed in the right to secretly adulterate product Yes but they are not necessarily able to clearly explain how can that b

> I've never met a libertarian who believed in the right to secretly adulterate product Yes but they are not necessarily able to clearly explain how can that be prevented from happening without the ‘nanny state’. Which I assume what the comment above was implying, instead of explicitly supporting poisoning food.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
To be fair I've never heard anyone claim that 100% prevention is even possible. Even the most ardent libertarian at most believes that maybe 90% of the population can be 'protected' by various, non-govermental, systems to a sufficient degree, but there will always be some fraction, in this case tumeric eaters, that slowly get lead poisoned regardless.
harry8 3y ago
There's a discussion to be had there but I say, now explicitly, that it is pointless in this kind of bad faith context. Frame your incredulity as a question. How can this be prevented without a nanny state? Libertarians in general, do not believe in the legalisation of violence which is orthogonal to the nanny state. Same as if someone were to randomly put arsenic in your food. That understood how do you deal with it? It's your right to knowingly consume poison in full knowledge of what it is and what it does to you OR you are prevented from doing so because, when you have full knowledge, you will make the wrong decision deciding arsenic is tastier or whatever. Noting also there exist compromises between those two (eg you can do whatever to yourself, but it's made harder - with differing views on how good or bad such policy is). All of those /can/ prevent _unwitting_ lead poisoning. Which polict is best, according to what criteria and at what necessary cost in trade off is something on which reasonable people can disagree, and can be discussed productively and in good faith. But clearly not here today.

MichaelZuo 3y ago

To be fair I've never heard anyone claim that 100% prevention is even possible. Even the most ardent libertarian at most believes that maybe 90% of the population can be 'protected' by various, non-govermental, systems to a sufficient degree, but there will always be some fraction, in this case tumeric eaters, that slowly get lead poisoned regardless.

harry8 3y ago

There's a discussion to be had there but I say, now explicitly, that it is pointless in this kind of bad faith context. Frame your incredulity as a question. How can this be prevented without a nanny state? Libertarians in general, do not believe in the legalisation of violence which is orthogonal to the nanny state. Same as if someone were to randomly put arsenic in your food. That understood how do you deal with it? It's your right to knowingly consume poison in full knowledge of what it is and what it does to you OR you are prevented from doing so because, when you have full knowledge, you will make the wrong decision deciding arsenic is tastier or whatever. Noting also there exist compromises between those two (eg you can do whatever to yourself, but it's made harder - with differing views on how good or bad such policy is). All of those /can/ prevent _unwitting_ lead poisoning. Which polict is best, according to what criteria and at what necessary cost in trade off is something on which reasonable people can disagree, and can be discussed productively and in good faith. But clearly not here today.