> What regulation was that? You yourself described it: the government-made laws allowed companies to pollute, and that prevented people from successfully suing

> What regulation was that? You yourself described it: the government-made laws allowed companies to pollute, and that prevented people from successfully suing them--because they weren't breaking the law. Because the government made the laws that way. > companies can only be sued for... breaking the law. In our current government-controlled environment, yes, this is true. But that is no argument for our current government-controlled environment being a good thing. > What do you mean "when it mattered?" Isn't that obvious? When it mattered was before the polluting started in the first place. What prevents people from stopping these things in advance? The fact that they don't own the land and the rivers and the air that are being polluted--the government does. So only the government can stop them from being polluted. The government has taken away the people's ownership of these things and is doing a very bad job of stewardship of them. And you think this is good?