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Would you prefer it any other way? Instead of going to the High Court your government can just say "what we say goes, and if you happened to be in business X th

Would you prefer it any other way? Instead of going to the High Court your government can just say "what we say goes, and if you happened to be in business X that we no longer like, you're out of luck", I'd rather see them fight in courts. A dying business fighting tooth and nail for their survival is understandable and expected whatever poison they happen to be selling.

lemming 12y ago
Of course I'd prefer it another way. Whether you like it or not, businesses are subject to all sorts of regulations from governments. Maybe you're a believer in the free market; I'm not. I'd like businesses that make their living exploiting people to be regulated.
- kozhevnikov 12y ago
  Of course, but those regulations come from somewhere, they come from court cases, from subject matter experts' testimonials, from balanced review of views and facts on both sides. We don't want a random politician with questionable morals and unknown contributors banning products or whole sectors of the market bypassing courts and due process.
  - seren 12y ago
    To be fair, restrictions on tobacco products are well supported by the majority of, at the very least non-smokers, voters in most Western countries. You don't see massive demonstrations or petitions to reinstate the right to smoke in office, restaurant, public place, etc. In some case, it might be more dubious, but for tobacco consumption I think the trend is pretty clear.
    - hammerdr 12y ago
      Anecdotally, many smokers also support continued regulations on tobacco products. Tobacco companies have very little sympathy in the zeitgeist.
  - chris_wot 12y ago
    Court cases are ultimately decided based on the law which, as you know, is created and enacted on via a parliament or congress of elected politicians. Yes, even case law. Unless you think that a court can rule outside the law?
    - seren 12y ago
      It might depends if you live in common law or civil law country. In the former case, you could say that sometimes a judge could create a law. Less so in the latter case. GP is very likely coming from the common law perspective.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
loup-vaillant 12y ago
Actually, having the government having the power to dismantle the kind of businesses they don't like is actually a neat idea. I know our representative governments aren't democratic (despite elections and stuff). But big capitalist corporations are even worse. So, before we get rid of governments and their ludicrously concentrated power, why don't we look at the elephant in the room first: corporations and their even more ludicrously concentrated power? > A dying business fighting tooth and nail for their survival is understandable and expected whatever poison they happen to be selling. This analogy (fighting for survival) doesn't really hold: corporations aren't persons. We don't care about corporations, we care about the people affected by them (both inside and outside). A corporation fighting for survival doesn't have the same moral right as a person fighting for survival, despite most laws treating them as "moral persons". Human death is horrible. The end of a business, frankly, is no big deal. (What is a big deal is the subsequent unemployment —but that can be mitigated.)
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > So, before we get rid of governments and their ludicrously concentrated power, why don't we look at the elephant in the room first: corporations and their even more ludicrously concentrated power? Hey, Marx is back ! Instead of looking at the wrong elephant, i.e. the one actually selling products that people want, I'd say you better attack the one that's 1) taxing you to death for subpar services 2) force-feeding their education to your kids (brainwashing) 3) getting away with mismanagement of public resources (politician immunity) 4) able to resort to violent actions should you not respect them (take your possessions, imprison you, or worse). 5) can make you go to war and die. For free. Yeah, sure, Corporations are SUPER Evil. Except that they are actually composed of normal people like you and me, while the people in power in Governments are certainly from a far more selected class that you can never hope to reach. But believe what you want.
  - barrkel 12y ago
    actually selling products that people want Selling products a minority of people want, products that the vast majority do not want their children consuming or seeing as glamourous in any way. The fact that some people want a product does not create a moral right to that product, and does not mean it is wrong for a government to enforce laws restricting and prohibiting those products.
chris_wot 12y ago
Yes. I would like the laws I live under to be debated and enacted under a transparent democratic process, not a process that makes major changes to the society I live in via a series of secret negotiations and deals made by faceless and unaccountable men and women who weren't democratically elected. Does that answer your question?

lemming 12y ago

Of course I'd prefer it another way. Whether you like it or not, businesses are subject to all sorts of regulations from governments. Maybe you're a believer in the free market; I'm not. I'd like businesses that make their living exploiting people to be regulated.

kozhevnikov 12y ago
Of course, but those regulations come from somewhere, they come from court cases, from subject matter experts' testimonials, from balanced review of views and facts on both sides. We don't want a random politician with questionable morals and unknown contributors banning products or whole sectors of the market bypassing courts and due process.
- seren 12y ago
  To be fair, restrictions on tobacco products are well supported by the majority of, at the very least non-smokers, voters in most Western countries. You don't see massive demonstrations or petitions to reinstate the right to smoke in office, restaurant, public place, etc. In some case, it might be more dubious, but for tobacco consumption I think the trend is pretty clear.
  - hammerdr 12y ago
    Anecdotally, many smokers also support continued regulations on tobacco products. Tobacco companies have very little sympathy in the zeitgeist.
- chris_wot 12y ago
  Court cases are ultimately decided based on the law which, as you know, is created and enacted on via a parliament or congress of elected politicians. Yes, even case law. Unless you think that a court can rule outside the law?
  - seren 12y ago
    It might depends if you live in common law or civil law country. In the former case, you could say that sometimes a judge could create a law. Less so in the latter case. GP is very likely coming from the common law perspective.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

loup-vaillant 12y ago

Actually, having the government having the power to dismantle the kind of businesses they don't like is actually a neat idea. I know our representative governments aren't democratic (despite elections and stuff). But big capitalist corporations are even worse. So, before we get rid of governments and their ludicrously concentrated power, why don't we look at the elephant in the room first: corporations and their even more ludicrously concentrated power? > A dying business fighting tooth and nail for their survival is understandable and expected whatever poison they happen to be selling. This analogy (fighting for survival) doesn't really hold: corporations aren't persons. We don't care about corporations, we care about the people affected by them (both inside and outside). A corporation fighting for survival doesn't have the same moral right as a person fighting for survival, despite most laws treating them as "moral persons". Human death is horrible. The end of a business, frankly, is no big deal. (What is a big deal is the subsequent unemployment —but that can be mitigated.)

ekianjo 12y ago
> So, before we get rid of governments and their ludicrously concentrated power, why don't we look at the elephant in the room first: corporations and their even more ludicrously concentrated power? Hey, Marx is back ! Instead of looking at the wrong elephant, i.e. the one actually selling products that people want, I'd say you better attack the one that's 1) taxing you to death for subpar services 2) force-feeding their education to your kids (brainwashing) 3) getting away with mismanagement of public resources (politician immunity) 4) able to resort to violent actions should you not respect them (take your possessions, imprison you, or worse). 5) can make you go to war and die. For free. Yeah, sure, Corporations are SUPER Evil. Except that they are actually composed of normal people like you and me, while the people in power in Governments are certainly from a far more selected class that you can never hope to reach. But believe what you want.
- barrkel 12y ago
  actually selling products that people want Selling products a minority of people want, products that the vast majority do not want their children consuming or seeing as glamourous in any way. The fact that some people want a product does not create a moral right to that product, and does not mean it is wrong for a government to enforce laws restricting and prohibiting those products.

chris_wot 12y ago

Yes. I would like the laws I live under to be debated and enacted under a transparent democratic process, not a process that makes major changes to the society I live in via a series of secret negotiations and deals made by faceless and unaccountable men and women who weren't democratically elected. Does that answer your question?