quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: *nod* Which is, sadly, the only reason I'm not a Libertarian; scratch one, and they pop.
Seth Finklestein's "House of Cards" theory as used to describe libertarianism is apt:
quote:The fanatical opposition of Libertarians to anti-discrimination laws also illuminates a crucial aspect of the effects of the philosophy. They can never admit even one instance of government intervention doing good overall for society as opposed to the effects of the market. This isn't a matter of preference, it's absolutely crucial to the function of the ideology. If they ever do that, then it's an admission that social engineering can work, the market can fail, and it's just a matter of figuring out what is the proper mixture to have the best society.
This is what sets it apart from Liberalism, Conservatism, and so on. One outcome against prediction will not send those intellectual foundations crashing down, because they aren't based so heavily on absolute rules applications. Libertarianism, by contrast, if it ever concedes a market failure fixed by a government law, is in deep trouble.
So this in turn leads Libertarians into amazing flights of fancy, for example, to deny the success of civil-rights laws. They must say institutional segregation was somehow all the government's fault, or it would have gone away anyway, or something like that. Rather than racism, it's being made stupid by ideology-poisoning.
Libertarian logic is an axiomatic system that bears very little resemblance to standard deductive thought - which is in part why it's so debilitating to people. It's a little like one of those non-Euclidean geometries, internally valid results can be derived from the postulates, but they sound extremely weird when applied to the real world.
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There are a lot of things wrong with health care in this country, but just laying them at the door of privatization and saying, "See, clearly privatization doesn't work!" is such an over simplification to be nearly meaningless.
Are there advantages and disadvantages to both government run and private run systems...yes! Does the way private and government interact fall in that scale...yes!
I don't think generalities are helpful at this level.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: By compel, I mean coerce. So, nothing.
Should the defence of the nation be privatized? Would "market" forces provide a "better" military? If not what makes it different from healthcare, telecommunications, utilities, or education?
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: There are a lot of things wrong with health care in this country, but just laying them at the door of privatization and saying, "See, clearly privatization doesn't work!" is such an over simplification to be nearly meaningless.
Are there advantages and disadvantages to both government run and private run systems...yes! Does the way private and government interact fall in that scale...yes!
I don't think generalities are helpful at this level.
But clearly US healthcare is significantly more privatized than most if not in fact every other western system; and provides worse care on a per capita basis adjusted for scale than every other western nation. Every other western nation has significantly higher degree of socialization of their healthcare, by having universal coverage that is paid for through progressive taxation. The results speak for themselves.
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Some of the statements by Mr. Finkelstein are straw men and misrepresentations. There are libertarians that are okay with civil rights laws. There are different attitudes towards what the proper role of a minimal government should be.
Government may be effective at stamping out racism, but it isn't necessary. In fact, government could be more effective or more quick to reduce racism than a market since it can punish it harshly. However, markets could punish racism as well. It depends on how much people care to discriminate against racist companies and how much they prefer or don't prefer to consume products and services made along racist lines.
The benefit of civil rights laws in reducing racism is questionable. People were becoming less racist before civil-rights laws. The argument has been made that civil rights laws backfire by motivating employers to hire fewer employees that might sue under civil rights laws. Having an employee that might sue makes that employee costly to hire, so an employer may simply refuse to hire that employee rather than risk a lawsuit.
Businesses were prevented from opening non-racist diners because of Jim Crow laws, so the south may have been less racist were it not for government-sponsored racism. How racist people are still can depend on their preference for racism.
The idea of market failure is really a difference of values for what should be produced. Some people don't care to pay for a good, so it is reasoned that a market has failed because that good is inordinately valuable. Seawater is polluted because markets fail at protecting the environment. This isn't a market failure; it's a difference in values. People don't care enough to pay the costs of protecting the environment (if that is what happens).
There's nothing inconsistent with libertarianism in conceding that governments do good overall for society, but libertarians may not prefer government intervention because they think that freedom is better. Furthermore, free markets can produce what governments produce.
I don't understand this statement, "Libertarian logic is an axiomatic system that bears very little resemblance to standard deductive thought " Isn't an axiomatic system precisely deductive? They are the same thing.
How does US healthcare provide worse care on a per capita basis adjusted for scale than every other western nation?
There are some things that the US system does well. I think I read that the market for generic medicines in the US makes generic medicines cheaper than most every other country. Also, in Canada, you have to wait to get elective surgery, even life-saving surgery, since it is rationed. In the US, you can get it so long as you can pay for it.
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: How does US healthcare provide worse care on a per capita basis adjusted for scale than every other western nation?
There are multiple reasons why. But make no mistake, it does provide worse care. And at an exorbitantly much higher cost — well over two times the developed world's median — while being the only nation in that category that does not provide universal care to every citizen.
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: Some of the statements by Mr. Finkelstein are straw men and misrepresentations. There are libertarians that are okay with civil rights laws.
Do you think that they are right? If a libertarian thought that it was good that the government forced you to serve customers without any regard for their race, are you going to agree with them?
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I, by the way, am rather fond of civil rights laws.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: National defense could be privatized.
How does US healthcare provide worse care on a per capita basis adjusted for scale than every other western nation?
There are some things that the US system does well. I think I read that the market for generic medicines in the US makes generic medicines cheaper than most every other country. Also, in Canada, you have to wait to get elective surgery, even life-saving surgery, since it is rationed. In the US, you can get it so long as you can pay for it.
Only if you can't pay for it otherwise. Specifically if your in a position to be able to pay for private insurance that can do it quicker than you still have that option, but for an overwhelming majority of Canadians we would not be able to afford "US-style" healthcare; 50,000$ if I recall for reattaching a finger.
quote: This isn't a market failure; it's a difference in values. People don't care enough to pay the costs of protecting the environment (if that is what happens).
No, it is a free market failure. Because the market isn't meant, designed or intended to factor in "values" only the value of a good, and the fact of the matter is that the "market" only acts against resource depletion only when the stocks are so heavily depleted as to be effectively too late to reverse. Every individual actor in each case was acting in their rational best interest to make a profit. But lacked the objective or scientific perspective to see the "tragedy" as it were unfolding before them.
In fact it seems like the entire US economy is running on faulty assumptions from deliberately obstification in its data collection. Manipulated CDI values to cut Social Security, adjustments to how inflation is calculated to make it look like there's growth when in reality there's been a recession for the US since the yearly 2000's and an entire sensationalist lazy media at best to one dedicated to spreading misinformation and lies at worst about the very real economic realities facing the US.
Plutarch had once wrote that income inequality inevitably leads to the downfall of all republics. Things need to change course and quickly.
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quote: Seawater is polluted because markets fail at protecting the environment. This isn't a market failure; it's a difference in values.
No, it fundamentally is a market failure, in that people are not necessarily able to intelligently determine the personal economic value of all things. This is, in fact, something that you would do well to understand: a market model is inherently flawed precisely because people cannot be trusted to value things correctly, even in their own self-interest.
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quote:A public good must be non-excludable by the definition of a public good. Education is excludable; hence, it is not a public good. The simple fact that a school could theoretically exclude students from attending establishes that schooling is not an economic public good. It doesn't matter that under present practice schools exclude students only if they violate some rules. That alone establishes that school/education is not a public good since it establishes that schools are capable of excluding people from using their services. A student being able to attend whatever school they choose regardless of any circumstances is not a requirement for a government school to be a public good.
So, then, there are no public goods, really-because there is nothing that is absolutely, for all time, completely inviolable to everyone under the sun who is a citizen. (Yes, this includes national defense.) For the present, sure, America is in a position of military dominance over sufficient portions of the world that no one is going to be invaded, but this hasn't always been the case and, human nations being what they are, likely won't be the case forever. It's an interesting bit of absolutist thinking.
quote:America's history has not been a history of unrestrained free market competition, so I don't think strong conclusions about free market competition can be drawn from America's history. Some private schools really aren't free market schools since they are regulated and subsidized by government.
This is another classic Libertarian line of reasoning, and I've always thought it's strange. I mean, on the one hand, America has never been a totally free-market society, so we can't draw strong conclusions. Ask a Libertarian (and I'm asking you personally, Earl) if strong conclusions can be drawn about...communism and socialism. There's never been a society on Earth that lived up to the 100% ideal communist or socialist system, either. But I'll bet you arrive at some pretty strong conclusions about the dangers and flaws of communism and socialism.
That's really the single biggest flaw with Libertarianism (as it is often practiced or rather believed, anyway) that I can see: evidence is not given equal chances.
quote:How do you know what is best for consumers when people want different things and have different demands and interests? How do you measure what is best for people? Who gets to decide what is best for consumers? You?
Me and, y'know, a plurality of my voting peers, yeah.
quote:This confuses necessity with sufficiency. The fact that governments provide education doesn't mean that we need government to do it. With government education, we have no choice but to pay for it. Government education is not free; it is paid for by taxes, and a free market could provide it for less money than governments spend. Poor people are able to afford education from free markets, as the video I linked to shows.
What your video showed was an example of poor people affording education from free markets. It most emphatically didn't show the generalization that you're making. How many videos out there do you think there are of excellent public schools working brilliantly for a given region across the world? I somehow suspect that such a video wouldn't prove conclusive to you.
quote:By compel, I mean coerce. So, nothing.
Another classic Libertarian theme. We live in a representative system. Unless everyone agrees all the time, that means that by definition some people aren't going to be getting what they want some of the time. This equals 'coercion', apparently.
quote:Government may be effective at stamping out racism, but it isn't necessary. In fact, government could be more effective or more quick to reduce racism than a market since it can punish it harshly. However, markets could punish racism as well. It depends on how much people care to discriminate against racist companies and how much they prefer or don't prefer to consume products and services made along racist lines.
Where has racism been 'stamped out' without government involvement? Or is this a case where you can't draw strong conclusions about 100% free markets because they don't exist, but you can draw strong conclusions about socialism/communism, but you can't draw strong conclusions about the need for government to deal with racism...but you can draw strong conclusions about the lack of a need for government to deal with racism. Despite the fact that...well, hasn't been done anywhere that I know of. Do you?
quote:The benefit of civil rights laws in reducing racism is questionable. People were becoming less racist before civil-rights laws. The argument has been made that civil rights laws backfire by motivating employers to hire fewer employees that might sue under civil rights laws. Having an employee that might sue makes that employee costly to hire, so an employer may simply refuse to hire that employee rather than risk a lawsuit.
*snort* Here is yet another Libertarian example of minimizing actual history in favor of what would have happened in an imaginary ideal situation...while supporting the latter by evidence drawn from history, while denying the former when looking at history. People were 'becoming less racist' for thousands of years.
quote:There's nothing inconsistent with libertarianism in conceding that governments do good overall for society, but libertarians may not prefer government intervention because they think that freedom is better. Furthermore, free markets can produce what governments produce.
Freedom and government intervention isn't incompatible. It's just not. That's a falsehood (I don't think you're lying, just that you're wrong) right at the start. It's a representative system. Not getting your way all of the time doesn't equal oppression. Strangely, it's one that privatization wouldn't resolve either. Do all boardrooms agree all the time? No.
quote:National defense could be privatized.
Do you have an...example of this being done successfully? Or is this another Libertarian ideal that doesn't require strong real-world examples?
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Touching anti-discrimination laws: It may be worth pointing out that the market was never given a chance. The US went straight from having the old Jim-Crow laws to the various anti-discrimination measures. We do not know what would have happened if there had just been the repeal of the discriminatory laws; but it seems likely that, since the laws were thought necessary, the discrimination could not have been maintained voluntarily.
National defense: The feudal system is basically a formalisation of private, decentralised defense.
Pollution is a market failure because nobody owns the seawater. It is not that people mis-value the effects of pollution on themselves; pollution does not affect any one person very strongly. It's only when you add up a small effect over very many people that you see the true cost. This is a classic case of concentrated benefits (one factory owner can make a lot of money from polluting) and diluted costs. It is not the case that the factory owners are failing to evaluate the costs correctly, it is just that they don't have to pay for the costs they impose on others. This market fails because it doesn't exist: Nobody is able to enforce a claim to the tiny bit of seawater that they might reasonably be said to own. A rational government would say "Right, everyone owns so-and-so much seawater and they can pollute that bit; if they want to pollute anyone else's water, they can negotiate with the other owners for the right to do so." In practice this should probably be done as a cap-and-trade system with the proceeds being evenly distributed across the population, since it's a bit impractical to track down six billion individual quota owners. People who wanted to keep their own bit unpolluted could opt out of the system, reducing the cap and forgoing the payments. The point is, however, that markets are created only by force, specifically, the force that enforces ownership. In the case of land that force can be supplied by the owner and his neighbours forming a local militia; but that's a special case. For things like pollution rights, a government is required to make the market.
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Blayne Bradley
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Wouldnt that be a good argument for cap and trade then?
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Um, yes. That's what I said. Cap and trade is not government intervention in a freely functioning market, it is government intervention to create a market that didn't exist.
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Blayne Bradley
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I'm just putting it out there, C&T gets alot of flak.
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: Also, in Canada, you have to wait to get elective surgery, even life-saving surgery, since it is rationed.
I have not seen this to be more the case in Canada than the US, at least for non-elective procedures. Often for elective, as well.
It would be odd if the above claim were to be true *and* not have it reflected in the respective overall morbidity and mortality rates. And it doesn't seem to be.
[Note: if you don't think there is rationing in the US, then you've likely never tried to get preapproval from an insurance company for an expensive medical procedure! Or, thankfully, had to deal with the fallout of getting the covergae that was initially promised.]
As someone with a prior open heart surgery, when I was concerned about my cardiac health in the US, I had to schedule an appointment with a family care doctor before I could be seen by a cardiology specialist. Finding a family care doctor who was both accepting new patients and took my HMO took a couple of weeks, and then it was several months before I could be booked into cardiology. It turned out that I was indeed developing heart failure and needed a second open heart surgery. Which was booked some time out into the future.
Contrast this to the experience I had as a medical student visiting to work in Canada. When I started having some cardiac symptoms, I was covered already on provincial health insurance and could walk into any of the many family doctor clinics in the city (which -- by the way -- are run as private small businesses, without their patient volume and practice limited by HMO regulations). I was seen the next day, got an echocardiogram the day after that, and was started immediately on IV antibiotics for endocarditis that staved off complications for a good long while.
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Added: The Canadian system has its problems. The US system has its problems. These statements are not mutually exclusionary.
But when you are judging one system versus another system, you look at systemic outcomes -- which are better for Canada, as well as several other developed countries. This is true for morbidity and mortality indicators as well as for patient satisfaction surveys. When large random samples from the various populations are asked, Americans tend to be less satisfied with their system, and they tend to be sicker and more likely to die earlier. That doesn't mean you can't find dissatisfied people in other countries -- just a lower percentage of them.
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@CT: I wonder where you get the data that systemic outcomes are better in Canada.
@TomDavidson: Only an individual can determine what is in their self-interest. If people are ignorant of the effects of something, then they can be educated about that in a market so that they may eventually make other choices. Ignorance of the effects of something is something that would exist if government intervened in a market as well.
@Rakeesh: A public good requires non-excludability. National defense is non-excludable since people cannot be excluded from the benefits of their homes being defended from invaders.
Why weren't societies able to achieve 100% ideal communism and socialism? Communism-in-practice is what history shows us.
I think your ideas about freedom are equivocated. When talking about government intervention, it is meant negative freedom is infringed. This is the freedom to do what you want with your own resources (without infringing on others property rights, etc.) Constraints are not placed on you to do so. Meanwhile positive freedom is the freedom to actually get what you want. For example, not getting what you want from a corporate board because they won't give it to you prevents you from obtaining a desirable object. (They don't have to give it to you.) However, this does not infringe on your right to pursue with your own property, etc. the things that you want. Hence, government intervention, which takes away people's ability to do with their own property, etc. what they want is incompatible with negative freedom.
Adding to King of Men's example I have the following to add. The British in the American Revolution were confronted and defeated by the minutemen, local militia not a government military, in the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
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quote:If people are ignorant of the effects of something, then they can be educated about that in a market so that they may eventually make other choices. Ignorance of the effects of something is something that would exist if government intervened in a market as well.
*laugh* I'm curious: are you naive enough to really believe this, or are you just refusing to bite the bullet of your own ideology and own up to its flaws?
quote:A public good requires non-excludability.
Why do you think so? Or, more to the point, at what level of scarcity do you consider that something might not be a public good? If, for example, the air we breathe could in fact be partitioned out and rented to us by the government -- something that's certainly technically possible, if hysterically unlikely -- would you argue that breathable air would at that moment cease to be a public good? (More to the point, you do recognize that the people using the phrase "public good" in this thread have been largely referring to pooled goods, right? Given this, would you apply different arguments?)
quote:When talking about government intervention, it is meant negative freedom is infringed.
More accurately, you are talking about negative freedom.
quote:The British in the American Revolution were confronted and defeated by the minutemen, local militia not a government military, in the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
And if those were the only two battles fought, you'd have a point. But, y'know, they weren't. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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@TomDavidson: I don't see what's so naive about thinking that education about the effects of market choices can influence consumer behavior.
I don't see much point in debating so much about whether or not something is a public good. This is a squabble over economic jargon. A public good requires non-excludability because that is its definition. Partitioned air (like in outer space) would cease to be a public good (since it can be excluded). Terms like public goods can be rather fuzzy.
A pooled good on the other hand, can be provided by a free market. People can pool their resources to pay for something. They do this with insurance.
@Samprimary:
"Where do you get the data that they're not?"
I'm not making the claims. I'm interested where these facts come from. A claim isn't proven right because I can't prove the opposite claim.
"By that logic, public education is non-excludable since people can't be exculded from the benefits of living in a more literate, educated society."
This is an external benefit rather than a public good. They're different things.
@CT: What data?
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: @CT: What data?
The data that provides the basis you use to assess US and Canadian healthcare systems. For example, the four claims below:
quote: 1. There are some things that the US system does well. 2. I think I read that the market for generic medicines in the US makes generic medicines cheaper than most every other country. 3. Also, in Canada, you have to wait to get elective surgery, even life-saving surgery, since it is rationed. 4. In the US, you can get it so long as you can pay for it.
I have been a patient on both sides of the border. More importantly from a systems-assessment perspective, I am a trained physician who worked a 2-year research position funded by the US National Institutes of Health in order to study these issues (among others), have completed a fellowship specific to research training, and worked on these matters as a part of a graduate thesis.
I know the field and the players well, and I'm invested in staying up to date and advocating both for my home country (the USA) and for patients on both sides of the border.
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PS: Mind you, I don't disagree that there are some things the US healthcare system does well. I am just curious as to how you yourself go about gathering and assessing information about it. And Canada's.
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Added: I'm also extraordinarily cranky right now, being in the middle of a move across over a thousand miles.
I shouldn't take that out on you. My apologies for being abrupt and surly.
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quote: "Where do you get the data that they're not?"
I'm not making the claims. I'm interested where these facts come from. A claim isn't proven right because I can't prove the opposite claim.
You are making some claims, actually. But for the sake of figuring out where you're hedging from: do you think the canadian healthcare system or the american healthcare system works better?
quote:"By that logic, public education is non-excludable since people can't be exculded from the benefits of living in a more literate, educated society."
This is an external benefit rather than a public good. They're different things.
You are describing them the same, then arbitrarily attaching different labels to them. Not being invaded by foreigners is as much an 'external benefit' to national defense as a literate educated society is an 'external benefit' of national schooling, because they're both core intended functions of each system. There's no sufficient reason to differentiate the labels, except to create an arbitrary, artificial distinction in moral acceptability of public funding.
@CT: What data? [/QB][/QUOTE]
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I created a new topic for discussing US and Canadian healthcare, and I cite some sources that I found since this is a bit off topic.
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quote:Originally posted by EarlNMeyer-Flask: I cite some sources that I found since this is a bit off topic.
I read you as saying you cited some sources you just found to reference on this topic today to further the discussion now-- is that right? But I am curious as to where you have gotten your information about the systems in the past, specifically in reference to the claims made above.
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Added: I am interested because I find it hard to follow many people's thinking in these matters, and I don't know generallyif people are aware of the information sources that are out there and which are more reliable, or if they have a handle on how to assess that information in a useful way.
I think it may be that many people hear things bandied about but don't know (or have enough interest) to look at more detailed sources.
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Ok, about the militia in the colonies, it was very much a government function, just not the federal government, since, y'know, there wasn't one. (In fact they were a direct import from England. If you check out the English Civil War, for example, you'll find militias all over the place.) The state governments were always trying to get people to take the militia obligation (observe that service was compulsory for all able-bodied men!) seriously and show up for drill once in a while, and failing miserably. As a result of which, the militias uniformly sucked. At Lexington/Concord they outnumbered the regulars two to one, and failed to inflict anything worse than a check. At Ticonderoga the New England militias showed up in time to consume much-needed supplies, then went back home before the English arrived. At Bunker Hill the Americans were driven from a well fortified position by, no less, a bayonet charge. There are no instances of colonial militias standing their ground in the open against reasonably even numbers of British regulars. If you want good examples of privatised defense, the American state militias really will not serve.
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When I originally said something about education not being a public good, I was making a technical point about economic jargon. My argument about it has nothing to do with moral acceptability of public funding.
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Oh yeah, good point the militias aren't really a good example of private defense, but they are less centralized than a federal military.
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quote: I don't see what's so naive about thinking that education about the effects of market choices can influence consumer behavior.
I will ask some leading questions, in the hope that you -- in the course of answering them -- will understand.
1) Who should provide this education? 2) Would this education be mandatory? 3) How would the standards of this education be established and maintained?
It is my hope that you reached #3 and realized that, yeah, any such education would be pathetic and worthless at best unless there were a compelling economic interest for at least one private party to guarantee otherwise -- which, let's face it, is highly unlikely.
quote:I don't see much point in debating so much about whether or not something is a public good. This is a squabble over economic jargon.
I agree. So, rather than hiding behind definitions, why not address the meaning of the arguments being presented to you?
quote:A pooled good on the other hand, can be provided by a free market. People can pool their resources to pay for something. They do this with insurance.
You misunderstand what a pooled good is, in this case. It is a good that is doled out (or purchased) from a single common pool of limited resource, not a good that is paid for from a common pool.
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1) Who should provide this education? This education, by which is meant information about effects of a product or quality of a product or service, can be provided by businesses or consumers that have some incentive to provide it. For example, Microsoft and Sun could provide information on the quality of one another's server technology informing consumers of the benefits and costs of using them. A charitable organization or a non-profit organization provides information to the public about effects of environmental pollutants because they have some interest in doing so. Pehaps they are environmentalists.
2) Would this education be mandatory? No one is compelled to learn information or provide it.
3) How would the standards of this education be established and maintained? The accuracy of information is vetted by other organizations and skeptical consumers with some interest in its accuracy.
quote:You misunderstand what a pooled good is, in this case. It is a good that is doled out (or purchased) from a single common pool of limited resource, not a good that is paid for from a common pool.
Is there authority on this?
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About private defense, I just remembered that Norway's army, from around 1870 onwards, was supposed to be supplemented by rifle clubs, the "volunteer shooters". Even now there are apparently 150000 rifle-club members in Norway, which is a pretty large percentage of a population of 5 million. Now you can argue about how private this was; the overall organisation was instituted by the Storting. Still, membership was always voluntary. The statutes of the organisation include a sentence about its purpose: ""The National Rifle Association's goal is to promote marksmanship throughout the Norwegian population and thus prepare the population for National Defence". I observe in passing that similar government support and propaganda is the reason why outdoor sports, especially skiing and orienteering, are much more popular in Norway (and Scandinavia) than outside it; these were thought to be useful skills for war.
Now one can argue about how well all of this worked. The invention of cheap machine guns, heavy artillery, and especially airpower and tanks tended to reduce the effect of individual riflemen. In 1940, part of the system worked as intended: The resistance to the German invasion, such as it was, rested basically on volunteers, because the government (demonstrating near-treasonous incompetence, for which they should have been shot after the war) failed to mobilise the regular Army fully, even after they realised the invasion was happening. On the other hand, these militias were unable to accomplish much of anything against the regular troops of the Wehrmacht; the famous delaying action (perhaps not so famous outside Norway!) at Midtskogen, for example, was just that: A delaying action, which just barely kept the Germans at bay long enough for the government to make good its escape. There was certainly no question of counterattacking against regular units of the Wehrmacht. Conversely, the resistance in the north lasted until the Allied troops departed for France because there, the regular units of the 6th division had time to mobilise and organise.
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quote: A charitable organization or a non-profit organization provides information to the public about effects of environmental pollutants because they have some interest in doing so. Pehaps they are environmentalists.
How is this hypothetical non-profit organization funded? (Let's bear in mind, too, that we're talking about a libertarian paradise here, in which the distinction between a for-profit and non-profit organization is moot.)
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Blayne Bradley
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quote: Do not use Medicare. Do not use Social Security Do not become a member of the US military, who are paid with tax dollars. Do not ask the National Guard to help you after a disaster. Do not call 911 when you get hurt. Do not call the police to stop intruders in your home. Do not summon the fire department to save your burning home. Do not drive on any paved road, highway, and interstate or drive on any bridge. Do not use public restrooms. Do not send your kids to public schools. Do not put your trash out for city garbage collectors. Do not live in areas with clean air. Do not drink clean water. Do not visit National Parks. Do not visit public museums, zoos, and monuments. Do not eat or use FDA inspected food and medicines. Do not bring your kids to public playgrounds. Do not walk or run on sidewalks. Do not use public recreational facilities such as basketball and tennis courts. Do not seek shelter facilities or food in soup kitchens when you are homeless and hungry. Do not apply for educational or job training assistance when you lose your job. Do not apply for food stamps when you can’t feed your children. Do not use the judiciary system for any reason. Do not ask for an attorney when you are arrested and do not ask for one to be assigned to you by the court. Do not apply for any Pell Grants. Do not use cures that were discovered by labs using federal dollars. Do not fly on federally regulated airplanes. Do not use any product that can trace its development back to NASA. Do not watch the weather provided by the National Weather Service. Do not listen to severe weather warnings from the National Weather Service. Do not listen to tsunami, hurricane, or earthquake alert systems. Do not apply for federal housing. Do not use the internet, which was developed by the military. Do not swim in clean rivers. Do not allow your child to eat school lunches or breakfasts. Do not ask for FEMA assistance when everything you own gets wiped out by disaster. Do not ask the military to defend your life and home in the event of a foreign invasion. Do not use your cell phone or home telephone. Do not buy firearms that wouldn’t have been developed without the support of the US Government and military. That includes most of them. Do not eat USDA inspected produce and meat. Do not apply for government grants to start your own business. Do not apply to win a government contract. Do not buy any vehicle that has been inspected by government safety agencies. Do not buy any product that is protected from poisons, toxins, etc…by the Consumer Protection Agency. Do not save your money in a bank that is FDIC insured. Do not use Veterans benefits or military health care. Do not use the G.I. Bill to go to college. Do not apply for unemployment benefits. Do not use any electricity from companies regulated by the Department of Energy. Do not live in homes that are built to code. Do not run for public office. Politicians are paid with taxpayer dollars. Do not ask for help from the FBI, S.W.A.T, the bomb squad, Homeland Security, State troopers, etc… Do not apply for any government job whatsoever as all state and federal employees are paid with tax dollars. Do not use public libraries. Do not use the US Postal Service. Do not visit the National Archives. Do not visit Presidential Libraries. Do not use airports that are secured by the federal government. Do not apply for loans from any bank that is FDIC insured. Do not ask the government to help you clean up after a tornado. Do not ask the Department of Agriculture to provide a subsidy to help you run your farm. Do not take walks in National Forests. Do not ask for taxpayer dollars for your oil company. Do not ask the federal government to bail your company out during recessions. Do not seek medical care from places that use federal dollars. Do not use Medicaid. Do not use WIC. Do not use electricity generated by Hoover Dam. Do not use electricity or any service provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Do not ask the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild levees when they break. Do not let the Coast Guard save you from drowning when your boat capsizes at sea. Do not ask the government to help evacuate you when all hell breaks loose in the country you are in. Do not visit historic landmarks. Do not visit fisheries. Do not expect to see animals that are federally protected because of the Endangered Species List. Do not expect plows to clear roads of snow and ice so your kids can go to school and so you can get to work. Do not hunt or camp on federal land. Do not work anywhere that has a safe workplace because of government regulations. Do not use public transportation. Do not drink water from public water fountains. Do not whine when someone copies your work and sells it as their own. Government enforces copyright laws. Do not expect to own your home, car, or boat. Government organizes and keeps all titles. Do not expect convicted felons to remain off the streets. Do not eat in restaurants that are regulated by food quality and safety standards. Do not seek help from the US Embassy if you need assistance in a foreign nation. Do not apply for a passport to travel outside of the United States. Do not apply for a patent when you invent something. Do not adopt a child through your local, state, or federal governments. 89.Do not use elevators that have been inspected by federal or state safety regulators. Do not use any resource that was discovered by the USGS. Do not ask for energy assistance from the government. Do not move to any other developed nation, because the taxes are much higher. Do not go to a beach that is kept clean by the state. Do not use money printed by the US Treasury. Do not complain when millions more illegal immigrants cross the border because there are no more border patrol agents. Do not attend a state university. Do not see any doctor that is licensed through the state. Do not use any water from municipal water systems. Do not complain when diseases and viruses, that were once fought around the globe by the US government and CDC, reach your house. Do not work for any company that is required to pay its workers a livable wage, provide them sick days, vacation days, and benefits. Do not expect to be able to vote on election days. Government provides voting booths, election day officials, and voting machines which are paid for with taxes. Do not ride trains. The railroad was built with government financial assistance.
posted
list is dumb. it's like recommending to an anti-war protester that they should 'go live somewhere else' if they don't like our war.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: And I find it mildly frustrating (it used to be amusing) that you hate people laughing at your expense in the just same way you did at theirs.
Grow up some more Blayne.
I believe your exaggerating a fair bit there, though I should point out that I don't recall you stepping in the last few times people did so then, maybe show some consistency?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: And I find it mildly frustrating (it used to be amusing) that you hate people laughing at your expense in the just same way you did at theirs.
Grow up some more Blayne.
I believe your exaggerating a fair bit there, though I should point out that I don't recall you stepping in the last few times people did so then, maybe show some consistency?
I'm not exaggerating at all, you were asked a question, and you decided to be rude.
Oh, and you should point out should you? Pray tell why is that? Are you so sure you know what I am and am not doing when you write me?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Or, thankfully, had to deal with the fallout of getting the covergae that was initially promised.]
