This bothers me about Obama....

afruff23
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:23:44 +0000

“who pays the reparations? the state? but you sold off everything!”

Those who stole it. I’m sure selling the national zoo (e.g. all the governmental buildings in Washington DC) will provide enough money. If that isn’t enough, then make the sadistic people in Washington DC (e.g. politicians) pay for it all. If neither is enough, then your question is analogous to asking me what is justice for a man who had $1000 stolen from him and the thief lost it? To that I would say “some form of labor from the thief”.

“that isn’t patriotism. that’s vigilantism. People like it because it is a quick, easy fairy tale form of ‘justice’. superheroes themselves represent dreams that people have of being extraordinary. it has nothing to do with loving one’s country (although original American comics were of course infused with American themes to help them sell).”

I don’t know if you caught my reference but a murderer with a green costume is a US soldier.

“your libertarian remedy suggests that all people are inherently good, intelligent, moral people. it believes that people will do the right thing regardless of whether a law exists or not.”

As I’ve said before, I do not know how my “system” would pan out. If a lot of society was corrupt, then we can’t have a government since the government is made up of the same bad people. It’d be like trying to wipe dirt with dirt.

If people were truly good, then we wouldn’t need a government in any case.

My belief is that all people desire to be good, but their sense of good is corrupted one way or another so they redefine the concept of good to fit their distorted reality (e.g. violence is okay to use on rich people since poor people exist).

In any case, none of these arguments provides justification for government.

“would companies really be so nice and caring as to set up independent safety committees to judge the quality of their products?”

Consumers would demand it. If they truly wanted safe medicine, they would not buy medicine from the shady drug company.

Still, the current system has problems. Even you’re supposed problems you came up with still would (and do) occur in our current system. You have to use a control. The control here is the current system. Comparing a proposal to an unachievable situation does none of us any good.

“what if no drugs had any safety seals? drugs would obviously still be bought and used regardless.”

Well a competitor could just come in and sell the drug with certification. Remember that patent law is a monopoly on ideas, which is completely unenforceable. The only reason it exists now is because of mercantilistic relations between a government (which you cannot choose) and business.

“drugs would obviously still be bought and used regardless. what incentive would a company have to make an independent group that could potentially reject their work and set them back millions of dollars?”

See above. A competitor could just come in, pay the one-time fee and make a lot more in the long-run. When was the last time you heard of somebody from the US getting shady drugs from thrid-world countries? It doesn’t happen very often because people would rather stick to old and tested then new and shady.

“would you trust a Phillip-Morris Seal of Approval for cigarettes?”

No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t buy cigarettes from them (if I smoked in the first place that is). The only reason that you don’t see more approval agencies is because the monopoly the FDA has on testing drugs. In a society where you can choose your own government (or have no government if you like to live on the edge), people can escape the mercantilism I have mentioned before (e.g. FDA-drug company relationship, big oil-government relationship).

“and what happens to competitors with a genuine product but no seal of approval?”

Who says there is only one approval agency? If one refuses to approve it, then another will surely test the drug since they want the money. And it is in the best interest of the testing agency to not give out a bad drug, unless they want their reputation (all they have) ruined. So you would have multiple competing testing agencies all heavily selected for safety, innovation, and price (no more monopolies on ideas).

“when the state can’t control who gets patents, then no one can hold one and say that it has any value. no real patents means no protection against copy-cats. take the cotton gin. it was simple and multiplied the efficiency of cotton picking by a huge factor. but without patent protection, Eli Whitney never earned the millions that he would have been privy to had he secured a patent (it was too easy to recreate). the same can be said for Nikola Tesla and his inventions. no patents means no money for companies.”

That is not true. There have been studies on this (which I can’t find right now) that relaxation of copyright laws and patent laws does not lead to less profits. Have you ever bothered to think how it makes little sense that old drugs still cost lots of money? The government prevents competition from entering the marketplace.

“drug prices may fall, but so will quality and the assurance of safety. you can not seriously assert that companies will test their products or the products of their competitors without bias.”

As I said before, all they have is their reputation. One drug like Vioxx gets past them and they will lose profits due to fear of bad testing from them.

“speeding cameras are still a developing field. the british (who use them extensively) find that they reduce speeding violations by a significant amount. america (which uses them much more sparingly) has mixed studies–Virginia reports an increase, NC a vast decrease, Texas a large decrease when combined with other factors. whether they work or not is inconclusive. but they aren’t there just to make money; they’re also there to make sure that the law (even ones we all break) isn’t being defied to the danger of others.”

I have seen studies which show that they INCREASE the risk of accidents. They really are there to make money. If they truly make people safer, then the private road owners would install them. Nobody wants to have a big car crash on their property, right?

“i’m too tired to fight anarcho-libertarianism tonight. i’ll continue tomorrow.”
Well, you certainly have shown in interest in debating on an intellectual topic (something I would expect from a future Chicago student). Since you have not attacked me, I take it you have a keen interest in debating and truth rather than blahing over my face.

Check the “Stateless Society”: articles on this page for the pragmatics of a stateless society: