Regulations, Litigation, and Personal Responsibility

[Xan]

Thanks, l82start.

What shows up as the title is the subject of the first post. So I edited the first post in this thread to change its title to the one proposed by Tortoise.

[l82start]

Thanks, l82start.

What shows up as the title is the subject of the first post. So I edited the first post in this thread to change its title to the one proposed by Tortoise.

thanks i will try to remember that.. i think there is a option as you make the first split but it isn't obvious and i must have gone past it...

[Kbg]

By nature I tend to be grounded in understanding why things are the way they are. One of the seminal books of my intellectual development was a book I read in the early 00s. The book is called Thinking in Time by Neustadt and May. The 5 second summary is to understand people, institutions and things you need to understand their history. Things rarely immediately exist, they emerge for some reason and they evolve for many reasons.

Why do we have public schools?

Why do we have food standards?

Why was government bureaucracy X created?

Now I’d be the last person to say things don’t need to evolve and somethings outlast their usefulness.

But I would challenge any Libertarian to justify and provide actual practical solutions acceptable to the majority that solves the original reason the above were created. Until you can do that, you will remain a fringe, mostly irrelevant minority. If you enjoy theoretical debate, rock on. That stuff IS fun. If you want to have relevance...well you gotta lot of work ahead of you.

[Kbg]

P.S...my critique above is a classical critique of Libertarianism which I fully agree with. There are others that don’t resonate with me as they are grounded in a counter perspective vs. a legit here’s an actual problem with your theory and/or I just don’t like your theory.

This last issue...huge problem in American debate now days and in my humble view fills way too much space on many websites.

“I don’t like” is easy to do, pointing out real problematic issues and justifying them...way harder. I slip into laziness for sure so I’ll throw a stone at myself as well. I try not to though.

[yankees60]

I'm all for personal responsibility but you have to recognize that everyone shares in that. You can't dangle prostitutes and drugs and fast food restaurants, and video games and peer pressure in front of a 16 year old kid who comes from a broken home and then be surprised when he falls into bad habits. Society in addition to parents (because not every kid is blessed with them) also has a responsibility to shield people from harm and help encourage good choices. You realize that sometimes what is most profitable for an individual is actually detrimental to society right? We are an over medicated society because pharmaceutical companies incentive doctors to push drugs onto patients. The personal profit motive incentivizes negative outcomes. No one makes billions selling brocolli and an evening walk. Do you think it's realistic for the solution to this problem being patients pushing back against their doctors? Seriously, Tom. I get the idea but it's just not realistic. I wish it would happen. I think we have a serious lack of personal responsibility in this country. Ahemmmm...including our president.

I think it's a two pronged approach of personal responsibility, incentivizing and increasing ease of access to making good choices, and making negative choices more difficult or disincentivized. For example, vending machines at school. Why are they full of soda and candy? Are we really providing kids with an environment here that will encourage them to make good dietary decisions when they are hungry when this is the option we give them? It's setting things up for failure.

So

So who exactly decides what the "negative choices" are? The whole of history does not really give me comfort that politicians will make those "negative choice" decisions in responsible ways. Most likely they will make them in a way that lines their pockets or gets them re-elected.

I had a snack bar at my high school and I regularly drank soda and ate hot dogs and fries for lunch. And I am a pretty healthy 51 year old. So I should have been forced to eat what somebody else thought was right for me because they knew better than me? Or because someone else might not be able to handle what I ate?

Your arguments are the common arguments of tinkerers and planners in society. If we could just move this chess piece here and that chess piece there then people will behave the way we want them to and some sort of uptopia suddenly pops out. It completely sidesteps the issue of unforeseen consequences and that the basic nature of humans. As Taleb says in his last book, the problem with tinkers and planners is that they have no skin in the game. They can make these decisions, foist them upon the general public and then walk away when (surprise!) they do not work out as planned. Has anyone been held responsible for the damage of the original food pyramid? How about for the war in Iraq? Central Planners never even have to say "oops my bad" much less suffer for their miscalculations.

Ok, so then what is your health care solution? Not to get too far off on a tangent. What do we do as our population edges toward 50% obesity rates and the associated health issues this causes? Sorry, I know in your ideal world they would take personal responsibility or just die in the street but that isn't going to happen. As great as that would feel for all the sick fatties to get their comeuppance (sarcasm)...so how do we as a society tackle the fact that our way of life is detrimental to our health and increasingly overtaxing our medical resources?

They're going to die on the streets or they'll die in hospitals. The compliance rate of type 2 diabetics actually taking their meds and performing regular blood sugar testing is probably under 10%. Even with free healthcare, 90%+ won't do it. I say this as a person who works in this field analyzing this data, so I'm a first hand source. Every hospital is different and every patient population is different but in general at least 90% don't do what they are supposed to do. And as a result the government has stepped in and offered money bonuses to doctors to get their diabetic patients to keep their blood sugar down (A1C).

You cant protect people from themselves. Show them the way and they'll change, or they won't. Force them to change and they definitely won't.

Do you shoot up heroin or smoke meth? Is it because the government said it's bad and made it illegal and made it hard to buy? If the CVS pharmacy sold meth for $5 and it was legal, would you smoke some? Is the government regulation against meth what's keeping you from smoking it?

Conversely, how well are government regs against meth keeping meth addicts from buying and using meth?

Are these drug laws doing anything at all? Except perhaps raising the price of drugs, which results in more property crimes as addict need more money to fund their habit? And raising tax rates because of a higher number of incarcerated inmates?

Wouldnt be we better off as a society if the small number of people who want to smoke meth can buy it cheap, do it in their house, die at 35, and leave us alone and not break into our cars and rob us at gunpoint?

Do not disagree with anything you have written.

HOWEVER...

I always wanted to wear my seat belt. But never did.

Once it became mandatory, subject to penalty / fine for not wearing one, I became 100% compliant.

Now it feels like I'm naked if it is not on. My car does not move from anywhere without it being on.

Vinny

[yankees60]

I love Libertarian talking points and arguments, they are so cute. And those little cutie pies usually don't even think about how many implicit assumptions they are making. I found out long ago it's really quite pointless to argue with a Libertarian. Practicality doesn't exist in their universe nor does complexity, bad behavior or evil...but if you wave away those things, it's awesome.

And this my friends is why Libertarianism and libertarians as a political party get no where with the vast majority of citizens. Common sense prevails, and that vast majority recognizes all the things that disappear with the waving of a magic Libertarian wand actually do exist in the real world.

Gotta hand it to doodle though...you got more patience than I do.

NOW who I am going to vote for for President!

Definitely NOT Trump.

Definitely NOT Biden.

It WAS going to be the Libertarian candidate.

I don't want to vote Green party.

What is left??!!

Vinny

[yankees60]

By nature I tend to be grounded in understanding why things are the way they are. One of the seminal books of my intellectual development was a book I read in the early 00s. The book is called Thinking in Time by Neustadt and May. The 5 second summary is to understand people, institutions and things you need to understand their history. Things rarely immediately exist, they emerge for some reason and they evolve for many reasons.

Why do we have public schools?

Why do we have food standards?

Why was government bureaucracy X created?

Now I’d be the last person to say things don’t need to evolve and somethings outlast their usefulness.

But I would challenge any Libertarian to justify and provide actual practical solutions acceptable to the majority that solves the original reason the above were created. Until you can do that, you will remain a fringe, mostly irrelevant minority. If you enjoy theoretical debate, rock on. That stuff IS fun. If you want to have relevance...well you gotta lot of work ahead of you.

Must be SOMETHING about that book. It's a 32 year book that still command a hefty price. Just bought a good used copy for $8.00 delivered.

Vinny