The Libertarian world without regulations EXPLODES IN TEXAS'S FACE. Literally.

[Sean Renaud]

You take your money and invest in cattle.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Why in an industry with that many regulations on who may drill, how they may drill, when they may drill, and so on - wasn't that one thought of prior to the explosion?

Is it a surprise that the Obama administration found, "too few regulations," as the cause for anything? I wouldn't expect any other finding from an Obama chosen 'blue ribbon fact finding panel' and had they come up with anything but, "we need more regulation," I would have looked for bribes.

Well, perfesser, you might recall that from the years 2000 to 2008 we had a President named George W. Bush in the White House. And this president had a Vice President named Dick Cheney.

Vice President Cheney was just like you, he didn't like regulations, no no no.

So what Vice President Cheney did was convene a conclave of all of his oilpatch buddies and told them to go out and have their lobbyists write all of the industry-friendly regulations that they could think of, and the nice President would see that they were enacted.

They did, and he did.

Now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, people like you are able to tut-tut about these regulations. Lands sake, the world is a complicated place, isn't it?

Bless your heart.

 

[Peregrinator]

Got one problem with this theory when applied to Libertarian society and its lack of preventative policing:

How do you get all those fish back once they're dead?

This is and has always been my big issue with Libertarians, and they have no answer for it. Lawsuits don't fix the problem, never have. Even if you win, you get cash and a wasteland.


So what?

 

[mercury14]

Why in an industry with that many regulations on who may drill, how they may drill, when they may drill, and so on - wasn't that one thought of prior to the explosion?

Is it a surprise that the Obama administration found, "too few regulations," as the cause for anything? I wouldn't expect any other finding from an Obama chosen 'blue ribbon fact finding panel' and had they come up with anything but, "we need more regulation," I would have looked for bribes.

There was no regulation saying drilling companies had to have the capacity to plug a leak. That tells me that the regulations were insufficient.

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

This is and has always been my big issue with Libertarians, and they have no answer for it. Lawsuits don't fix the problem, never have. Even if you win, you get cash and a wasteland.


So what?

Yup, rinse and repeat that often enough and all your cash becomes worthless.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

D'ohhhhhhhhh nailed 'em right to the wall!!!

No, and as the poster pointed out above, which I will get to second, you engage in a fallacy and then ignorance.

The fallacy is the same one rosco hit me with earlier this week in which you define Libertarianism as you wish to define it and then demand Libertarians defend your definition, when you cannot even do it. Your ignorance is not knowing, or completely ignoring the two prominent Libertarian voices on ecology, Perg and kbate, both who I happen to blast on a regular basis as Neo-Socialists who like to use Big Government on their pet issues while pretending then that they can stop others for using Big Government for their pet issues.

Having a discussion with you is like giving the cat a ball of yarn and then trying to teach it to knit...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

This is and has always been my big issue with Libertarians, and they have no answer for it. Lawsuits don't fix the problem, never have. Even if you win, you get cash and a wasteland.


So what?

It can just as easily and conversely stated that regulations only work on the conscientious...

Regulations cannot anticipate, bad players ignore them, and they increase costs and government.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It can just as easily and conversely stated that regulations only work on the conscientious...

Regulations cannot anticipate, bad players ignore them, and they increase costs and government.

You send out inspectors, if they don't meet the regulations they get shut down by the government. Make sure the regulators aren't friends with the people and do surprise inspections. Bad players get eliminated. It's quite simple.

 

[kbate]

There was no regulation saying drilling companies had to have the capacity to plug a leak. That tells me that the regulations were insufficient.

Circular logic does not an argument win.

 

[RobDownSouth]

You send out inspectors, if they don't meet the regulations they get shut down by the government. Make sure the regulators aren't friends with the people and do surprise inspections. Bad players get eliminated. It's quite simple.

Looks like the fertilizer plant wasn't inspected in the past 5 years, a triumph for Libertarians!

http://themachinebook.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/osha.png

 

[mercury14]

Circular logic does not an argument win.

- Regulations were not sufficient to address potential deep sea leaks.

- A deep sea leak occurred and was not repaired for a very long time because the driller was not required to have the ability to address the leak.

- Therefore your comment "that's regulated society for you" is false because the regulations were insufficient. Your comment should have mentioned lack of regulations.


This is inductive reasoning, not paradoxical circular logic.

 

[blulilacgrl]

This is and has always been my big issue with Libertarians, and they have no answer for it. Lawsuits don't fix the problem, never have. Even if you win, you get cash and a wasteland.


So what?

Except you forget the second part of the idea which. Iincludes restoration oto original condition. It is not simply pay a lawsuit. In addition to being sued, the individual/company/government hass to pay that and then clean up the mess and restore it.

So the idea is that you will not be left with a wasteland, it is the responsibility of the polluter to fix the damage done to your property.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Except you forget the second part of the idea which. Iincludes restoration oto original condition. It is not simply pay a lawsuit. In addition to being sued, the individual/company/government hass to pay that and then clean up the mess and restore it.

So the idea is that you will not be left with a wasteland, it is the responsibility of the polluter to fix the damage done to your property.

That works if you're talking about say fire but if you're talking about pollution or something else no amount of money is going to unfuck it. We've got all sorts of weird shit still going on in the Gulf. You could take every penny from BP and be no better off. Probably worse off since they'd probably end up selling their equipment to people who knew even less about how to use it to pay you.

 

[mercury14]

Except you forget the second part of the idea which. Iincludes restoration oto original condition. It is not simply pay a lawsuit. In addition to being sued, the individual/company/government hass to pay that and then clean up the mess and restore it.

So the idea is that you will not be left with a wasteland, it is the responsibility of the polluter to fix the damage done to your property.

You can't restore a lot of land to its original condition. Destroy the Everglades or the redwood forests and getting it even close to its original condition would take hundreds of years. And I wouldn't rely on the court system to be very good at restoring plant and animal species were made extinct.

And that sort of thing really isn't the issue. Say a polluter pumps carcinogens into the air and cancer rates spike. In court they use their vast financial resources to win the case by claiming it's just a coincidence or maybe one of the 87 other local polluters' faults. Then you have a sick society with a destroyed environment - and since we're living in a Libertarian world these sick people don't have health care when their insurer drops them or they're too sick to work.

What if the pollution comes from an uncertain source? Or hundreds of sources many states away? How will lawsuits help? No Libertarian has ever answered that question.

 

[Peregrinator]

It can just as easily and conversely stated that regulations only work on the conscientious...

Regulations cannot anticipate, bad players ignore them, and they increase costs and government.

This does not argue for doing away with the regulations and letting the conscientious people pollute without worrying about it.

Inspectors can anticipate. This is why we have such things as building codes and mandatory fire/carbon dioxide alarms and seatbelts and storage of dangerous materials laws and I could type all day about stuff that gets anticipated and headed off effectively.


Your argument would work equally well for legalizing murder. You realize that, right?

 

[Peregrinator]

Except you forget the second part of the idea which. Iincludes restoration oto original condition. It is not simply pay a lawsuit. In addition to being sued, the individual/company/government hass to pay that and then clean up the mess and restore it.

So the idea is that you will not be left with a wasteland, it is the responsibility of the polluter to fix the damage done to your property.

I think that's a great idea, but it doesn't work in practice. An organization which is designed to create a profit will always cut costs. This is fundamental to the process of making a profit.

Have you ever seen a "restored" strip mine? Or the beach where the Exxon-Valdes spill went ashore? It's still covered with shit despite decades of lawsuits.

 

[rosco rathbone]

The fallacy is the same one rosco hit me with earlier this week in which you define Libertarianism as you wish to define it and then demand Libertarians defend your definition,

I, rosco, do not traffic in fallacies. You've changed your tune on walmart, from a somewhat defensive "well if leftists are attacking them they can't be bad" type of kneejerk thing to a more ideologically coherent stance.

 

[blulilacgrl]

That works if you're talking about say fire but if you're talking about pollution or something else no amount of money is going to unfuck it. We've got all sorts of weird shit still going on in the Gulf. You could take every penny from BP and be no better off. Probably worse off since they'd probably end up selling their equipment to people who knew even less about how to use it to pay you.

So are you arguing that BP shouldn't have to pay restitution and for the repair to the land? If not them, who?

Should the taxpayer pay for a company's fuck up instead of holding the company responsible?

And in a "Libertarian world" property is privatized. Which means that the owner of the property can sue at the very beginning (meaning the minute an issue is found).

You can't restore a lot of land to its original condition. Destroy the Everglades or the redwood forests and getting it even close to its original condition would take hundreds of years. And I wouldn't rely on the court system to be very good at restoring plant and animal species were made extinct.

And that sort of thing really isn't the issue. Say a polluter pumps carcinogens into the air and cancer rates spike. In court they use their vast financial resources to win the case by claiming it's just a coincidence or maybe one of the 87 other local polluters' faults. Then you have a sick society with a destroyed environment - and since we're living in a Libertarian world these sick people don't have health care when their insurer drops them or they're too sick to work.

What if the pollution comes from an uncertain source? Or hundreds of sources many states away? How will lawsuits help? No Libertarian has ever answered that question.

Except that you are forgetting that areas like the Everglades and the Redwood Forests would be privatized and run by conservation groups. And I don't know about you, I personally think that a conservation group dedicating to protecting forests/animals are going to more vigilant about what is going on than some bureaucratic group in DC.

As to air pollutants, it has been verified as to what are carcinogens. If a plant emits this substances and people are getting sick, there is a clear corollary. As to health care after someone is sick... well (and I am thinking off the top of my head since I have not found this exact topic addressed)... but wouldn't the individual/company/government that caused the sickness then be responsible for the health care of that individual? That is what seems logical. The individual/company/government made them sick, guess what then that individual/company/government is responsible for making them well and/or supporting them.

 

[blulilacgrl]

I think that's a great idea, but it doesn't work in practice. An organization which is designed to create a profit will always cut costs. This is fundamental to the process of making a profit.

Have you ever seen a "restored" strip mine? Or the beach where the Exxon-Valdes spill went ashore? It's still covered with shit despite decades of lawsuits.

Yes a company's goal is to have a profit. But they can't make a profit if they are having to clean up a mess they created or being sued for pollution. Ultimately the idea is that they will be more careful and conscientious because it is cheaper to be so.

They can spend $1 million in prevention OR they can pay $5 million + in restitution, damages, and restoration.

I have seen lots of crap areas of land. And what I see over and over again is the government not doing it's "job". Either because government officials are in bed with the corporate big wigs or because it has "better" things to focus on. With the idea of privatized property mean that the person who owns that land has a vested interest in it and therefore will be more vigilant about not only caring for it but to seeing it being maintained, restored, and/or cleaned up.

 

[Sean Renaud]

So are you arguing that BP shouldn't have to pay restitution and for the repair to the land? If not them, who?

They should be held responsible, but to the best of our ability we should prevent these problems from happening ahead of time.

Should the taxpayer pay for a company's fuck up instead of holding the company responsible?

Realistically speaking that's the only option we have.

And in a "Libertarian world" property is privatized. Which means that the owner of the property can sue at the very beginning (meaning the minute an issue is found).

Actually no it isn't. Even if it was the minute an issue was found in the Gulf it was quite a bit too late for anybody who depended on the Gulf for a living.

Except that you are forgetting that areas like the Everglades and the Redwood Forests would be privatized and run by conservation groups. And I don't know about you, I personally think that a conservation group dedicating to protecting forests/animals are going to more vigilant about what is going on than some bureaucratic group in DC.

What makes you think that the Glades of Redwood forests would be privatized and run by conservation groups? More likely these places would simply be destroyed because they were inconvienent.

As to air pollutants, it has been verified as to what are carcinogens. If a plant emits this substances and people are getting sick, there is a clear corollary. As to health care after someone is sick... well (and I am thinking off the top of my head since I have not found this exact topic addressed)... but wouldn't the individual/company/government that caused the sickness then be responsible for the health care of that individual? That is what seems logical. The individual/company/government made them sick, guess what then that individual/company/government is responsible for making them well and/or supporting them.

Only if you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was their fault and not one of a thousand other things including simple bad luck.

 

[mercury14]

Except that you are forgetting that areas like the Everglades and the Redwood Forests would be privatized and run by conservation groups. And I don't know about you, I personally think that a conservation group dedicating to protecting forests/animals are going to more vigilant about what is going on than some bureaucratic group in DC.

As to air pollutants, it has been verified as to what are carcinogens. If a plant emits this substances and people are getting sick, there is a clear corollary. As to health care after someone is sick... well (and I am thinking off the top of my head since I have not found this exact topic addressed)... but wouldn't the individual/company/government that caused the sickness then be responsible for the health care of that individual? That is what seems logical. The individual/company/government made them sick, guess what then that individual/company/government is responsible for making them well and/or supporting them.

1) Under Libertarianism there's nothing saying that the Everglades or redwood forests would be owned and run by conservation groups. They'd simply go to the highest bidder. Since there's oil in the Everglades I'm thinking the eco-people are going to get outbid.

2) There's usually enough plausible deniability in carcinogenic pollution that lawsuits are very difficult. Coal plants belch out carcinogens. Can a person go to court and prove that their lung cancer is from the coal plant? Nope.

3) The average American lacks the financial resources to bring civil suits against large corporations. Hell, above-average Americans do as well. Especially when they're dealing with their medical bills.

4) What about the poor? They're unable to pay for anything and they're the most likely ones to live in high pollution areas. This isn't equality.

5) And this is probably the biggest one - What good does it do someone to engage in a multi-year civil suit against a polluter when they already have lung cancer? Everything you're saying is reactive meaning people get sick and die and probably still don't win.


If this is what Libertarianism is then it's a horrible, un-American system where equality and freedom are trampled into dust. Libertarians like to say that government is what limits our rights and freedoms but the truth is corporations and other individuals left unchecked will take these things away from us more than the US government ever could.

 

[blulilacgrl]

What makes you think that the Glades of Redwood forests would be privatized and run by conservation groups? More likely these places would simply be destroyed because they were inconvienent.

If not a conservation group then people/groups that benefit from the operations of a state park.. like the "increasing number of states, including Utah, Arizona, California and Hawaii, are looking seriously at privatizing their cash-strapped state parks to varying degrees, from handing over the facilities to private operators to allowing private companies to sell food or offer particular amenities. 'In budget battles, parks are the perennial loser,' says Leonard Gilroy, one of the report’s authors and director of government reform at Reason. “It strengthens the argument and says, ‘hey, look, the alternative here is closure.’"

In California, where 70 state parks are scheduled to be closed, the state agency that oversees the state’s parks has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for a five-year concession contract to operate five camping and recreational areas at Valley State Parks. The move was authorized by a bill signed into law in October. "


http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/report-touts-privatization-momentum-85899382830

1) Under Libertarianism there's nothing saying that the Everglades or redwood forests would be owned and run by conservation groups. They'd simply go to the highest bidder. Since there's oil in the Everglades I'm thinking the eco-people are going to get outbid.

2) There's usually enough plausible deniability in carcinogenic pollution that lawsuits are very difficult. Coal plants belch out carcinogens. Can a person go to court and prove that their lung cancer is from the coal plant? Nope.

3) The average American lacks the financial resources to bring civil suits against large corporations. Hell, above-average Americans do as well. Especially when they're dealing with their medical bills.

4) What about the poor? They're unable to pay for anything and they're the most likely ones to live in high pollution areas. This isn't equality.

5) And this is probably the biggest one - What good does it do someone to engage in a multi-year civil suit against a polluter when they already have lung cancer? Everything you're saying is reactive meaning people get sick and die and probably still don't win.


If this is what Libertarianism is then it's a horrible, un-American system where equality and freedom are trampled into dust. Libertarians like to say that government is what limits our rights and freedoms but the truth is corporations and other individuals left unchecked will take these things away from us more than the US government ever could.

I disagree. The Libertarian idea is that power resides within the individual. Nothing can stop the people of a community from banding together and working toward a common goal~ improving common land within the community, establishing necessary help for members of the community, etc

What I can't stand is the idea that I need government to care for me and thus needs to pass laws to do so. Those are infringements of my rights and freedoms. Done for my own good, I know. But I still find them to outside the bounds of liberty and freedom.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You send out inspectors, if they don't meet the regulations they get shut down by the government. Make sure the regulators aren't friends with the people and do surprise inspections. Bad players get eliminated. It's quite simple.

No, it is not.

kbate, who posted below, hates the idea of handling it legally because judges can be bribed, therefore, one must suspect that inspectors can be bribed...



As far as the "Regulators," where do they come from if not from the ranks of the industry being regulated (otherwise, how competent can they be?). If they are of the industry, and knowledgeable, then they can command top-dollar. If they are not employed it must be because they are then frustrated by lack of opportunity which may be of several types including incompetent, disgruntled or frustrated by a glutted field of applicants meaning that their only experience may be the glorified experience and expertise of Academia.



Bad players can never be eliminated. Accidents will always happen. Laws will always be skirted so it is best to be short on law and long on punishment. We are not long on punishment because regulation has led to a protected class of businessmen; too big to fail and big enough to purchase government indulgence.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I, rosco, do not traffic in fallacies. You've changed your tune on walmart, from a somewhat defensive "well if leftists are attacking them they can't be bad" type of kneejerk thing to a more ideologically coherent stance.

Sorry my dear friend, but that is not the way it went down. You brought up the example, you described Walmart as a product of the current Capitalist system and then you demanded I find a way to defend the evil practices of Walmart.

Walmart got big by one mechanism and one mechanism only.

When Big Business would have nothing to do with rural America due to lack of volume, Walmart brought volume to small town America and offered them the same savings that Big City America would not.

And stop ascribing positions to me. I never said anything remotely like that.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I think I may come to like blulilacgrl...