Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "Re: MS -"What Hurts Us, Hurts Industry"

Robert Cassidy wrote:

> >That [it] does. The phrase "consumer protection" is blatantly misleading.
> >I could "protect consumers" without involving myself in unConstitutional
> >legislation.

> Which elements are unconstitutional? And don't overlook the amendment
> process and the rights of the states to have their own constitutional
> restrictions.

I don't. The states have much more right to be restrictive and meddling
than does the Federal government.

> >There may, indeed, be a need for drug prescriptions. This says nothing
> >about the right of the government to force their use.

> How then would the public be granted a reasonable assurance that citizens
> will not freely divorce themselves from the fabric of public
> responsibility? Prescriptions are also designed not only to protect the
> holder of the prescription, but also to protect the public from
> individuals that might use those medications to put themselves in a state
> where they are not responsible for their actions.

The criminal justice system that absolves such citizens of the
responsibility of their actions is at fault for creating this situation.
Under Common Law, drunkenness was no excuse for the slaughter of a
neighbor's livestock. Similarly, crack cocaine should be no excuse for
any kind of illegal behavior.

> We tolerate it to some
> degree (alcohol) but as the complexity of the drug increases, the need for
> experts to manage their use becomes necessary. And that management *is*
> necessary for there are medications that have psychosis or homicidal
> tendencies as side-effects. Not all drugs are Viagra after all...

Ah. How well has this system of prescription done at preventing the
overdosing and incorrect use of antibiotics, Bob? I hear that in Japan
they have discovered strains of bacteria that are resistent to all but
the most severe and obscure of penicillin derivatives.

Meanwhile, the price of antibiotics research is kept artificially
inflated by the prescription program that has utterly failed to "protect
the consumer".

> >Quite right. Will you be here in a hundred years to walk in protest
> >rallies during the Fight to Ban Natural Fat? Consumers don't realize
> >what they're getting into, by God! People are too stupid to switch to
> >Olestra, we've got to make certain fundamental things mandatory. We're
> >not being invasive, we just need to make a few basic rules.

> A little dose of hyperbole makes the medicine go down? The government has
> taken no actions to ban alcohol,

Take it back. I'm sure you've heard of Prohibition.

> or tobacco,

Also patently untrue. Multiple attempts at legislation banning the use
of tobacco products have been defeated in Congress. Smoking is banned on
domestic flights in the U.S., under the redoubtable aegis of the
all-expansive Commerce Clause.

> or anything else

The lumber industry managed to outsmart its rival, the hemp industry,
many years ago by forcing legislation banning the private use of
marijuana for any reason. The reasons given during the short discussion
of the legislation were nearly all proven false scant years later, but
they were eagerly accepted by weak Congressmen who needed a cause for
reelection.

> Restrict it
> so that the rights of *every* individual and taxpayer are balanced - sure.
> So it's better to let everyone have a handgun and then arrest the people
> that use it to commit a murder?

Something like that, yes. I believe it has something to do with
punishing crimes, not punishing *possible* crimes.

> Isn't that a little discriminatory to the
> rights of the person that just got shot?

Discriminatory, what? What are you talking about? What does this have to
do with the rights of the United States Citizen under the Second
Amendment?

> The enforcement of the law is
> only a reassurance to those that continue to live.

It is a deterrent to those that would commit crimes. This is
well-documented.

> And that leaves no
> barrier to that individual buying a handgun again. So it protects the
> rights of those that would be criminals over that of the public, in
> effect.

Bob, go straight to your copy of the Constitution and deliver me the
"rights of the public". Please, I'd love to see them.

[cut]

> >The government did make that decision. It wasn't until the mid 1930's,
> >though, that the most dramatic action was taken on behalf of socializing
> >what were previously matters of private consumption.

> I'll agree that a good deal of the legislation through the 30s should have
> been temporary, and is very much misplaced today. But some of it was
> specifically designed to have a stabilizing effect on the national economy
> and continues to perform that function today.

Which, exactly? I'm *real* interested to hear this.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, perhaps? No, I'm sure you mean the
Agricultural Adjustment Agency. Social Security? Come now, there must be
a wealth of well-wrought legislation in there.

> >That's quite true, and it's the entire basis of economy: someone who
> >provides the beneficial change may profit from it by selling its fruits.

> But the theory in this country is that competition can become so stifled
> due to either the practices of one company, or by collusion between
> multiple companies (price fixing)

Explain for me the difference between "price fixing" and tariffs. Or
between "price fixing" and regulation of the health care industry, or
the telecom industry, or the agriculture industry, for instance.

> that government intervention is
> desirable to return to a state where some measure of change is more
> likely.

All of the history of government intervention, in this country at the
very least, indicates that you're wrong. Don't misunderstand me; your
theory is quite well-known, and well-accepted, at least on one side of
the fence. There's nothing brand-new in what you propose. Keynes beat
you to it, in fact.

> That at some point, you can nearly 'win' or appear to win the
> game, and so the state must be adjusted to seem as though there is
> reasonable chance for reward to justify the risk of entering the market.

What's it called when your industry is made public and someone
automatically 'wins', as in the case of British Telecom? What do you
predict will happen when government returns the industry to the private
sector and leaves this 'winner' to its own devices? How does your
economic model handle such things?

> >Or SEC controls on the stock market? Or AFDC-style welfare? That people
> >have become dependent on government is not surprising. You'd ban crack
> >cocaine, but not a far more debilitating drug...

> I'm not saying that they do it well all the time. I'd love to see many of
> the _implementations_ that we have change - but the _concepts_ are
> generally sound. They are all stabilizing efforts. Welfare is designed to
> help keep people from getting is such a state that risk/reward reaches an
> extreme - that people find they need to go to extreme lengths just to feed
> their children.

Is that so? Then you're saying AFDC helps keep people employed, is that
it? Maybe you're saying AFDC helps to promote a middle class. Funny that
the statistics don't seem to follow that theory... What, exactly, are
'extreme lengths'? Monogamy, for instance? Parental responsibility?
These must be the extremism to which you refer, since their reduction
seems to be the only tangible accomplishment of AFDC.

> Unfortunately, the implementation we have sucks, since it
> upsets the risk/reward equation too much - there is a *lot* of risk for an
> individual involved in leaving the welfare system and little chance for
> any reward.

Maybe it has nothing to do with implementations. Maybe -- just bear with
me -- maybe something fundamental, maybe some *principle* is being
unstrung. Maybe no matter how smart you are, or how skilled at economic
manipulation, there is just no way that you can *improve* the
free-market system through independent determinism.

> >Actually, according the various theories of Economic Calculation, it can
> >be proven incontrovertibly that anti-trust regulation has a direct
> >depressive effect on the economy.

> Does that also account for instabilities due to monopolies and national
> securities in a global economy? We seem to balance anti-trust needs
> against the needs of the nation as a whole in terms of it's ability to be
> resiliant and it's need to protect its interests internationally.

Is that it? That must be why the FTC is acting against Intel, whose
price/performance curves are keeping the United States nearly decades
ahead of any foreign semiconductor agent. It must be why the DoJ is
acting against Microsoft, whose software products account for billions
of dollars in export sales and against whom no foreign software company
can remotely compare in quality and expertise.

Wait, maybe you're onto something. Isn't Microsoft one of the biggest
proponents of relaxed immigration controls for the purpose of hiring
intelligent and skilled foreign techs? Doesn't Microsoft make one of the
loudest arguments for bringing intellectual capital into the United
States? Maybe Protectionism and Nativism *are* the best reasons to
prosecute Microsoft. After all, we don't want to dilute our nation's
heritage with foreigners...yes, I'm sure of it! Prosecute away!

(sarcasm)

> But the anti-trust issue comes
> down to a 'needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one' kind of social
> contract at least to some degree.

Collectivism, then. I see. Or Communism? I don't know which to call it.

[cut]

> >Whoa, whoa, take it slow. "Well-presented arguments" is the first part I
> >take offense at: they're not my arguments, and whatever the
> >presentation, it has nothing to do with the point being communicated.

> Of course they are arguments. You are taking a position here that you know
> is contentious, no? Given the forum, you should expect positions like that
> to be taken as argumentative.

Of course they're arguments. They're just not *my* arguments. I'm not
making anything up. I'm *attempting* to make the classic case for
Austrian Economics, classic liberalism, and strict Constitutionality.
This is not new ground.

> Regardless of whether it is _your_ argument
> or not, you are taking a certain responsibility for it's defense by
> presenting it against the claims made by the previous poster.

That much is true.

> You can also
> excuse yourself from that defense if you choose - but let us know along
> the way.

I don't know what this means.

> >"Mud-slinging", wow: fascism isn't an insult, it's a political model
> >that I assigned to Mr. Pyeatt's thought. Don't get mixed up.

> Fascist is a very loaded term unless you are pre-WWII and didn't at all
> seem befitting of his position.

"Loaded" is none of my concern. "Fascism" is the *only* term I know of
to refer to the theory that governmental power is of primary importance,
and that all various governmental systems are to be employed as they are
beneficial to the goal of exalting the state. The fascist may at times
masquerade as a democrat, a dictator, a socialist (the Nazi part was the
National Socialist Workers' Party), or anything else that befits his
goal of power. The unprincipled use of power under cover of pragmatic
excuse is the first hint that such politics are present.

Fascists are generally famous for scoffing at the use of the word
"liberty". They'll laugh, squirm, yell, whatever! when you mention it,
because it seems a childish and dangerous notion to them. Benito
Mussolini himself claimed "We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty".

> >Finally, "insecurities": that's mudslinging. Now you're getting the idea.

> Fair play perhaps?

More like Pee-Wee Herman, I'd say.

MJP