The road to the Liberal Nanny State.

[bendted]

"Life begins before conception"???

Immaculate conception. Not that I believe that, but just grasping at straws here.

 

[Just_Believe18]

Funny how Jim Byrd focused a whole section on the TSA and Homeland security, when both operations exist in their current state today because of a Republican administration. The memory on these morons is hysterical.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Funny how Jim Byrd focused a whole section on the TSA and Homeland security, when both operations exist in their current state today because of a Republican administration. The memory on these morons is hysterical.

The Republican motto is "SEE WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!?!?!?!"

 

[Kulindahr]

Immaculate conception. Not that I believe that, but just grasping at straws here.

Argh.

You have to get all metaphysical there to get life beginning before conception in any human sense of the word.

Intriguing, though.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Funny how Jim Byrd focused a whole section on the TSA and Homeland security, when both operations exist in their current state today because of a Republican administration. The memory on these morons is hysterical.

And of course, the real problem is that it's NOT hysterical... it's scary how many people actually buy the "nanny state" bullshit.

Oh... yea... I know, I know... people are against "Government Regulation" or "the nanny state" until things like New Orleans floods... or a bridge collapses... or hundreds of children die of e-Coli poisoning because of lax health regulations.

They're dead set against The Government being all "intrusive in our lives" until their house starts burning down because of faulty wiring or their neighborhood explodes because it hadn't been inspected....because of budget cuts.

I remember seeing Sarah Palin with that smug look on her face saying "I think you know how to spend your money better than the government does!" and her moronic minions cheering her on. And you know they're all thinking "big screen TV" and not "fill the pot holes in the roads and clear the ice and snow from the highway and pay someone to maintain the fire alarms at the elementary school."

People are selfish to a fault. And it will be the downfall of America.

 

[Kulindahr]

^

A lot of people want those things done, just not by government.

 

[Zu-Mendel]

^

Those same people are also completely unwilling to pay for the cost of private industry to do it.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

^

A lot of people want those things done, just not by government.

You want a private company to do those things? And who's going to pay for it?

 

[Supersix]

And of course, the real problem is that it's NOT hysterical... it's scary how many people actually buy the "nanny state" bullshit.

Oh... yea... I know, I know... people are against "Government Regulation" or "the nanny state" until things like New Orleans floods... or a bridge collapses... or hundreds of children die of e-Coli poisoning because of lax health regulations.

They're dead set against The Government being all "intrusive in our lives" until their house starts burning down because of faulty wiring or their neighborhood explodes because it hadn't been inspected....because of budget cuts.

I remember seeing Sarah Palin with that smug look on her face saying "I think you know how to spend your money better than the government does!" and her moronic minions cheering her on. And you know they're all thinking "big screen TV" and not "fill the pot holes in the roads and clear the ice and snow from the highway and pay someone to maintain the fire alarms at the elementary school."

People are selfish to a fault. And it will be the downfall of America.

You start from the false premise that EVERYTHING the government does is always good and justified, and that every private effort is selfish and greedy. Of course we need public safety and bridges that don't keep collapsing. What we don't need is government forcing banks to grant mortgages to people who cannot afford to pay for it. And then the taxpayer has to step in AGAIN and pick up the tab, and banks will pass on more of their costs to the consumers AGAIN because that's what businesses do, and the working man gets screwed AGAIN. And all Palin is talking about is lowering taxes a little so that people who work can keep a little more of what they earn, so that they can actually enjoy their earnings(GASP!!), instead of watching government piss it away.

 

[Kulindahr]

^

Those same people are also completely unwilling to pay for the cost of private industry to do it.

Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. People already paid for private industry to do those things in many instances, before government came along and made it ten times more expensive.

You want a private company to do those things? And who's going to pay for it?

The same people who used to pay for it: the people who want to sell products.

You guys ever hear of UL? They were inspecting and certifying things, in the private sector, long before government came along to make it less efficient a process. There's another body that does it for plumbing materials, and probably some I haven't heard of. And they did a MUCH better job -- and did it without mandating how people build or install, etc.; they just took parts from manufacturers, tested the hell out of them, and gave a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. And long before government poked its nose in, UL's reputation for honesty and thoroughness had made it impossible to sell something without their stamp on it.

The only function of government here should be to set up outfits to do what UL had already been doing, get them off to a good start, and get out of the way. The same could be done for housing, bringing to an end the situation where on a $14k dollar addition to my friend's house, $8k went for inspections and permit fees, and instead of taking over two years, Jim and I could have done it in three months.

Well, maybe four months -- we spend too much time laughing at parodies of 'Christian pop' and making very bad puns.

 

[Kulindahr]

This bears repeating in this thread:

Who said anything about "imposing"? That's actually 180 degrees contrary to what I said.

As for remaking the world -- any regime that doesn't recognize the fact of human self-ownership and the inherent rights flowing from that needs to be replaced, whether it's the right of freedom of religion, of freedom of expression, of carrying the means of self-defense of one's choice, or of freedom of association. To deny any of those is to deny human dignity by asserting that people are the property of the state.

I'm sorry Kulindhar, but that just isn't going to work. The diversity of human cultures tells against it. And another thing, I would hate to live in a uniform world.

???

If you think a world with freedom is going to be "uniform", I think you fail to understand freedom. Insofar as any nation is uniform, it's almost entirely due to a lack of freedom.

Here in Oregon, for example, there's an incredible lack of freedom in the design of buildings and what a person can do with private property. The result is that in every town, new housing looks just like every other town -- it's sickeningly dull, and it's the result of tyranny from people who really do think their ideas should be imposed.

OTOH, I visited a county up in Washington, not too far from Bellingham, where they don't have any such rules. On one road out in the countryside, there was a string of houses, none of which looked like the others in any more aspects than that they had roof and walls. I saw an A-frame, a geodesic, a colonial, a Tudor, a brick thing that looked a bit like a Van Gogh come to life, a split-level (like five levels, I think, though two might actually have been on the same level), an honest-to-goodness beam-and-mud structure that would have looked at home in the Netherlands at the time of William of Orange, a vast dome-like thing on stilts that looked like Baba Yaga's hut come real (and three floors not counting the underneath), one that was buried in a (man-made) hillside, another that was plainly a series of school busses linked to a pair of old Winnebagos, a mansion like the one in The Patriot, and a huge one set on a hill -- it looked like five or six bedrooms, and had two garages that were accessible from inside the house via stairs and hall through the hillside. Some of those had also carved the landscape to suit themselves -- the big house had a hill because they'd dug out a lake (or maybe they dug out the lake to have a hill).

It was jarringly diverse -- and incredibly beautiful. And in the small town nearby, the mix continued, though the few blocks of downtown were of a sort, seemingly all from about the end of the nineteenth century.

Freedom means diversity, not sameness.

 

[cocksucker4use]

You want a private company to do those things? And who's going to pay for it?

We have just witnessed the results of laissez-faire free market economics. The unbridled greed of the mortgage bankers that almost resulted in an economic depression -- but for the "Nanny State" bailing them out. Taking our hard earned money and giving it to a bunch of immoral assholes who risked our homes by bundling our mortgages and selling them off to the highest international bidder. Then when the bubble bursts, these pricks who wanted to be left alone were crying for help.

Plus, the joke is that while there is a bail out plan for the bankers and insurers, the poor son of a bitch who bought a place to live can't get refinanced, because he's the same lousey risk he alwasy was, only now he probably has fewer assets, maybe no job and the paper equity in his property has evaportated as a result of the ruthless pricks to financed the inflated purchase price in the first place. The banks do not want to refinance and don't want people to stay in their homes. The borrower defaults, the bank collects insurance, forecloses and sells the property outright or to anohter bank. If he mortgage was an earleir refi they can pursue the owner for the balance of the mortgage, too. It is a virtual windfall for the banks.

So, jobless, insuranceless and homeless the victims of the greedy bastards on Wall Street , many of whom still got multimillion dollar bonuses even after our tax dollars saved their dumb asses from exitinction -- the greedy, thieving assholes go on like nothing happened because the Nanny State was their for them. Their is no Nanny State for their victims, however.

Some here say that if Americans can't pay their ARM adjusted mortgage, they should be put out. If they would have done a better job, their company wouldn't have downsized. If they had better genes, they wouldn't get sick, so they wouldn't miss the insurance after it is cancelled by the provider. Had they kept their property maintained, it wouldn't have lost a third to half its value. It's their own damn fault!

The irony is that the tea baggers and other conservatives are just as vulnerable as the rest of us. Seems like the social issues -- cocksuckin babykillers, for instance -- get them riled up and then they vote for ANYTHING that will save them from that. So they vote for legislators and leaders that will provide a framework and safety net for the oligarchs and they oddly get fucked with the rest of us.

This is still the richest country in the world, and if we can support Wars that have only made a handful of military vendors shamefully wealthier and can bail out white collar fools who should be in jail, can't we provide a safety net for the rest of us?

 

[Supersix]

No. That is not the purpose of government. And banks failed because they were forced to lend to people who couldn't afford the homes they bought. Sorry, that's life. Downsize, and rent an apartment or another house somewhere. Life isn't always fair. If you want in on those miltary vendors' money, become one. There's very few of them. And not all forclosed homes sell for anywhere near what they were previously worth, since the market is so low. A neighbor of mine bought a 4 year vacant forclosure, put a few hundred thousand dollars into it, it's now a palace, but worth less because the market is lower, if they sold now, they'd lose a lot. In the hundreds of thousands. They made these choices. They could have just cleaned it up and lived in it the way it was, which wasn't bad at all. Where's the sympathy for people who employ others to make something better, and then lose money? You still have the tiresome entitlment mentality.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. People already paid for private industry to do those things in many instances, before government came along and made it ten times more expensive.



The same people who used to pay for it: the people who want to sell products.

You guys ever hear of UL? They were inspecting and certifying things, in the private sector, long before government came along to make it less efficient a process. There's another body that does it for plumbing materials, and probably some I haven't heard of. And they did a MUCH better job -- and did it without mandating how people build or install, etc.; they just took parts from manufacturers, tested the hell out of them, and gave a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. And long before government poked its nose in, UL's reputation for honesty and thoroughness had made it impossible to sell something without their stamp on it.

The only function of government here should be to set up outfits to do what UL had already been doing, get them off to a good start, and get out of the way. The same could be done for housing, bringing to an end the situation where on a $14k dollar addition to my friend's house, $8k went for inspections and permit fees, and instead of taking over two years, Jim and I could have done it in three months.

Well, maybe four months -- we spend too much time laughing at parodies of 'Christian pop' and making very bad puns.

So I'm not following here.

Who inspects the bridges? To make sure they're not going to collapse? The company that's going to FIX the bridge? We're going to trust them to tell us "we just paid 50 grand out of our pocket to inspect this bridge and it's fine... you don't need to fix it..." and not "we just spent 50 grand of our own money to inspect this bridge and it's a good thing we did because you need 5 million dollars in work on it?"

And then... who pays for that 5 million in repairs to the bridge? Do we charge people a buck to cross every bridge?

Who pays to inspect the food supply? The company that sells us tainted meat or the company that sells us the drugs to fight bacterial infections? Who do you trust less?

 

[Kulindahr]

We have just witnessed the results of laissez-faire free market economics.

False. We haven't had laissez-faire economics since the nineteenth century

The unbridled greed of the mortgage bankers that almost resulted in an economic depression -- but for the "Nanny State" bailing them out. Taking our hard earned money and giving it to a bunch of immoral assholes who risked our homes by bundling our mortgages and selling them off to the highest international bidder. Then when the bubble bursts, these pricks who wanted to be left alone were crying for help.

Partly false -- it was also the unbridled greed of both parties in Congress who wanted nice fat checks from the bankers, and the untempered idealism of government pushing institutions to make loans they (the institutions) knew were foolish -- and they did it, I'm sure, because the politicians promised things would be fine.

Plus, the joke is that while there is a bail out plan for the bankers and insurers, the poor son of a bitch who bought a place to live can't get refinanced, because he's the same lousey risk he alwasy was, only now he probably has fewer assets, maybe no job and the paper equity in his property has evaportated as a result of the ruthless pricks to financed the inflated purchase price in the first place. The banks do not want to refinance and don't want people to stay in their homes. The borrower defaults, the bank collects insurance, forecloses and sells the property outright or to anohter bank. If he mortgage was an earleir refi they can pursue the owner for the balance of the mortgage, too. It is a virtual windfall for the banks.

Exactly what the government had been working toward since Carter -- and then they bail out banks rather than people. Of course a good deal of that money for the banks has been paid back; OTOH, that was possible because they never unfroze credit.
And again that's the government's fault; they insisted the money be paid back promptly, which left the economy in the lurch.
BTW, banks are losing money on most of the foreclosures -- it's called cutting their losses: better to grab and sell for something than to consider desperate prayer something viable on the asset sheet.

So, jobless, insuranceless and homeless the victims of the greedy bastards on Wall Street , many of whom still got multimillion dollar bonuses even after our tax dollars saved their dumb asses from exitinction -- the greedy, thieving assholes go on like nothing happened because the Nanny State was their for them. Their is no Nanny State for their victims, however.

Sorry, that's victims of the greedy, foolish bastards in Washington, D.C. They're why the bankers still get annual bonuses larger than the national median income: so the politicians would keep getting their campaign donations.

Some here say that if Americans can't pay their ARM adjusted mortgage, they should be put out. If they would have done a better job, their company wouldn't have downsized. If they had better genes, they wouldn't get sick, so they wouldn't miss the insurance after it is cancelled by the provider. Had they kept their property maintained, it wouldn't have lost a third to half its value. It's their own damn fault!

Yeah -- leave it to people of the sort who love Ayn Rand to blame government idiocy on the people it harms the most.

The irony is that the tea baggers and other conservatives are just as vulnerable as the rest of us. Seems like the social issues -- cocksuckin babykillers, for instance -- get them riled up and then they vote for ANYTHING that will save them from that. So they vote for legislators and leaders that will provide a framework and safety net for the oligarchs and they oddly get fucked with the rest of us.

We have those oligarchs because of a plunderer mentality. It doesn't show up much in industry, where to get what you (think you) deserve, you have to keep working. It shows up in government, where people go and work hard, and take the salary and the perks and say, "I work hard; I deserve it", but before too long, they forget the "work hard" part, and just say, "I deserve it".
And don't forget that most of them have no clue what the real world is like, anyway; they started out privileged and see no reason at all why they shouldn't accumulate more privilege.

This is still the richest country in the world, and if we can support Wars that have only made a handful of military vendors shamefully wealthier and can bail out white collar fools who should be in jail, can't we provide a safety net for the rest of us?

Don't forget Haliburton, which charged hundreds of millions for things it never did.

 

[Kulindahr]

No. That is not the purpose of government. And banks failed because they were forced to lend to people who couldn't afford the homes they bought. Sorry, that's life. Downsize, and rent an apartment or another house somewhere. Life isn't always fair. If you want in on those miltary vendors' money, become one. There's very few of them. And not all forclosed homes sell for anywhere near what they were previously worth, since the market is so low. A neighbor of mine bought a 4 year vacant forclosure, put a few hundred thousand dollars into it, it's now a palace, but worth less because the market is lower, if they sold now, they'd lose a lot. In the hundreds of thousands. They made these choices. They could have just cleaned it up and lived in it the way it was, which wasn't bad at all. Where's the sympathy for people who employ others to make something better, and then lose money? You still have the tiresome entitlment mentality.

Since it was government that did this to us -- the bankers merely went along -- I don't think it's "entitlement", I think it's justice.

Or if a thief came along and not only took a third of what you own but mashed down a wall in your house to do it, would you say "Okay, I'll downsize, and rent an apartment or another house somewhere. Life isn't always fair"?

People had property. It was stolen -- this was no natural disaster, it was done to us. Demanding restitution is not about "entitlement". And letting the people who did it continue to enjoy the privileges of stolen wealth is criminal.

So, nearly, is making excuses for them.

 

[Kulindahr]

So I'm not following here.

Who inspects the bridges? To make sure they're not going to collapse? The company that's going to FIX the bridge? We're going to trust them to tell us "we just paid 50 grand out of our pocket to inspect this bridge and it's fine... you don't need to fix it..." and not "we just spent 50 grand of our own money to inspect this bridge and it's a good thing we did because you need 5 million dollars in work on it?"

And then... who pays for that 5 million in repairs to the bridge? Do we charge people a buck to cross every bridge?

Who pays to inspect the food supply? The company that sells us tainted meat or the company that sells us the drugs to fight bacterial infections? Who do you trust less?

Probably the insurance companies would inspect the bridge -- if it's privately owned, it's going to need to be insured, and if people are going to drive on it, their insurance companies should want to be certain it's not going to fail and cost them bucks when some of their customers wreck. And if it starts to deteriorate anyway, you bring a class-action suit demanding compensation for the extra wear and tear.

That's the problem with letting government do the roads -- they don't give a shit. Sections of a US highway here went neglected for twenty years, resulting in many tens of thousands of dollars in damage a year to vehicles using it. The crappy road conditions also cost jobs; companies packed up and moved rather than use it.
If it had been a private road, those companies, and a lot of other people who used it, could have sued. Since it was the government, everyone had to put up with it.

The conditions of the roads in the U.S. is one of the greatest arguments for getting government out of the transportation business. Bridges are falling apart, embankments and deteriorating, foundations are substandard and failing -- and nothing gets done. If a corporation had some of those roads and let them get that way, the executives would be in jail.

The end result would probably be another outfit like Underwriters Laboratories, specializing in ground transportation matters. The insurance companies would ask them to inspect things they were concerned about, and if there was anything substandard, the highway/bridge owner would have to pay a proportional part of the cost. We'd get seriously better roads, and probably some needed improvements once the government couldn't tell investors, "No, you can't build a highway there"... out of political reasons (that's not hypothetical; investors in Oregon and northern California actually had plans to build a new highway across Oregon -- and it was nixed by the state thanks to politics).

You should have asked about city streets -- that's where a superb case can be made for government being in charge. Friedman aside, I have yet to see a sensible system to run those free-enterprise (caveat: in a generation, we'll probably have the technology to do it).

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Probably the insurance companies would inspect the bridge -- if it's privately owned, it's going to need to be insured, and if people are going to drive on it, their insurance companies should want to be certain it's not going to fail and cost them bucks when some of their customers wreck. And if it starts to deteriorate anyway, you bring a class-action suit demanding compensation for the extra wear and tear.

That's the problem with letting government do the roads -- they don't give a shit.

Yeah.

And if we've learned anything from the health care debate, it's that healthcare insurance companies put people over profit every time, right?

(And who does these class action suits? Just... "concerned citizens?" Lawyers doing pro-bono work out of the kindness of their hearts? You? Me? wouldn't it make more sense and save money to have a government agency kinda... making sure it didn't have to come to class action suits? Just made sure it got done? Does everything in America have to be about making a profit and filing a lawsuit?)

 

[Kulindahr]

Oops -- I missed the food supply question. Again, a good place to start is insurance companies, which don't want to have to pay out because of bad food. As with roads, that would include the insurance companies on both sides, vendor and customer. And also as with roads, it would probably become a matter where outfits like UL would form to do the work. Some would become trusted, like UL did, and after some time it wouldn't be possible to even sell meat without the "HtML Certified" sticker.

We haave a deformed economic system on these issues because government has overstayed it effectiveness. UL and others demonstrated that the private sector can do these things just fine -- and more cheaply -- so government's only legitimate role is to get such private ventures set up to do it.



note: "HtML" is my invented name for a meat inspection company... "Hoof to Mouth Laboratories".

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Oops -- I missed the food supply question. Again, a good place to start is insurance companies, which don't want to have to pay out because of bad food. As with roads, that would include the insurance companies on both sides, vendor and customer. And also as with roads, it would probably become a matter where outfits like UL would form to do the work. Some would become trusted, like UL did, and after some time it wouldn't be possible to even sell meat without the "HtML Certified" sticker.

And just like other insurance companies... they would just keep those class action suits in courts until the poor people with dead kids ran out of money and gave up.

I don't believe for one second that insurance companies can be trusted with anything like that. Unless we're talking about an elected official... that's answerable to the public, nothing is going to get done.

We've seen in a million times... if the cost of letting 20 people die is lower than fixing the problem... they'll let 20 people die. Every time.

Sorry, but your "do away with a responsible body that the people can hold accountable and turn it over to people who can make a profit" model is begging for disaster.