That's a lot of things I didn't say. All I'm saying is that - they're all terrible. That's really what it comes down to. I just don't pretend that the banks that conned us only did so because we print money instead of mine money.
To some extent, yes, McDonalds should be regulated. Their food shouldn't poison me any more than food served by anyone else.
As far as the scenario of "John eats too much and sues McDonalds" in terms of government regulation - I would say... if John had a food addiction to McDonalds food... then, no this wouldn't be McDonald's fault if I was the ruling judge. This man has a choice and he chose to eat at McDonalds fully knowing the health risks. (Since McDonalds and many restraunts like it are now required to divulge health information about the food they sell - some even print it if it helps their marketing campaign - like Subway restraunts).
However, I have seen lawsuits like this one result in laws requiring certain organisations (including public and private schools) to offer healthier choices and vegetarian alternatives. Since I'm all about choices, I consider this a positive result even though I still feel that those lawsuits are frequently frivolous and attempts to money-grab from businesses just doing exactly what they say they are doing.
I've been arguing a lot with you for the government, but for the record, I have many issues with the government as much as I have issues with the more mischievious corperations.
I'll give you an example - one for a company and another for a government.
I have a lot of issues with the Microsoft Corperation. It even qualifies as something I particulary dislike - which is that they are essentially a monopoly over the OS market.
Still, for the most part, I do like the company. They sell a fantastic product that they put a lot of effort into making well and competing with the others in the OS market, which they continue to dominate.
I also use a bank that's local to my state called "Lake City Bank." Aside from their bloated and assinine fees they charged me for overcharging my debit card (which *was* my fault, but I take issue with having to pay several hundred dollars in fees for what amounts to an approximate total of 20$ in overcharges.) But they've otherwise been an excellent bank to me. I may even keep working with the bank after moving to Texas. I don't know how it's going to work, but this is what I'm doing I guess.
Aside from the more obvious issues we've already covered about the government that I agree with you about (like the bailouts), I loathe how the government is handling education in my country, the supreme court opened the floodgates for all the "I own you" money from companies that could possibly come thanks to the Citizen's United decision. They've allowed the nation's infrastructure to crumble (roads, bridges, sewers, sanitation, power, etc). Well, I could go further still, but you get the idea.
What I remember most from history, though, is that as bad as the US government has been, the corperations have and continue to get away with murder - whether it's the days before the 40 hour week, 2 week vacation, and minimum wage when people worked for less than they spent in company towns (keeping them in an eternal debt cycle) and they worked for 80 hours a week under deplorable conditions just to feed their family and stay alive. On the other hand, the US did genocide against the Native Americans for most of our early history and put Asian-Americans into internment camps for some years during one or both world wars.
I think there are points to defend with both, but I don't think there is a catch-all solution that will fix everything. I think your version of a perfect society is at least as breakable as mine and for many of the same reasons. It might work. Adrian's anarcho-capitalism might even work - even if it's only temporary depending on how they're implimented and maintained.
No society is perfect and even the best of human societies is just as vulnerable to become the next roman empire (in that they can collapse from corruption and mismanagement.)
The United States may very well be on this path right now. I could see the collapse of my country in my lifetime. On other hand, I may see it become greater than it ever has been in the past.
Where I take issue with your stances is mostly the idea that everything can be fixed without all this pesky economic interferance, as though it's because of government that companies and the weatlhy seek to corrupt them when historically that has never been the case, which I can guarentee you is wrong.
(March 31, 2011 at 11:02 pm)theVOID Wrote: And shouldn't we be regulating McDonals? after all you are for regulating every other similar scenario. What if John has a food addiction? Is he not a McSlave being exploited by the evil corporates?
To some extent, yes, McDonalds should be regulated. Their food shouldn't poison me any more than food served by anyone else.
As far as the scenario of "John eats too much and sues McDonalds" in terms of government regulation - I would say... if John had a food addiction to McDonalds food... then, no this wouldn't be McDonald's fault if I was the ruling judge. This man has a choice and he chose to eat at McDonalds fully knowing the health risks. (Since McDonalds and many restraunts like it are now required to divulge health information about the food they sell - some even print it if it helps their marketing campaign - like Subway restraunts).
However, I have seen lawsuits like this one result in laws requiring certain organisations (including public and private schools) to offer healthier choices and vegetarian alternatives. Since I'm all about choices, I consider this a positive result even though I still feel that those lawsuits are frequently frivolous and attempts to money-grab from businesses just doing exactly what they say they are doing.
I've been arguing a lot with you for the government, but for the record, I have many issues with the government as much as I have issues with the more mischievious corperations.
I'll give you an example - one for a company and another for a government.
I have a lot of issues with the Microsoft Corperation. It even qualifies as something I particulary dislike - which is that they are essentially a monopoly over the OS market.
Still, for the most part, I do like the company. They sell a fantastic product that they put a lot of effort into making well and competing with the others in the OS market, which they continue to dominate.
I also use a bank that's local to my state called "Lake City Bank." Aside from their bloated and assinine fees they charged me for overcharging my debit card (which *was* my fault, but I take issue with having to pay several hundred dollars in fees for what amounts to an approximate total of 20$ in overcharges.) But they've otherwise been an excellent bank to me. I may even keep working with the bank after moving to Texas. I don't know how it's going to work, but this is what I'm doing I guess.
Aside from the more obvious issues we've already covered about the government that I agree with you about (like the bailouts), I loathe how the government is handling education in my country, the supreme court opened the floodgates for all the "I own you" money from companies that could possibly come thanks to the Citizen's United decision. They've allowed the nation's infrastructure to crumble (roads, bridges, sewers, sanitation, power, etc). Well, I could go further still, but you get the idea.
What I remember most from history, though, is that as bad as the US government has been, the corperations have and continue to get away with murder - whether it's the days before the 40 hour week, 2 week vacation, and minimum wage when people worked for less than they spent in company towns (keeping them in an eternal debt cycle) and they worked for 80 hours a week under deplorable conditions just to feed their family and stay alive. On the other hand, the US did genocide against the Native Americans for most of our early history and put Asian-Americans into internment camps for some years during one or both world wars.
I think there are points to defend with both, but I don't think there is a catch-all solution that will fix everything. I think your version of a perfect society is at least as breakable as mine and for many of the same reasons. It might work. Adrian's anarcho-capitalism might even work - even if it's only temporary depending on how they're implimented and maintained.
No society is perfect and even the best of human societies is just as vulnerable to become the next roman empire (in that they can collapse from corruption and mismanagement.)
The United States may very well be on this path right now. I could see the collapse of my country in my lifetime. On other hand, I may see it become greater than it ever has been in the past.
Where I take issue with your stances is mostly the idea that everything can be fixed without all this pesky economic interferance, as though it's because of government that companies and the weatlhy seek to corrupt them when historically that has never been the case, which I can guarentee you is wrong.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
