Gubment regulation

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

Working very little seems to work ok for folks who are "rich" in money terms.

But maybe they are different?

[pErvinalia]

It's hard work investing all those millions. Don't ya know?

[Tero]

And you have to buy and sells all those cars and boats and planes because they are old models. And you never have time to drive them.

[laklak]

You laugh, but my fingers are hurting from clicking the "Buy" and "Sell" buttons. It's serious. It hurts when I pick my nose and that's not good.

[Kristie]

You laugh, but my fingers are hurting from clicking the "Buy" and "Sell" buttons. It's serious. It hurts when I pick my nose and that's not good.

My god, man! Don't you have people that do that stuff for you?!

[laklak]

I'm not one of the idle rich, I work for my money.

[macdoc]

Well, that's what Libertarians (well, me) call "exported harm" and it's intrinsically wrong and an initiation of force and fraud according to Libertarian principles. In the absence of a government authority willing to prevent or redress such exported harms, the members of the community who have an interest in the damaged area would be authorized to take whatever action is required to cause the exported harm to cease and desist, and to recover damages.

so where's the libertarian hordes coming down on coal plants.

Pollutants from coal-based electricity generation kill 170,000 people annually
Saturday, 14 June, 2008

what fucking bit of hypocrisy that bit of tripe was from you.

we won't even begin with C02 emissions and the cynical muddying of established science and harm.

The True Cost of Coal
Last Modified: 5th October 2012
To the electricity customer, coal is relatively cheap. But missing from the sticker price are coal's major impacts on ecosystems, human health, and our economy.
People are sickened by pollution from coal fired power plants, shortening their lives and burdening the health care system with costly care.
Fish are poisoned when coal mines dump waste into streams, starving their predators, depriving subsistence fishermen, and straining stocks that support commercial fisheries.
Future generations will be heavily impacted by global warming from the carbon dioxide that burning coal spews into the air.
As taxpayers we pay to subsidize coal use and clean up its aftermath.

True Cost of Coal: Not all costs of coal are reflected in the price of electricity.

Collectively, these are known as "externalized costs", because they are not paid by those directly involved in the buying and selling that sets the market price (the coal mining companies, the coal-using power plants, or their electricity customers). Coal has many externalized costs, therefore its market price doesn't reflect its "True Cost." Although it appears to be cheap to the buyer, it is much more expensive to society as a whole. For a more detailed discussion of True Cost, see our article here.
Worldwide these externalized costs were estimated to exceed $450 billion in 2007. We estimated total economic value of coal in that year to be $210 billion, less than half of the externalized costs. To make this estimate we assumed that the 2007 US open market price of ~$30 per ton was representative of the world open market and multiplied this by the world coal consumption in 2007 of about 7 billion tons.

http://www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issu ... eCost.html

so where are the libbies stepping up???....

[Seth]

Well, that's what Libertarians (well, me) call "exported harm" and it's intrinsically wrong and an initiation of force and fraud according to Libertarian principles. In the absence of a government authority willing to prevent or redress such exported harms, the members of the community who have an interest in the damaged area would be authorized to take whatever action is required to cause the exported harm to cease and desist, and to recover damages.

so where's the libertarian hordes coming down on coal plants.

They see that the utility and necessity of coal-based electricity outweighs the exported harms, while at the same time advocating for reasonable, affordable and cost-effective methods of reducing the exported harms that leave electricity abundantly available and cheap.

In other words, Libertarians understand that they use electricity and that by doing so they are contributing to the demand that requires coal power plants, and therefore they are obligated to accept some amount of exported harm because it is produced as a side-effect of providing a commodity that they want and need and are willing to pay for in spite of the environmental impacts.

Pollutants from coal-based electricity generation kill 170,000 people annually

Horseshit. These are merely guesstimates made by the feds based on dubious propositions and manipulations of statistics, not actual numbers of deaths that can be directly attributed to coal power plants. Most of the time it's not even that, it's just a guesstimate of a possible shortening of life span resulting from long-term exposure to pollutants that is entirely unprovable in any particular case, but is tossed out as a way to scare people into believing that they are going to drop dead from coal plant fumes tomorrow. But even if true, those 170,000 people are, or were consumers of electricity largely generated by coal, and therefore the impacts they suffer are simply an unavoidable consequence of their own demand for energy. If you tell me to render your dead horse for you, and my rendering plant is upwind of your home, you have no room to complain about the odor because YOU are responsible for creating the need to render the horse down into glue, dog food and horsehide.

The bullshit propaganda you cite fails to recognize that there are acceptable levels of environmental impact for every human activity, because some sort of impact is inevitable if humans are to live in a modern, technological society. The Luddites who produce this claptrap want everyone living in wattle-and-daub huts, wearing homespun breechclouts and grubbing in the ground with pointed sticks so that they won't "impact the environment." Fuck them, and you. I like my technological, high-class, sophisticated lifestyle and I need cheap electricity to have it, and I'm perfectly willing to shorten my life by a few weeks if that's what it takes to give me a good and comfortable life while I survive.

so where are the libbies stepping up???....

No reason to. If you don't like being exposed to coal plant effluent, don't live near a coal plant and don't use coal-produced electricity. I suggest Afghanistan. Or perhaps Tibet. Those of us who want cheap, easily available and plentiful electricity to enhance our desired high-tech lifestyles accept the vanishingly small risk to each of us that our lives will be shortened by exposure to such pollutants. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!

And fuck all y'all Luddite assholes.

[pErvinalia]

Well, that's what Libertarians (well, me) call "exported harm" and it's intrinsically wrong and an initiation of force and fraud according to Libertarian principles. In the absence of a government authority willing to prevent or redress such exported harms, the members of the community who have an interest in the damaged area would be authorized to take whatever action is required to cause the exported harm to cease and desist, and to recover damages.

so where's the libertarian hordes coming down on coal plants.

They see that the utility and necessity of coal-based electricity outweighs the exported harms,

No they don't because they are stupid. They are at the forefront of climate change denial. This is exactly my point about how hard it is to nail down the concept of "exported harm". It's a good concept in principle, but in practice there's lots of problems.

The Luddites who produce this claptrap want everyone living in wattle-and-daub huts, wearing homespun breechclouts and grubbing in the ground with pointed sticks so that they won't "impact the environment." Fuck them, and you. I like my technological, high-class, sophisticated lifestyle and I need cheap electricity to have it,

Ahhh, the old false dichotomy. The primary tool in the conservative's debating bag of tricks. Tell us, who are these people who want to go back to living in wattle-and-daub huts?

so where are the libbies stepping up???....

No reason to. If you don't like being exposed to coal plant effluent, don't live near a coal plant and don't use coal-produced electricity.

Coal plants export harm evenly across the globe, in terms of global warming. Basically, as always, your lipservice about 'exported harm' is nothing but empty rhetoric. Same as your bullshit about taxes being "theft". It's clear that you are actually a smart person, and probably one of the most literate advocates for libertarianism on the net. So I know that you recognise the flaws in your argument. Eventually, it all boils down to the ideology of selfishness. While you personally don't suffer from coal fired electricity, you are happy to dismiss the obvious level of exported harm and externalities.

I suggest Afghanistan. Or perhaps Tibet.

I suggest Somalia. It's a libertarian paradise.

[Seth]

Well, that's what Libertarians (well, me) call "exported harm" and it's intrinsically wrong and an initiation of force and fraud according to Libertarian principles. In the absence of a government authority willing to prevent or redress such exported harms, the members of the community who have an interest in the damaged area would be authorized to take whatever action is required to cause the exported harm to cease and desist, and to recover damages.

so where's the libertarian hordes coming down on coal plants.

They see that the utility and necessity of coal-based electricity outweighs the exported harms,

No they don't because they are stupid. They are at the forefront of climate change denial.

They aren't stupid, they are just not credulous fools because a) there is no proof that AGW exists because all the temperature excursions so far observed fall well within the historical limits of temperature variation over long periods; and b) because even if AGW is real, it's not necessarily a bad thing, given that we're behind schedule for another ice age. Humans can survive much higher global temperatures quite nicely, but they cannot easily survive mile-thick glaciers covering 70 percent of the planet. It may be that AGW is what saves the planet, not destroys it.

Of course, some people might have to move uphill 20 feet to avoid higher sea levels, but that's just a minor inconvenience that humans have faced before, as demonstrated by the Indian village remains found in the Puget Sound area of Washington state that lie some 300 feet BELOW current sea level.

Adapt or die.

This is exactly my point about how hard it is to nail down the concept of "exported harm". It's a good concept in principle, but in practice there's lots of problems.

Nobody said it was easy.

The Luddites who produce this claptrap want everyone living in wattle-and-daub huts, wearing homespun breechclouts and grubbing in the ground with pointed sticks so that they won't "impact the environment." Fuck them, and you. I like my technological, high-class, sophisticated lifestyle and I need cheap electricity to have it,

Ahhh, the old false dichotomy. The primary tool in the conservative's debating bag of tricks. Tell us, who are these people who want to go back to living in wattle-and-daub huts?

Everybody who wants to shut down coal fired power plants, industrial manufacturing and automobile use because of air pollution concerns.

so where are the libbies stepping up???....

No reason to. If you don't like being exposed to coal plant effluent, don't live near a coal plant and don't use coal-produced electricity.

Coal plants export harm evenly across the globe, in terms of global warming.

Prove it. And I don't mean parrot some eco-propaganda, show me the direct link between coal power plants and global warming. Oh, wait, you can't. Never mind.

Basically, as always, your lipservice about 'exported harm' is nothing but empty rhetoric. Same as your bullshit about taxes being "theft".

As you well know, my claim is that SOME TAXES are theft, not all taxes. Specifically, those taxes levied that are purely redistributive, meaning direct transfers of wealth from one person to another using the taxing power of the State to force that redistribution, are theft. Those taxes are indeed theft. Taxes levied to pay for my proportional share of the use of public facilities and services, like gasoline taxes to fund road construction and maintenance or property taxes to pay for law enforcement, or sewer fees and electrical bills are all necessary parts of living in a civilized society, even under Libertarian principles.

What is NOT a Libertarian principle is being forced to fork over money for transfer to the dependent class because some politician or bureaucrat (or more pertinently the dependent class) think it's not "fair" that those who work hard and earn more be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor without forcing them to pay for other people's expenses too.

You know this perfectly well because I've explained it to you probably a hundred or more times, but you still persist in lying through your teeth and deliberately, maliciously and mendaciously mischaracterizing my positions.

It's clear that you are actually a smart person, and probably one of the most literate advocates for libertarianism on the net. So I know that you recognise the flaws in your argument. Eventually, it all boils down to the ideology of selfishness. While you personally don't suffer from coal fired electricity, you are happy to dismiss the obvious level of exported harm and externalities.

I don't dismiss them, I accept them as a necessary negative consequence of demanding an advanced technological lifestyle. I accept my role and responsibility in creating the demand for energy and I accept the consequences of that action by willingly accepting any personal physical harm that might occur as a result of those decisions.

There is no human activity that can be accurately classified as free of environmental impacts. Every human activity has such impacts. The question is whether the benefits to be gained outweigh the harms the activity causes. It's always a balancing act, and it perpetually changes balance point as technology and the economy ebb and flow.

It's a good thing that coal plants have sulphur dioxide scrubbers, but the technology simply does not exist to provide the necessary electricity to meet consumer demand without any environmental impacts. Research continues into carbon sequestration methods that might be affordable and effective, but we're not there yet.

It's stupid to shut down coal plants in any case because coal is our most abundant energy source and it creates the cheapest electricity, which is what consumers want. They are evidently willing to accept the pollution and putative global warming impacts in return for powering their lifestyle. When they make a different decision, then energy demand will drop. Until then it's the obligation of the government to not unduly obstruct the people's access to cheap electricity because that is what the people want, and the government has a duty to serve the people's will.

I suggest Afghanistan. Or perhaps Tibet.

I suggest Somalia. It's a libertarian paradise.[/quote]

Not at all, because Somali warlords do not subscribe to the "no force or fraud" primary principle of Libertarianism.

[pErvinalia]

Well, that's what Libertarians (well, me) call "exported harm" and it's intrinsically wrong and an initiation of force and fraud according to Libertarian principles. In the absence of a government authority willing to prevent or redress such exported harms, the members of the community who have an interest in the damaged area would be authorized to take whatever action is required to cause the exported harm to cease and desist, and to recover damages.

so where's the libertarian hordes coming down on coal plants.

They see that the utility and necessity of coal-based electricity outweighs the exported harms,

No they don't because they are stupid. They are at the forefront of climate change denial.

They aren't stupid, they are just not credulous fools because a) there is no proof that AGW exists because all the temperature excursions so far observed fall well within the historical limits of temperature variation over long periods; and b) because even if AGW is real, it's not necessarily a bad thing, given that we're behind schedule for another ice age. Humans can survive much higher global temperatures quite nicely, but they cannot easily survive mile-thick glaciers covering 70 percent of the planet. It may be that AGW is what saves the planet, not destroys it.

Of course, some people might have to move uphill 20 feet to avoid higher sea levels, but that's just a minor inconvenience that humans have faced before, as demonstrated by the Indian village remains found in the Puget Sound area of Washington state that lie some 300 feet BELOW current sea level.

Adapt or die.

You clearly have absolutely no clue.

The Luddites who produce this claptrap want everyone living in wattle-and-daub huts, wearing homespun breechclouts and grubbing in the ground with pointed sticks so that they won't "impact the environment." Fuck them, and you. I like my technological, high-class, sophisticated lifestyle and I need cheap electricity to have it,

Ahhh, the old false dichotomy. The primary tool in the conservative's debating bag of tricks. Tell us, who are these people who want to go back to living in wattle-and-daub huts?

Everybody who wants to shut down coal fired power plants, industrial manufacturing and automobile use because of air pollution concerns.

I ask again, who are these people?

so where are the libbies stepping up???....

No reason to. If you don't like being exposed to coal plant effluent, don't live near a coal plant and don't use coal-produced electricity.

Coal plants export harm evenly across the globe, in terms of global warming.

Prove it. And I don't mean parrot some eco-propaganda, show me the direct link between coal power plants and global warming. Oh, wait, you can't. Never mind.

Fucking science... how does it work?

[Seth]

No they don't because they are stupid. They are at the forefront of climate change denial.

They aren't stupid, they are just not credulous fools because a) there is no proof that AGW exists because all the temperature excursions so far observed fall well within the historical limits of temperature variation over long periods; and b) because even if AGW is real, it's not necessarily a bad thing, given that we're behind schedule for another ice age. Humans can survive much higher global temperatures quite nicely, but they cannot easily survive mile-thick glaciers covering 70 percent of the planet. It may be that AGW is what saves the planet, not destroys it.

Of course, some people might have to move uphill 20 feet to avoid higher sea levels, but that's just a minor inconvenience that humans have faced before, as demonstrated by the Indian village remains found in the Puget Sound area of Washington state that lie some 300 feet BELOW current sea level.

Adapt or die.

You clearly have absolutely no clue.

No you!

The Luddites who produce this claptrap want everyone living in wattle-and-daub huts, wearing homespun breechclouts and grubbing in the ground with pointed sticks so that they won't "impact the environment." Fuck them, and you. I like my technological, high-class, sophisticated lifestyle and I need cheap electricity to have it,

Ahhh, the old false dichotomy. The primary tool in the conservative's debating bag of tricks. Tell us, who are these people who want to go back to living in wattle-and-daub huts?

Everybody who wants to shut down coal fired power plants, industrial manufacturing and automobile use because of air pollution concerns.

I ask again, who are these people?

I don't care to know their names, I don't associate with such nitwits.

so where are the libbies stepping up???....

No reason to. If you don't like being exposed to coal plant effluent, don't live near a coal plant and don't use coal-produced electricity.

Coal plants export harm evenly across the globe, in terms of global warming.

Prove it. And I don't mean parrot some eco-propaganda, show me the direct link between coal power plants and global warming. Oh, wait, you can't. Never mind.

Fucking science... how does it work?

See, I knew you couldn't prove it.

[Tero]

At least they did not have to put up with Gubment control at RR crossings, such as lights and gates.
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=17735939

[Blind groper]

As a person who is recently retired, let me assure you that not having a job, or a business, is not a recipe for sadness. I enjoy life more by not having to work. I can devote myself to the things I really like.

Strangely, that also includes the occasional argument with assorted idiots on internet forums.

[Seth]

As a person who is recently retired, let me assure you that not having a job, or a business, is not a recipe for sadness. I enjoy life more by not having to work. I can devote myself to the things I really like.

Strangely, that also includes the occasional argument with assorted idiots on internet forums.

People live an average of seven years after retiring, mostly because of terminal boredom. The clock is ticking, and the bell is ready to toll for you...