That’s why you should attempt to agree, first, what the definition is.
This should be done in a well-considered O.P.
It’s just as pointless if you argue with 10 liberals about liberalism, they do not all agree completely either, and a definition of liberalism should be agreed to for purposes of the debate.
Seriously? You want laws written by unelected officials? That doesn’t really sound like democracy, did you actually mean that? Or were you trying to say that unelected bureaucrats should recommend regulations?
I never said I wanted laws written by unelected officials.
What’s the difference?
“If its not documented it didn’t happen.” Pretty common phrase for a reason.
How about a statute that reads: " No Physician shall prescribe an antibiotic drug for the treatment of a viral disease."
Just to get you started thinking about possible solutions to keep doctors from encouraging superbugs. Attach class A misdemeanor penalties. No probation, even for first time offenses. That’d make the quacks who cave in to patient pressure think twice.
Who do we prosecute for environmental crimes? Everyone we have evidence against is a fairly good answer.
So what is it you think you said? This thread started based on the statement, “Deregulation makes us much less safe.” Which means regulations make us safe(er). David42 asked who writes those regulations, and you said, “Unelected officials.”
You also said, “Much easier to have a strong federal government to regulate medications.” Is the strong federal government composed of unelected bureaucrats?
So who is writing these regulations that keep us safe? In the context of this thread, I asked about regulations that are keeping us safe from superbugs. Your statement quoted above was, “Unelected bureaucrats who don’t need campaign funds.”
Who are these unelected bureaucrats, what regulations are they writing to keep us safe, and who are they accountable to should those regulations fail?
Uh huh. We presently have a regulatory system wherein a pharmacist must maintain records (OMG – forms!!!) of drugs dispensed, who prescribed them, and who got them. Further, the what, who, and whom are subject to criteria (regulations!!!) that dictate the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the dispensing. These criteria are promulgated/provided by the regulatory agency (OMG – more forms!!!) and the dispensing agent is required to dispense only when the pre-established criteria have been met. You don’t meet the criteria, you don’t get the drugs. Thus harm through mis-prescription can be avoided.
In your system a legislative body will enact an ordinance/law (At what level of government are we talking here, just as an aside? National, State, or does every Podunk enact its own set of prescription rules?) prohibiting a particular dispensing. And somehow this information needs to be communicated to all the doctors and pharmacists in the jurisdiction. I can think of no means by which this can be accomplished other than through the promulgation of some kind of “advisory publication”. In other words, a form!!!. And also presumably, whenever a doctor prescribes or a pharmacist dispenses an antibiotic, he/they must necessarily record who got it and the particular purpose (“I swear to bog this is not a viral disease!!”) for which it was given. (OMG – more forms!!!)
Other than a triviality of nomenclature, this appears to be remarkably similar to the present system. Except, of course, for the enforcement aspect. In the present system a regulatory agency monitors compliance, sometimes directly (“Send us your annual report!”) or indirectly by investigating complaints. This does, as you say, include “paper shuffle”. The regulator has the authority to demand specific penalties for transgressions. It also typically has the ability to kick truly egregious violators “upstairs” into the criminal justice system, if its investigation uncovers particular (or particularly damning) evidence. In your system, what exactly will the enforcement be? Will the police visit the home of every person who fills an antibiotic prescription, and interview them as to the nature of their disease? And will the identity of that disease organism, and thus the appropriateness and legality of the prescription, be subject to police interpretation, even if that over-rules the judgment of a licensed physician?
And we’re going to have this kind of “law” for every single prescription medication or class of medications? Even those of broad applicability? Even those “off label uses” that doctors are presently permitted to prescribe? If the police aren’t demanding “Show me your papers!” instead they’ll be demanding “Show me your disease!!” And we’re going to have this kind of nit picky law enforcement finger in every single pie, for every single action or inaction that is presently controlled by regulation rather than law/ordinance, throughout our entire society? Are we really prepared to have the police interpret things that are highly technical and require years of specific training to understand, like pharmacology? Or the safety of a nuclear reactor design? Or the amount of carcinogenic materials emitted in industrial smoke? Et to the ultimate cetera.
The only way a police agency could come close to fulfilling this role would be by expanding exponentially and actually hiring all that varied expertise, in every conceivable field, to be able to properly understand, interpret, and enforce the “laws” you’ve enacted. You’re certainly correct that your version of Libertopia is not at all an anarchy. Instead it is a police state. And one far worse and more intrusive even, IMO, than that of the old Soviet bloc.
So stop trying to nail jello to a wall. Libertarianism isn’t so simple you can stitch it in needlework and hang it above your bed. You want so desperately to fit people into a box so you can later say, “well if you believe x than you MUST believe y.”
No, what you’ll get are people like Lust4Life and 9 others telling libertarians what their opinion is. “Of course they won’t have the U.S. military, or police departments to protect their way of life, but that won’t be necessary as they’ll have their own small arms to protect them.”
And then you get Fear Itself defending that nonsense. If there are two things libertarians agree on it’s the presence of a [defensive] military and a strong police force, along with a court system to deal with offenders, and a government structure to write laws. Or unelected bureaucrats, not sure which yet, I’m still waiting for Fear Itself to tell me my opinion on that.
boy you sure like swinging to the extremes. If I’m not a complete anarchist I must be in favor of a police state. See **emacknight’s **post #150.
Hey you know what? It’s really you who is harping on forms. I raised excess waste as one of several issues and have always said other aspects are more important. The waste argument encompasses more than just the cost of forms, as in salaries and travel budgets etc. When you continually harp on forms as though the only possible aspect of waste is to have to fill out a form, you trivialize the entire concept of waste. But you’re too busy thinking you’re funny and if you just mention “(OMG another FORM)” one more time your argument will be correct.
Your above argument has already been refuted previously by showing that regulatory agencies are inferior to other forms of “regulation” because
a) Regulatory agencies make laws at the will of unelected bureaucrats and the people have no say nor notice of regulations.
b) Regulatory agencies have revolving door employment with the industries they are supposed to control and they are corrupt as a result. Most industries have captured their agencies long ago.
c) Regulatory agencies are duplicative of much existing criminal and civil law and are therefore wasteful. Get rid of duplicative government functions.
d) Regulatory agencies pay large salaries to people to shuffle papers on the premise that shuffling papers over non-problems will somehow prevent the real problems that happen REGARDLESS of how many papers are shuffled.
e) Regulatory agencies create a climate of thinking that no-one is responsible for anything that goes wrong as long as everyone can say he signed the right form. Most regulatory agency fines are jokes compared to the profits of violators. Regulatory agencies are not effective on terms of the punishment fitting the crime.
The whole upshot is that regulatory agencies are pretty much a feel-good measure that a Congressman can point to to show he has an issue under control, so that he doesn’t have to bother to deal with it himself.
Your arguments seem to avoid addressing all these issues in favor of making fun of an objection to excessive form signing.
Well, I think I’ve refuted that statement. Now for the others.
Regulatory agencies make rules, not laws. And the laws that create the regulatory agency give it specific authority to create those rules. And so the rules made are in fact a direct reflection of the intent of the elected legislators who created and empowered the regulatory agency. People have a say through the electoral process. And as for a lack of notice – well, that’s just ridiculous. All those forms and all that paper shuffle you object to constitutes ample notice.
Cite for “most”? And pray tell how this will differ when we have street cops interpreting the “law” prohibiting antibiotic dispensing for non-bacterial infections? As I noted above, such a system will require its own bureaucracy of experts, these now being employed by the police departments instead of the “regulatory agency”, who will have all the same temptations and opportunities as regulatory bureaucrats do now.
Cite for this duplication? And if it exists, why not get rid of the statutes and ordinances instead of the regulatory agencies?
Again you repeat this article of faith but again you fail to provide any evidence for it. And I note that you’ve replaced the word “forms” with the word “papers” but the statement remains the same.
Cites for any of these assertions? And if the punishments aren’t sufficient for your taste, why not advocate for increased penalties instead of discarding the system? Further, you still have not explained who on the corporate ladder (President of the Board, CEO, Second Undersecretary to the Divisional Vice President, least senior secretary, mail clerk?) you plan to throw into jail for violating your “laws”. Nor have you offered the means by which a conviction could be obtained that wouldn’t require its own mountain of evidentiary paper shuffle. Nor explained how that evidence would be gathered, organized and communicated from police to investigators to prosecutors and on to judges and juries without massive stacks of forms-- and people paid handsome salaries to manage them.
I’m not simply making fun of your objection to form signing, I’m making fun of a ridiculous proposal – that we replace regulations with either nothing at all, or with “laws” to be enforced through the criminal justice system. I have addressed and refuted each and every one of your arguments. You have failed to support any of your blanket assertions, although you continue to repeat them. The fact of the matter is that regulatory agencies by and large have been quite effective in at least mitigating and often in preventing harm to the citizenry and our society at large. Epidemic disease is low, as are food poisoning, defective/dangerous/ineffective consumer goods, nuclear and indeed, almost any category of industrial accidents, and a host of other issues have been quite successfully addressed (although not totally eliminated) by our present system of regulation. Heck, in the words of Pete Seeger, “We’re swimming in the Hudson again!”
Congrats on finding the search feature.
So now it’s unelected bureaucrats making “rules”?
No they don’t at all and you know that. If Congress wants a new law there is a debate process, where the views of the electorate are represented by members in Congress. No such process exists within the regulatory agencies. Imagine if your police department was given the authority to makeup it’s own rules over local roads.
So this is the reason for this debate, and where your objects all break down. There is NOTHING in the current process prohibiting antibiotic dispensing for non-bacterial infections. Not once it all the times I’ve gotten antibiotics has the pharmacist (or assistant, or clerk) done anything other than hand me a bottle with some pills in it. My wife and I both travel to enough thirdworld countries that we have multiple prescriptions for cipro, some of which is in my cupboard now. These were prescribed and filled BEFORE I ever had a bacterial infection. Should I choose to abuse those, I would be contributing to the development of superbugs, and nothing in our current regulatory system addresses that.
You’re petty little spat over the use of the word “forms” reflects your desire to avoid addressing that. And bringing up the Soviet Bloc was too ironic for words. Communist Russia was the end result of excessive regulations enacted by unelected officials.
If the development of superbugs is such a grave risk to society, shouldn’t the elected officials create laws to protect us? Instead of creating an agency of unelected bureaucrats who create rules that obviously don’t protect us?
Before you continue to attack a hypothetical political structure, you might want to pause and consider what is actually going on in the CURRENT political structure. Rocks and glass houses and all that. The more you try to attack the obvious flaws in libertarianism the more you point out the current flaws in what we have now.
I will say you did get one thing right in your very long diatribe: “Other than a triviality of nomenclature, this appears to be remarkably similar to the present system.”
I SAY AGAIN “your harping on forms” and that is because you are the one making it an issue of forms.
Read carefully, and you’ll see that each statement is actually focused on another issue, and forms are merely mentioned.
It’s not my fault that forms are part and parcel of regulatory agencies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
…making them fill out forms that show they didn’t do anything wrong so the regulator can have a job filing the forms…
The focus of this is about wasteful spending, particularly giving some bozo a high-paying official sounding job that is already duplicated to some extent, depending on the agency. But you avoid that by converting it to a complaint about procedural form-filing.
…* the “proactive” illusion of a beauracrat shuffling forms concerning issues that everyone already knows…*
And this directly addresses the nullity of the proposition that regulations stop future acts any better than any other scheme of controlling behavior, and merely mentions forms as well.
…subject to forms and entanglements (driving their costs up) to provide some worthless bum a job…
Again, about waste in duplicative jobs and driving the costs of industry up through red tape. Yes, it involves forms, and forms get mentioned.
*…Why regulate by having paper shufflers tell people who do not raise chickens they can’t medicate their chickens and require a form be filled out… *
This is about how regulatory agencies sometimes demand the irrelevant. **This can also involve forms, but forms aren’t the focus of the statement once again. **
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
… give a beaurocrat a job of having us all fill out a form…
see above about waste in employing people needlessly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
…I am against is giving a guy a high paying job to file forms…
see above about waste in employing people needlessly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
*Silly Homers. Of course you have to have them fill out forms. *
This is about my belief that nuclear power plant operators are going to tend to be very careful regardless of rules for the reason that they do not want to die. They’re very good at what they do and in no way do I believe that forms are what is keeping us safe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
…would you like a donut while you fill out your forms?
see above. I want to apologize for the veiled insult, though it isn’t exactly how I meant it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
…everyone involved gets to say, “hey, I didn’t do wrong, see, I filled out all the right forms.”
This is about escaping punishment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
…we let individuals in corporations pass the buck with the excuse “I filled out all the right forms.” …
As is this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
…the department of defense in a recent calendar year has spent 2 billion on travel expenses and an additional 2.2 billion in shuffling forms…
This is about how the cost of regulation can exceed the activity regulated. It’s about 2.2 billion being spent so that we can assure ourselves 2 billion wasn’t stolen.
… private industry has a monumental waste caused by forms that prove they didn’t do wrong, they pass the cost on to you…
This is about additional costs to consumers.
*… when they do commit wrongs, the forms were all filled out “properly” anyway… *
Escaping blame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David42
*…Hey you know what? It’s really you who is harping on forms… *
As I have just shown. By reducing my argument to a hatred of forms, you have ignored all the above relevant problems.
Now if you want to complain that I’ve used the word forms a lot, I’ll agree. But we are after all talking about regulatory agencies and, well, they do happen to pretty much do paperwork, but sometimes they actually inspect, too.
All those repeated assertions and still not a cite nor shred of evidence. Pick one at random, perhaps “… when they do commit wrongs, the forms were all filled out ‘properly’ anyway…”, and show me that there is more to it than a statement of faith. I understand that you think you are demonstrating how violators escape blame, but you have not demonstrated that your underlying assertion is factual. Same for “…we let individuals in corporations pass the buck with the excuse ‘I filled out all the right forms.’…”.
Or please demonstrate that “…making them fill out forms that show they didn’t do anything wrong so the regulator can have a job filing the forms…” is the actual purpose of a regulatory agency rather than simply spin that fits your philosophy. Otherwise you are merely punching a strawman.
Or take a stab at refuting my substantive arguments about the foolishness of using the criminal justice system to oversee complex technical fields of endeavor. So far your entire ‘argument’ is merely repetition of your belief structure, and I remain unconvinced. I have though grown bored. Have a good weekend! When come back, please bring evidence.
I already cited for all these propositions. You didn’t check it out.
This? You call this a cite?
It’s an ad for a book, not a cite. And it’s an ad by the author of the book himself, no less.
I cannot find anything in any of your posts in this thread that constitutes an actual cite. Maybe I’ve overlooked one. Show me. Otherwise I’m sticking with “You’ve got nothin’.”
Again, have a good weekend. I’ll check back…
Come on… He’s cited himself over and over, and you’re just not listening!
The BOOK is the cite, not the ad.
Ha ha ha ha ha…
So, you really don’t got nothin’. Glad I checked. Now I can forget about this thread for the weekend (if not forever).
Well, from your point of view (wilfull ignorance) a book is nothing, so from your point of view, I have nothing. But those who wish to be fully informed can read the book.
Or do you also have “If-can’t click-on-it,-it-doesn’t exist” syndrome, too? Your failure to closely examine a source does not my failure to cite make.
You do realize that books from credible publishers have a higher degree of reliability than web pages, don’t you?