“You favor a minor government intervention into the marketplace, therefore you also obviously have no problem with literal totalitarianism.”
What a dumb fucking argument.
Yes, you apparently see it as one short step shy of genocide. But that says less about the law and more about your thought process.
First no reason to swear.
Right NOW according to congress, unless the courts rule otherwise, the government CAN force you to buy anything they choose from a private company. So is it really that far of a leap, to force you to buy a gym membership, electric car, or vegetables. ? Or have lunch police?
And what I was trying to point out is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Once you GIVE the government the power to decided what is best for “society” you have take a huge step towards totalitarianism. Unless you make the Government prove this or any other law has a direct heath or safety issue. You may trust the government to do what is best, but given the governments history, any government, we should always distrust government. Or before you know it we will have laws saying if you weigh this much, you can’t buy a big mac, and that person really shouldn’t have babies because the government thinks they may not be able to take care of them. So in the best interest of society we will forced sterilize anyone we feel can’t keep care of a baby. Or maybe people will once again become test animals
But then again it’s only a light blub and it’s really in our own best interest and we should trust the government to do what’s best.
More like “This particular mandate is significantly inconvenient for me, and has very little actual benefit. Much greater benefits could be had by going after other practices instead. The cost/benefit ratio for this mandate is weighted to far into the “cost” side.”
But hey, strawman away.
Yes, it’s an enormous leap, and if the best argument you can come up with is “THIS WILL LEAD TO TOTALITARIANISM” than that makes it even more obvious to me that this law is a good idea. After all, it obviously doesn’t have any non-imaginary downsides.
Ahh, yes. First they came for the incandescent light bulbs. But I said nothing, for I was not an incandescent light bulb.
And yet we have hundreds of years of evidence that show that governments beyond some hypothetical libertarian utopia do not inexorably turn into totalitarian states, so I think we can safely dismiss this argument.
You’re right. Banning incandescent light bulbs will inevitably lead to Mengele-type human experimentation. What a powerful and convincing argument.
Again you miss the point, but at least you’re not swearing now, so that’s an improvement.
“Ahh, yes. First they came for the incandescent light bulb..”
And don’t forget you’ll be forced to buy health care from a private company. If you fail to do you you could end up in jail (not for not buying health care, but for not paying the “fine” for not buying it).
Look I believe that YOU should have as much freedom as possible, the government should only get involved if there is a clear health or safety issue. At best banning the incandescence light bulb might save a tiny fraction of our energy usage.
But basically how much power should government have over your life. You can’t buy this type of light bulb because we don’t THINK you should because it’ll save a tiny amout of energy. Talk about micro-management.
I see this as something much bigger than a light bulb. We have the government silencing free speech, protest only in designated area so far away that the people you are protesting can’t even see you. Congress pass a bill saying you CAN’T protest in an area that is under the protection of the Secret Service. We have a suggested ban on sugar, the suggested ban on soda (it’s banned in some places now) the ban on free toy in happy meals, food police, etc.
Forced sterilization did happen in the US where the last forcible sterilization occurring in 1981. Not that long ago. The government can preform testing on humans 50 USC § 1520a
Subject to subsections (c), (d), and (e) of this section, the
prohibition in subsection (a) of this section does not apply to a
test or experiment carried out for any of the following purposes:
(1) Any peaceful purpose that is related to a medical,
therapeutic, pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial, or
research activity.
(2) Any purpose that is directly related to protection against
toxic chemicals or biological weapons and agents.
(3) Any law enforcement purpose, including any purpose related
to riot control.
In theory there is supposed to be informed consent, and our government never breaks the law does it?
So tell me, how much of your life do you want the government to run? Sorry your BMI is 32 so you can’t buy that Big Mac or do you think you can decide what you can and can’t eat. You already have major restriction on free speech. You have both sides trying to silence the press.
We need government regulations but at some point we too say enough is enough, we don’t need the government to hold our hand when we go to the bathroom, and I feel the average human can pick what type of light bulb to buy.
I understand you don’t see this as a big deal, so be it, I do and I can agree to disagree with you. I see it as one more step toward the government micro-managing our lives.
Yes, well, unfortunately, we are left with the Heritage Foundation’s scheme for providing health care, so naturally our choice is somewhat left out of the equation.
Of course, you are no more legally obligated to buy any kind of light bulbs than you are to buy car insurance or anything else. I mean, in real life.
Sure, you believe that. You also believe that light bulb regulation will result in humans being used as lab animals in experiments. You clearly believe lots of insane, counterlogical things. That’s not because those things are reasonable to believe. It’s because your brain doesn’t work properly.
Hence the next step, which is, obviously, genocide.
Right. You see it as something it is not, because you either have absolutely no sense of what laws already do and have done, or because you are simply unable to exercise actual reason, so you act on baseless paranoia.
So we have some problematic laws, we have a suggested ban on sugar (which was never seriously suggested), a suggested ban on soda (ditto), and “food police” – i.e. in your crazy world, somehow sugar and soda are both on the brink of banning, and soon there are going to be uniformed officers investigating the smell of bacon frying. The difference is between things that exist and things that only exist in your imagination. Like the “ban on sugar”. I’m sure you believe that’s a real thing but that’s not because it exists – it doesn’t.
No way, not possible. You could totally buy incandescent light bulbs back then. I’m sure of it.
Right, but that process will, hopefully, not include the opinions of people responding to the voices in their head but rather people who have some idea what is actually happening and what is not. And hopefully, not people who leap to equate regulation of the light bulb market to genocide.
Sorry, but it seems likely from here that whoever it is who handles taking you to the bathroom already is a government employee.
Your personal attacks are getting a bit much.
Apparently you are out of touch.
http://www.dallasblog.com/201202021008765/dallas-blog/san-fran-doctor-seeks-sugar-ban-to-minors.html
This is a published article in Nature, where a doctor is advocating that, due to the health risk to children, sugar be regulated by the ATF.
How about sugar bans in schools.
http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin568.shtml
Sugar bans are not mythical. They are not the figment of an overactive imagination. They are a real topic, they are really occurring in some places. There is an actual effort to get Congress involved for a national law. See the cited doctor and article in Nature.
But it sure is fun to call your opponent crazy.
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MODERATOR INTERVENTION: OK, the personal insults are stopping NOW.
Attacking what another person thinks (e.g., “insane, counterlogical things” is fine. Attacking another person (e.g., “your brain doesn’t work properly” or the comment about being taken to the bathroom) is NOT acceptable practice in this forum. You’ve been around long enough to know better, and I’m issuing an Official Warning.
Irishman, responding in kind (e.g., “you are out of touch”) is not acceptable either. I’m letting you off with just a friendly reminder.
Look, I can see that the discussion has gone VERY far afield, into the realm of the absurd in many ways, but that’s no reason not to continue to be polite to each other.
Surely you are aware of the difference between “Things People Advocate (Sometimes Even in Respectable Print Media)” and actual bans?
Surely you are aware that actual bans in schools by school administrations are actual bans. They may not be bans on the level of whole communties, but they are nevertheless bans.
I’m sorry, but lots and lots of things are banned in schools that I seriously doubt you would consider a threat to general freedom. I know of schools that ban cell phones, aspirin, tank tops, and bandanas. I believe almost all public schools ban penknives and squirt guns, and have done so for some years. Do you see that, too, as evidence of the government playing Twister on the slippery slope of personal liberty?
“So we have some problematic laws, we have a suggested ban on sugar (which was never seriously suggested), a suggested ban on soda (ditto), and “food police”,”
I’ll start with the “food police”, the school under a program, MUST decide if a lunch brought from home meets government regulations, and if that meal is found deficient the child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones, even over the objections of the parents. In this case they went a little overboard, and we have at least one other parent who has come forward and said her child’s lunch was also replaced and a report they may have replace all the home packed lunches with school lunches that day. But when hasn’t some official gone overboard, or taken it to the limit?
“And yet we have hundreds of years of evidence that show that governments beyond some hypothetical libertarian utopia…”
Really, almost every government has tried to suppress people, to limit freedom. Can you name ONE government that hasn’t done that?
“Right. You see it as something it is not, because you either have absolutely no sense of what laws already do and have done, or because you are simply unable to exercise actual reason, so you act on baseless paranoia.”
No it’s not baseless. It would be baseless if the US government in the past hadn’t done human experiments without consent or deciding this person shouldn’t reproduce, or this person isn’t really a person. The US has a LONG history of dehumanizing people and using them without consent for medical experiments. So how can you call it baseless paranoia when you can easily find a history of such things happening? Why do you think we have the ACLU? They are there to rein in the government from excesses.
But you see, I believe that the government should have to justify every law they pass. And believe it or not I don’t have a problem with the smoking bans laws that have been passed. You clearly have a health issue. You have a produce that when used as directed has health effects on other people. Had the effect of smoking been limited only to the user, then I would be against the ban, but we can PROVE that second hand smoke causes health issues to other people, so I would have NO problem with a total ban on smoking. And that’s how ALL laws should be handled, give people the reasons and proof we need the law.
But back to light bulbs. Even if you assume that you could cut the energy usage from lighting to 0 you would still save less than 1% of the US energy. We lose more than that just transmitting the power, about 6.5%, there are much bigger energy wasters, if the goal is to save energy why not go after those first? Why replace something that works, with something that only work in the certain conditions? You don’t have a clear health or safety issue, is won’t save much energy, it won’t save much money, so what’s the point other than to allow people to stand up and say “I’m a good person.”?
You know when I was in school, they took us out to the shooting range, given a gun and ammo. I remember having a guns in the back window of my truck in high school. I heard an older gentleman tell how, in New York no less, he used to take his gun on the subway to school. He turned it in to the principal and picked it up after school so he could go to the shooting range. But you’ll also notice a school will ban aspirin but will take a girl off school ground for an abortion and never notify her parents.
Thank you, and yes we have gone far afield, so let’s get back to light bulbs, and I will no longer commit on anything else. If you wish to continue the other discussion please start another thread. I didn’t see this until after my reply to emmaminal, sorry.
Thank you.
Earlier you said you had read somewhere that lighting used less than 1% of US energy. Are you able to provide a cite for that? A Wikipedia article about energy in the United States has a table showing residential lighting use at 12% and commercial lighting use at 25% for their sectors. A further table shows those two sectors using 10.8% of total energy consumed. That would put lighting at around 1-2% of the US total. The article derives from DOE data but I can’t find the references given in the article.
Well it looks like I didn’t remember right according to this source the US consumed 3631.65 TWH of electricity of which residential took up 208 TWH that would mean residential lighting took 5.7% of the electricity use and lighting in total took about 21%. I’m assuming the original source was using residential lighting and TOTAL US energy consumption.
Sorry, I WAS WRONG. And when I’m wrong I admit it.
The total residential lighting electricity usage is almost 6% if you use CFL’s you could reduce that to about 52 TWH or down to 1.4% of the total electricity consumed for residential lighting, but it’s still less than lost from transmitting the power, in either case.
I still disagree with the ban on incandescent bulbs. CFLs don’t work well in all situations (extreme heat or cold). As I have stated before I do use them in areas there they don’t see the extremes.
If my numbers are wrong PLEASE point it out, I’m not so stubborn as not admit when I’m wrong.
I sure as hell did when we were in school. Heck, we fought so hard against the dress codes that our school now can’t really enforce them. My dad’s generation fought the facial hair rules, and they also won.
And the bans on cellphones are probably going to go away next–every kid has one. They’ve even learned how to text without looking, so they can just keep their phone in their pocket. And the teachers themselves don’t like not being able to have them.
The idea that people just sit back and accept those losses of freedom is ridiculous.
BTW: without even trying, we still don’t have any CFLs in our house. That’s thirty-one bulb sockets, all with plain old cheap incandescents.
And if they wanted to force everyone to use CFLs, why in the world didn’t they just subsidize them, and artificially jack up the price of regular bulbs? Is the government completely ignorant of game design principles? Force people to do something, and they will object. Make it seem like their choice, and no objections.
rebate programs have been funded by the utilities. it is cheaper for them to pay rebates than the increased costs of higher production of electricity.
emmaliminal, I never said the bans were “evidence of the government playing Twister on the slippery slope of personal liberty”. All I said was that bans were real, not fiction.
You are correct. You never said that. I said it, as part of a rhetorical stratgy designed to call attention to what I percieve of as the absurdity of citing bans pertaining only to students in schools as a larger societal pattern of decreasing public liberty. To be clear, I am not arguing that all the things that are banned in schools make sense. If you want to argue that more things are now being banned in schools than was previously the case, and that those persons who manage to ban things in school also wish to ban things in adult society, and that those persons have any chance of success, I will point out, again, that many things are banned in schools, many things have been banned in schools over the decades that US public schools have existed, and that, in my observation, few such bans have turned out to be harbingers of decreasing general freedoms.
IOW, if you want to raise an alarm about “bans” that we can all take seriously, you would do well to cite examples that are not restricted to minors in schools.