Grownups? :dubious:
I think your post got all the response it deserved in the GD thread. You’re unlikely to get anything more by spamming it into the Pit.
But wouldn’t you agree that when it comes to business and making money, there is some percentage of people that would trade consumer safety for cash?
The transaction in the home is a different transaction then a business transaction.
Someone feeding you dinner in their home has no profit motivation to skimp on the safety of the prepared meal. They are not selling you a meal.
A restaurant can have all sorts of fiscal motivations to skimp on safety. Feed you some rat they caught behind the store and call it something expensive.
Likewise companies all along the food chain from farming/ranching to food preparation to warehousing to store have incentive to mess with it. Maybe a farmer can use DDT on his crops cuz its cheaper. You ok with that? The Libertarian government needs to stay out of the way, let the market figure it out.
Your friend cooking you dinner presumably has no reason to do any of that. If you do get food poisoning from them you could presumably sue them if you want.
I am fully in support of this thread.
The problem I’ve had to deal with in my experiences with internet libertarians is that they always seem to be reacting to problems. Nobody solves anything, they just react. Restaurant poisoned a few people? Well now you can go to the one down the street! Unsafe product killed your pet? They’ll go out of business for sure! Corporation dumping into the groundwater and making a whole town unlivable? That means you can move into that little bungalow you’ve always had your eye on! Everything’s a reaction! Nobody prevents the problems in the first place because that would be government interference and we can’t have that! :rolleyes:
Maybe that doesn’t describe any libertarians on this board, or ever the typical libertarian, but it’s been my experience.
And another thing is that they seem to give corporations an unhealthy pass on everything. Deaths, maiming, exploitations, or injuries are never corrected by government regulations and laws. They believe simply that consumers wouldn’t support a bad company and that they’ll go out of business for sure, that’s their punishment. Meanwhile the dead are still dead.
What a fantasy world these people live in
Reality-based people generally find Internet Libertarians deeply puzzling.
One of my problem with internet libertarians on a message board is that they prevent advanced discussion of political topics because they, being basically against government, essentially threadshit discussions of what might or might not be an effective governance strategy by arguing agaisnt the agency/institution/program whatever, often sidetracking the discussion of what the agency is doing/not doing.
To the contrary, false equivalency is John’s favorite fallacy, one he uses quite enthusiastically in political threads.
Yeah, IMHO I think the **conservative **Jonah Goldberg had it right, Libertarianism is ***A Philosophy for Teenagers ***
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/204954/libertarian-lobe/jonah-goldberg
I would then say that it is coming from Neverland, the followers never grow up.
Libertarianism and Ayn Rand appeal to high school seniors and first year college students. It is such a stupid and unworkable system, that generally people discard it as they get older. It offers a fantasy that grabs kids when they think they are special and will make a killing . But citizens being greedy and selfish make a miserable society.
It is a shame that an advocate, Alan Greenspan, actually got in position to implement much of it. It was a disaster.
The economy is not self correcting. The powerful will not help the less fortunate. Screw the unhealthy and weak. Bankers deserve all the money they can steal, regardless of how much damage they cause. Remove rules and the rich will rip off everything not nailed down. They never have enough.
Because everyone cooking food in there homes has a profit motive and doesn’t particularly care if their friends suffer long term health consequences?
Not just react – you also have to find reasons why whatever situation occurred was the person’s fault in the first place. Didn’t take a second job to pay for supplemental private health insurance after your employer cut your medical plan to the bone? Then you can’t complain when you lose your house after your kid is diagnosed with cancer, now can you? If you didn’t want to lose your house, you should have bought more insurance. Oh, you did have extra coverage, but the insurance company refusing to pay out? Well, if you had read page 478 of the contract, you’d see that this particular type of cancer isn’t covered. You can’t expect a business to cover something that you didn’t pay them to cover, now can you? They’re not a charity.
As long as there is something someone could have done in the past to prevent their unfortunate present situation, no matter how esoteric, it’s their fault that they’re now screwed, not anyone else’s.
I was trying to be generous. 
Point conceded. It’s political science fantasy fiction for those who refuse to grow up.
Just use TripAdvisor.
eta: or for a less tech intensive solution, go to the restaurant with the fewest corpses about
Libertarians find Internet Libertarians deeply puzzling.
Arguing against only the weakest counterarguments is a popular tactic. It’s not however one that speaks favorably to the debater’s own intellectual credentials.
I made a bet with myself about the nature of any response you would condescend to provide. I won the bet.
Google Translate has several options for Input Language but Fatuous Bullshit isn’t one of them. I made my own translation effort for your latest post:
[QUOTE=JM Decoded]
I like to think I’m often the 3rd-smartest Doper in a given thread, but original thought is not my strong point. I’ll get back to you when one of my Libertarian mentors tells me the answer.
[/QUOTE]
Yikes. I’ve known a few libertarians and none were so nuts that they were near anarchists or fascists. I think that is where 'for the good/protection of all" clause comes in?
I spent my late teen years eating up J S Mill, Locke and Hume but I don’t think I turned out to be a circular whackjob of government logistics. 
I think libertarian-ism only works if you go to some unmanned island and hit the restart button. It is a bit like communism - requires the opposite just to exist but could never be implemented in the face of what else exists.
Internet libertarians would just go away if the rest of the internet stopped engaging their sophomoric stupidity. I have libertarian leanings, but let’s not try to pretend that the rabid “dismantle the state” libertarians that seem so common online are not every bit as subversive and dangerous as hardcore revolutionary communists.
Well that’s just it. If Libertarians allow for the “good of all” then their libertarianism unravels.
It is trivial to point out cases where a libertarian will agree the government needs to do something. E.g. a factory is polluting a river cities downstream need for drinking water. It is ok, in their view, to regulate that company. You can keep doing this to them and it quickly becomes apparent that they have left Libertarianville and are back in the same boat they they were decrying about a government that is in people’s business. You can never get them to tell you where a line is drawn. They know it when they see it but of course it then comes down to individual opinion on what government intervention is too much (which is pretty much precisely how it works today).
The other type of Libertarian is one who holds to the “strong” version and says government leaves that company alone and tell you that somehow, magically, market forces/society/the company’s kind heart will prevail and the pollution will stop. Of course in this case there is zero evidence that would ever happen and provably the reverse happens…they will continue to pollute and competitors who spent money on not polluting will be forced to pollute too or go out of business. This Libertarian type can never tell you how it manages to work. They are True Believers. It just will. Somehow. Nevermind all evidence to the contrary.
Libertarianism is one of those things that looks good on paper and seems like a nice idea. It utterly falls apart if you start working through its implications almost immediately. It is a complete fantasy land. It is in the same boat as true Communism when it comes how to fashion a workable society (which is to say it will never and can never work).