Go to hell. And kiss my ass on your way.
I thought that was obvious. Assume that there is, as you propose, a law against initial fraud or deception. Now assume that John Stossel starts out one of his pieces of “journalism” by misstating some material facts. How is he prosecuted? By whom? Who is going to pay for this prosecution? Are you going to use my tax dollars to pursue Mr. Stossel?
Whether it’s done by the government or by some offended citizen (disregarding issues of standing, for the moment), doesn’t this have an intolerable chilling effect on free speech? Isn’t this also the path towards a larger, more oppressive government?
It wasn’t.
That’s the part I don’t understand. I don’t want to get sucked into one of those Dewey black hole vortices in which every answer is met by twenty more questions. He does it because he knows that asking questions is easy, but answering them takes time. He has no interest in the answers, but only in wasting my time. I might say that he is prosecuted by arbitration, for instance, which answers the question. But then you might say, how does that work? Before long, I’m having to described the process of walking up to someone’s door and serving them a notice, and I’m being asked questions about what sort of shoes they will wear. I’m starting off with a presumption of your sincerity here, but I fully expect Dewey to insert himself into the discourse at various stages for the purposes I have described, and I’m telling you in advance that I have insufficient respect for him to respond. So if you have questions, ask them yourself.
By anyone who can prove he was deceitful.
Whoever is determined to be the coercer.
Of course not.
Only if by “free speech”, you mean freedom to deceive.
Larger perhaps. But certainly less oppressive.
Nothing to add here. I’m just debuting the addition to my sig. I like the way it rolls of the tongue.
:smack:
Thanks for the reasonably straightforward answers, Lib. I’d pursue it further, but this isn’t the thread in which to do so (by wandering into hijack territory, we’re probably already guilty of coercing other posters 
). You’ve confirmed some of my impressions about the libertarian philosophy and the kind of society it would produce. I’ll pass, thanks!
You’re welcom. Thank you for not pretending that I was evasive or that you did not understand the answers. I will remember your civility, and will gladly engage you whenever and wherever you wish on whatever topic.
Wow. How’s Mr. Hat doing these days?
So you’ve invented a mind-reading machine, have you?
Actually, I ask you difficult questions because I think anyone who promotes as radical a vision for reordering society as you do ought to have a reasonably clear idea how basic issues such as the one in the OP are resolved. I don’t think it’s terribly persuasive to ask all of humanity to jump blindly off a cliff. I think a revolutionary ought to have given some thought to the mechanics of how things will work after the revolution has come and gone.
In short, I do care about the answers. I’m just unwilling to accept half-baked hand-waving as a meaningful answer.
Now you’re just being absurd. I’ve asked questions about substantive matters, not trivial details.
Take the question I proffered above: what is the measure of damages for someone who thinks Stossel was less than honest in his television presentation? Does it really make sense to have a cause of action where such damages are nonexistent? Even if you posit that all costs are bourne by the loser, there’s still the matter of time; allowing litigation or abitration (and I’ve colleagues involved in some arbitrations that have every bit as long as a protracted court case) for any aggrieved party willing to shout “initial fraud” to a sympathetic arbitrator is no way to resolve disputes.
Since we’re engaging in mindreading here, allow me to engage in a little of my own: you get in a huff whenever I, or someone like me, bothers to raise difficult questions about your philosophy because deep down, you know your proposed system is deeply flawed; you find it much easier to simply call someone an asshole rather than engaging them because you recognize those criticisms as valid and don’t like having those difficult problems brought to mind. Like the fundamentalist facing evolution, you find it much easier to shout “heathen” (well, “asshole” in your case) than to have your deeply-felt beliefs challenged by pesky facts that won’t go away.
Of course, I could be wrong. But I’d wager my stab at your motivations is a lot more accurate than your guesswork about mine.
Stossel did not even address the major problems with suburban sprawl
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002047307_sprawl27.html
The study, which analyzed data on more than 8,600 Americans in 38 metropolitan areas, found that rates of arthritis, asthma, headaches and other complaints increased with the degree of sprawl. Living in the least sprawling areas, compared with living in the most, was like adding about four years to people’s lives, the study found.
Instead of addressing these issues he skirts the subject to make it look like the only complaint is that sprawl is cutting into undeveloped land.
Yeah Stossel is like Michael Moore, he is a biased figure just pushing his own opinion but you act like reacting to that is a bad thing. I would prefer it if Stossel gave a fair shake to opposing points of view (ie showed areas where public goods were treated well or went to a bachelor pad and looked at how badly private goods were treated) or backed up his statements (like the idea that federal land has more forest fires). But he didn’t.
I guess the fact that Stossel is a journalist for a major news program automatically puts him in a different category than someone like Michael Moore, who is a private filmmaker. Michael Moore, after making a movie filled with emotional manipulation denouncing president Bush, does not go an anchor the 6 o’clock news on national TV. Maybe people expect news anchors to be more responsible and let the facts do the talking. Stossel muddles the facts to push his philosophy. Its like a priest going to a strip club instead of a construction worker, comparing Stossel to Moore. If Stossel were just some schmoe down the street I wouldn’t care if he hid info or didn’t back up his assessments but as a journalist it is his job to present facts to the public, not hide and manipulate facts to push his agenda. Then again it was ‘his’ special but I still stand by this.
Actually, he did cover that sort of thing. (I have it on DVR.) But he said that they are either choosing voluntarily to clump together like sardines or else are being forced to, and that was rather his whole point: there is plenty of space out there, but much of it is inaccessible owing to onerous governmental interference and restrictions.
Is there a parallel of the tragedy of the commons to urban sprawl? For example, people move to Utopiaville because it is a small town with nice parks, low density, and charming homes. As more people move in new services open up making it more attractive to more people. Rising home prices bring in developers who buy up the farms around Utopiaville and build tract houses. Soon the old roads are overburdened and they are widened. Better roads make it easier to commute to Metropolis. Eventually hordes of people move to Utopiaville and the charm is lost.
This seems similar to the tragedy of the commons. If a few people do something it works well, but if everyone does it it falls apart. To my mind, having some land use planning in Utopiaville would have preserved its value and uniqueness.
Which ignores the fact that the loss of open space is a relatively insignificant problem caused by sprawl. If Stossel argues that sprawl isn’t a problem because we still have open space, he’s either a liar or a fucktard. It’s true that a lot of useful farmland is under threat from city growth (75% of the land used to grow fruits and vegetables is under heavy developmental pressure, for example) since the most useful, productive farmland tends to be closer to heavily populated areas. But that’s one of the most minor aspects of sprawl.
I see you don’t know much about urban planning. In fact, each city can’t decide on its own - in many states, cities simply don’t have the authority to make decisions like that (in fact, cities can’t, constitutionally, control development.) In states like Michigan, where I am, without regional planning initiatives (which again, legally have to come from state government) the numerous small jurisdictions making up one metropolitan area tend to look out for themselves first, resulting in enormous sprawl at the edge of cities, since the outermost suburbs benefit from the large, high-value properties when tax time rolls around.
That doesn’t take into account the enormous federal subsidies for sprawl, which I’ll tell you about sometime if you like. The fact is that a city, on its own, has its hands tied when it comes to sprawl. Portland benefits from Oregon’s pioneering regional planning infrastructure and the Urban Growth Boundaries established back in the '70s by the famous Senate Bill 100. Such things are not possible in most cities.
You’ll have to work a lot harder if you want to sound knowledgeable when you discuss urban issues in the future.
It’s an amazing testament to the abilities of the propaganda men that liberal issues have been recast by conservatives as the “conventional wisdom” to be fought against.
That’s what’s happening to small towns, and while I’m temperamentally inclined towards urbanism, I do think it sucks that small towns are growing together into large, low-density tract home subdivisions with nothing resembling their original small town life.
Amen. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, in some cases, conservatives have usurped liberal tenents as their own, and in the process often have sullied them. It used to be the liberals, for example, who championed freedom. Bush has now made that into a word that is sometimes meaningless and other times obscene.