Join me on a trip into... The Libertarian Zone!

Great Debates
41

jharding - We’re still carrying the public lands, and most environmental regulations. Libertarians are not against environmental laws, because individuals can certainly be damaged by others when they pollute the environment. In general, we tend to favor market-based solutions over fiat and regulation, simply because they tend to work better historically and allow more choice while attaining the same goals. But at least this Benevolent Dictator believes that it’s possible for markets to fail when large-scale public-use issues arise, so for now we’re hauling along all the national parks, and most public lands.

However, the non-park public lands will start to be sold off as we pass through it, after suitable hearings to determine if there is a compelling public need to retain ownership of them. I’ve got no problem with the federal government maintaining ownership of national treasures and wilderness areas that need protection. I do have a problem with government ownership of general commercial lands, like much of the grazing areas in the midwest. So I would make this stuff available for sale, at market prices. But it’s entirely possible that no one wants to buy all of it, and we’re certainly not going to sell it at fire-sale prices just to dump it, so we may wind up hanging on to most of it for a long time.

42

Perhaps we could also move towards alternate funding for federal agencies. For example, require the FAA to support itself through passing its costs along to the airlines, and require the FDIC to provide insurance for banks by making the banks pay for it. Thus, regulatory agencies have a motivation for not hindering the industry they regulate. Also, the costs of safe airplanes are born by those who fly, in proportion to how much they fly, rather than by society as a whole. And likewise with other things.

43

waterj2: Thus, regulatory agencies have a motivation for not hindering the industry they regulate.

I’m not sure that would be such a good thing. Certainly, we don’t want regulatory agencies to hinder industry excessively and unnecessarily, but part of the regulator’s job is to “hinder” things that would make money for the industry but not be good for the citizen or consumer. Putting a regulatory agency in the position of depending on the money the industry makes to provide its own funding sounds like a serious conflict of interest.

44

I was aiming more to balance the motivation to fulfill the agency’s mandate with a motivation to do so without harming the industry unnecessarily. As I see it, the agencies provide a service to the industry, and the industry should pay for it. I don’t see it as a conflict of interest at all in industries where the aim of the government is to allow the industry to flourish.

For example, the added safety provided by the FAA is a good thing for the airline industry. By requiring the agency to be supported by the airline industry, the FAA will try to pass regulations to fulfill its mandate at the lowest possible cost to the industry. The industry has no say in the regulations, it just has to pay the FAA mandated fees.

If the industry can only survive economically by passing off the regulatory costs it incurs onto the rest of society, then it shouldn’t survive. I thought you liberals were in favor of eliminating these sorts of externalities.

45

Wierd-Al:

From suburban bourgeois.

When former prom queen/cheerleader Soccer Moms and their former All-American Prom King Football Heroes, in between toking on some herb, snorting lines of coke, dosing prozac and washing it all down with double-shots of liquor, find out that little Johnny (he’s such an angel!) is actually a heroin addict and crack pimp (:sob!: Will somebody PLEASE think of the children! :sob!)

:Oh GOD! How Did Our Sweet Little Boy Get This Way!?:

Sam:

I’ll let others more knowledgeable debate the merits (or lack thereof) of the programs you listed, but here’s something to chew on: Just how many Gauddamned federal-level Intelligence agencies do we actually need? CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, FBI (yes, they do intel. work, too), BATF (same). Can’t we eliminate redundancy of functions and roll some of these agencies together? Instead of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) how about appointing a staff of Military Liaisons to the respective agencies?

Can’t the NSA and the NRO fall under the CIA? Can’t the U.S. Marshall service and the B.A.T.F. (Firearms Enforcement) fall up under the F.B.I.? And send the “B.A.T.” part packing as well? Why punitively tax alcohol, tobacco and firearms as part of a “regulatory scheme”? If the N.F.A. hadn’t been amended in 68 (the G.C.A of '68), then the tax on a short-barreled shotgun today might well be around $2,000!

Does the Treasury Dept. need a separate agency just to track regulatory compliance with special tax laws on alcohol, tobacco and firearms?

And look at the organizational chart for the Dept. of Justice, arguably one of the more important federal agencies. I get a headache just looking at it. I feel I should be searching for a piece of chees.

Anybody wanna tackle the issue of the Federal Reserve Banking Sys…hold on a sec, someone’s knocking at my door…

The poster formerly known as ExTank is being sent to the Greenspan Institute of Happy-Fun-Smiley Pre-Frontal Re-Arrangement and Electro-Shock Therapy For Insufficent Credit Consumers.

Move along, nothing to see here.

46

waterj2,

As a technical point, there are taxes on airline travel now. I don’t know how the monies raised compare to the amount it takes to run the FAA; it’s an interesting question.

While I don’t have a problem with having the regulatory costs borne by the industry, I do have a problem with doing that in a way that makes the regulators beholden to the industry. In a world where there is often a revolving door between industry and government and where the industries are the ones who are well-organized and have well-paid lobbyists, I find it hard to understand why you imagine that the regulators are insufficiently beholden already to the industries that they regulate!!!

In regard to this thread as a whole, I would jump off after Stop 2…and might even have some concerns about how Stop 2 is implemented exactly. The main problem that I have with this thread is that it seems overly concerned with just one aspect of control over our lives. In particular, I think the statement

would apply even more if we replace “excessive regulation” with “excessive commercialization, consumerism, and materialism” and replaced “federal government” by “multinational corporations”.

This is the problem that I have with libertarians once they get into the economic realm. I think they have a blind eye and deaf ear to the way the modern capitalist world has actually evolved.

Note that I am not claiming that governments are not bureaucracies that can create some pretty inane rules, but can any of you come over after you are finished reforming the federal government and take on a real challenge…the inane and idiotic bureaucracy at the major multinational corporation where I work? Hint: Chanting “free market” doesn’t seem to do the trick!

47

Yes, true. But most Americans don’t know it. When called for jury duty, they belive the judge when he (untruthfully) tells them that if they believe the defendent broke the law, they must convict, regardless of what they think of either the law in question, or of its application in this case.

And then there’s voir diar (sorry, don’t know how it’s spelled). Jurors are routinely asked if they are prepared to convict regarless of what they think of either the law in question, or of its application in this case. If you know you have the right to nulify and say so, you’re not accepted on the jury. If you lie, and then try to nulify, you can be charged with, I’m not sure what, perjory?

This has been going on for about a century now. It seem to me to be something that needs fixing.