a taxing J-shaped thread

by liberal japonicus

The open thread is still merrily rolling along, but I thought I'd toss another log on the fire. This article, about the lack of a J-shaped recovery in Japan hits me where I live, and I wonder what folks who actually understand economics think about it. 

The article mentions in passing something that really hits me where I eat and drink, which is:

Yet the recovery’s lopsidedly domestic base leaves it in a potentially precarious state, experts say, particularly given an impending increase in Japan’s national sales tax.

The rise, from 5 to 8 per cent, is likely to hurt consumption after it takes effect in April, and though most economists think Japan will avoid a recession – its fate after the tax was raised the last time, in 1997 – the lack of a cushion from exports is a concern.

Actually, the tax rise is 5 to 8 to 10, with the 10% supposed to take effect in October. Ouch! At least that's what I understand from the Japanese commentary, though the English commentary emphasizes things like Abe's statement that it is not set and 'Government to ponder 10% sales tax increase, will analyze economic activity first' (that word 'ponder' reminds me of Eudora Welty's novella Ponder Heart, which seems particularly apropos)

This afternoon, I bought some chocolate that a lot of people have been raving about and was surprised to find that it was from Brazil. I suspect that the trade deficit is being drive by the fact that Japanese are still buying imports, but they are getting things from places where they can get more for their yen, so perhaps some commentators can tell me if that is the case.

If you look at the government's economic plans, which have been termed 'Abenomics', they emphasize  'three arrows': fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms. Some have talked about the '4th arrow', which is the spending that will accompany the 2020 Olympics. I actually think there is another arrow in the quiver, which is nationalism.

Now, some commentators suggest that Abe has toned down on his nationalism from his last time as Prime Minister to pursue economic reform, while others note a resurgence of nationalism coupled with concrete changes in Japan's military stance, along with a secrecy bill that was rammed through the Diet, and argue that Japan is still at the beck and call of the US, which shows Abe's true colors (it is often noted that he is the grandson of Nobusuke Kishi, whose post war career is checkered, to say the least).

So, the narrative is that Abe may have the right idea about economics, as long as he doesn't let his nationalist tendencies trip him up. I, on the other hand, think that Japan has looked at China and seen how they play with the open flame of nationalism, and stifle dissent and are able to manage economic expectations much better than the US, such that nationalism is actually one of the arrows of Abenomics.

What is really interesting (at least to me) is how this push to nationalism incorporates a good measure of emperor worship, while the emperor has made his liberal leanings well known, so right wing politicians like Shintaro Ishihara make a fetish of the position of the emperor, but don't even speak of the actual person. That's probably because the emperor has often mentioned that he feels close to the Korea because he feels that his ancestors are from there, which is a rather heretical notion and this anecdote, 

Shogi player Kunio Yonenaga, a member of the Tokyo municipal government’s educational committee at the time, proudly told the Emperor that it was his job to make sure all public schools sing the national anthem and raise the flag. The Emperor responded — and everyone heard it clearly — that he hoped Yonenaga wasn’t forcing them to do it.

from this article seems telling. There was also his anti-nuclear speech, discussed here, which was not transmitted by NHK and his 4 visits to Okinawa as Emperor. These things may seem like very small things but over here, they take on a huge significance.

Of course, most economists argue that Japan's difficulty in accepting immigrants, which gives it negative population growth, and it's insularity, which makes change more difficult, is something to avoid rather than to embrace, so the idea of stoking up nationalism, which exacerbates those trends, seems to be opposite of what needs to be done, which is why I think you have the notion of Abe rethinking his nationalism versus Abe as a puppet of the US. However, both of those views are looking through the lens of western economists, and if you don't have bad feelings about nationalism (as Abe clearly doesn't), keeping it around as a way to deal with problematic economic expectations might seem like just the ticket.

Comments

[thompson]

Harmut, thanks, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Most people are ok with exercising government violence in order to prevent (or more regularly, punish) private violence."

See what you're doing here? If a rapist attacks my wife, that's "private violence". If my wife puts a 45 slug through his brain, that, too, is "private violence". Do you really want to claim that most people are ok with the government exercising violence to keep rape victims from killing their attackers? That most people are ok with the government violently preventing/punishing self defense?

What you're doing here is simply refusing to acknowledge that "private violence" comes in more than one flavor: Wrongful aggression, AND rightful defense. And the latter has massive support.

[wj]

Ah, but the government uses violence to prevent private violence by your wife in killing the rapist when it uses violence to punish (or discourage by threat of violence) the private violence of the rapist. The fact that government violence is often for punishment doesn't mean that it cannot be a matter of prevention. Indeed, most of us would prefer that it be a matter of prevention. (No doubt your wife would, too. ;-)

Also, the fact that the government can use violence to punish/prevent private violence doesn't necessarily implay that it must use violence to punish all private violence. As you say, self-defense is a long-standing justification, and nobody is really pushing to remove it.

[CharlesWT]

When were the law(s) passed making it legal for government to use violence for punishment? I though that was Singapore's thing. Although, I guess capital punishment would come under that heading.

[Brett Bellmore]

"and nobody is really pushing to remove it."

Yeah, right, just pushing to deprive people of the capacity for it.

[thompson]

Do you really want to claim that most people are ok with the government exercising violence to keep rape victims from killing their attackers?

Um, no, I don't. I'm also pretty sure I didn't, except with the most expansive reading of what I wrote. I apologize I didn't specifically cite the importance of self-defense, I assumed that was something you'd just be on board with.

Would you be happier if I said most people are willing to allow the government to exercise violence against private *criminal* violence? That was my point.

[thompson]

Charles:

When were the law(s) passed making it legal for government to use violence for punishment?

Ever met a convict? I assure you our prisons are not violence free. If you want to replace "violence" with "force", fine.

[hairshirthedonist]

See what you're doing here?

I don't. The word "all" wasn't in the sentence in question.

See what you're doing here?

If you want to replace "violence" with "force", fine.

The use of violence (or force) isn't (necessarily) a matter of punishment. It's primarily a matter of enforcement, usually at the hands of the police or prison guards, depending on where you are in the criminal-justice system. It's when people don't abide by the processes of arrest, criminal prosecution, imprisonment and such that government-sanctioned violence comes into play.

It's not a matter of receiving an ass-beating as your sentence. That's what you get when you don't accept a monetary penalty or restrictions of freedom and you refuse to comply.

[CharlesWT]

I was asking if there was any violence for punishment that was legal. Is corporal punishment still legal in some prisons?

I would guess everyone here would consider "street justice" by the police to be illegal.

[hairshirthedonist]

Italicize that first sentence in your mind's eye.

[thompson]

It's primarily a matter of enforcement, usually at the hands of the police or prison guards, depending on where you are in the criminal-justice system.

Is corporal punishment still legal in some prisons?

Charles is right, we don't formally have whippings. But we have armed LEOs that will beat, taze, and shoot during an arrest, not always with cause.

We have a prison system with violence baked in. Even if you don't assume detainment is a form of violence (I think it is, but I'll grant that's an expansive definition), you can't lock up a bunch of people in cramped quarters, many of them for violent crimes, and not know that its going to be bloody.

The government uses violence/force, or the threat of violence/force, against people. That doesn't strike me as a novel concept, but I'm probably wording it poorly.

My point was that there is something very different about private parties engaging in violence against each other (for good cause or not) than the government engaging in violence against people (for good cause or not).

The government can act as a check against unwarranted private party violence (arresting criminals, etc). But there is very little recourse when a government agent engages in unwarranted violence.

[Brett Bellmore]

And my point is that I deny that. Except for the "very little recourse" part.

Government is nothing more than an evolved protection racket. Ideally, evolved into something like symbiosis with it's normal prey, but still fundamentally a protection racket. And, like any protection racket, you are mostly paying to be protected from it, not for it to protect you from anything else. As you'll learn if you stop paying.

It's very dangerous to pretend the government is anything else, because it is very easy for government to backslide into a predatory/prey relationship. All it takes is the failure of the incentives that were set up to get it to act better, tilting the balance of power too far in favor of government, or not being fastidious enough about the people we let run it.

Forgetting how dangerous the government is, how close even the most 'liberal' government is to turning feral, is something we dare not do, and will pay dearly for having done.

[cleek]

Government is nothing more than an evolved protection racket.

no, it isn't. and all the cynical hyperbolic paranoid ranting in the world won't make it so.

[thompson]

And my point is that I deny that.

Deny what, exactly? That that the government exercises violence on behalf of the people? Or that that can be justified?

If either one of those is your point, I'm baffled. Only a few threads ago, you said the government wasn't doing enough to secure the border, unless I misunderstood you.

What's securing the border if not an application of government force?

I'm hardly starry eyed about the use of force by the government, but are you suggesting there should be no police or military? Or prisons?

Somewhere up in the thread, use of force by the government and use of force by private entities was brought up. My point is they are different things, should be considered differently, and their misuse should be remedied differently.

Further, one of the appropriate uses of government force is to restrain or punish criminal violence. Something which is subject to abuse, as I've stated. Specifically, I mentioned that government force, even unwarranted or criminal, is rarely punished.

If there's something in there that you object to, let me know. But you seem to have misunderstood what I'm trying to express as some sort of exhortation to institute a police state. Which seems like a stretch of what I wrote, but if what I wrote was confusing, I apologize.

[russell]

Government is nothing more than an evolved protection racket.

If you say so.

But apparently, it's one that all humans, everywhere, have embraced, in all times and places, whenever there have been more of them in one place than you could fit into the average high school gymnasium.

Whenever an effective government hasn't been in place - i.e., a government capable of enforcing compliance with its laws, by force if need be - we've created one.

So, crappy as it may be, we're obviously getting something out of it.

[wj]

It might also be worth considering what our experience is when that "evolved protection racket" is not in place. The closest example I am aware of (feel free to argue that it isn't a very good example) is Somalia.

Does anyone have a better example? Especially those who are most opposed to government. Do you have an example of where your libertarian (or other) ideal has actually happened?

[Nombrilisme Vide]

We have a prison system with violence baked in. Even if you don't assume detainment is a form of violence (I think it is, but I'll grant that's an expansive definition), you can't lock up a bunch of people in cramped quarters, many of them for violent crimes, and not know that its going to be bloody.

If you can forgive me interjecting anecdata into the discussion... In addition to creating an environment conducive to prisoner-on-prisoner violence, there's the matter of the correctional personnel. As well as some civilian corrections officers I've known since high school, I spent 18 months doing admin work in a military prison, which I hasten to assure you was a kid glove affair compared to civilian prisons of equivalent custodial level. Correctional personnel are not the most pacific people you'll ever meet, and there's more than a few sadistic bullies who are drawn to the job specifically because it grants them a context where they can be violent with few or no consequences. Even when the state-imposed punishment for a crime is not explicitly violence, state agents will often engage in (sanctioned) violence against prisoners on very thin pretexts. It is, as you said, baked into the system.

[thompson]

NomVide:

Thanks for adding that, I'd agree. I've known some ex-convicts (some extended family, a neighbor, etc).

All of them reformed, but they said some pretty horrible stuff about being in prison. Generally in a weirdly matter of fact way, which I found disturbing.

It really changed how I thought about criminal justice and how we punish people.

state agents will often engage in (sanctioned) violence against prisoners on very thin pretexts.

Yes. Which is something I think few people understand.

[Countme-In]

"Does anyone have a better example?"

Panglossia, which shares a border with Galt's Gulch.

The border runs down the middle of a gigantic pothole, again shared by both, but never filled because the first denies the very possibility that potholes exist and the latter refuses to fill their share of the pothole because of the word "share", and the fact that John Galt never seems to finish lecturing everyone on the optimum method of filling a pothole.

If the pothole has balconies, a favorite frill of the Panglossians, Galt is out.

The countries may one day merge if they can decide on a name. Suggestions floated include Galtglossia, Pangaltia, Potholia, Shutupia, and Irritatea.

If they end up fighting over the name, the No Man's Land default moniker will be Somalia.

[hairshirthedonist]

Just to be clear, my point wasn't that prisons aren't violent, or that the violence isn't unnecessary brutality committed by the guards. My point was simply that it is not was the law prescribes, even if only in theory.

Charles used the phrase "street justice." Essentially, that's what we're talking about - well, that or worse ("street injustice," maybe). But that's not legal. It may be done because there's no one around to stop it. I may be done because no one cares to stop it. But it's not *what the law prescribes.*

What I'd say is that what *the system* often prescribes as punishment is violence, but *the system* has both legal and extralegal aspects to it.

My father was a cop. I know what some of them are like. And I've had my own personal experiences with Philly cops, who aren't all the most by-the-book sorts you'll ever meet.

I don't have much experience with prison guards, but I imagine them to be no better - likely worse.

[russell]

it would probably be worthwhile for someone to kick off a thread about the US prison system. it's FUBAR.

if I get a few minutes, I'll see if I can get something up in the next couple of days.

IMO it's a topic worthy of a thread all of its own.

[CharlesWT]

"... the US prison system. it's FUBAR."

In so many ways.

One being solitary confinement. Especially when tough-on-crime types send juveniles to adult prisons and the prisons put them in solitary confinement for months to years on end to protect them from the adults. This is not only psychologically damaging, but physically damaging to brains that are still developing.

New York State to Curb Solitary Confinement

[wj]

On the other hand, it does a supurb job of providing a post-ghraduate training program in crime to those who are in prison. Do we really want to lose that in pursuit of actually trying to rehabilitate those who are in prison?

[thompson]

HSH:

If I may take your point and run the opposite direction with it:

but *the system* has both legal and extralegal aspects to it.

If I may, that is one of the key concepts of what drives fairly moderate libertarians, such as myself. The system, in general, any system of governance, has both the legal parts and the extralegal parts.

And its often close to impossible to mitigate the extralegal components of a system without greatly reducing what the system is supposed to do.

If you look at CA correctional facilities, they are overburdened. Convicts are so crowded a federal judge forced us to release a boatload of convicts. At that level of crowding, it becomes harder to control convict violence, which pretty much means the guards are going to have to be more brutal in order to keep control.

What could solve that is either a massive increase in spending or just sending less people to prison, for example by making recreational drug use legal.

Similar things run through many aspects of the government. The more we ask the government to do, the more cracks there are for 'extralegal' activities.

Anyway, I was just struck by the phrase, and how it sums up something I'm frequently trying to say. I do not assume, of course, you would read into that phrase the same way. Like I said, I took it and ran the other direction.

russell:

IMO it's a topic worthy of a thread all of its own.

Absolutely. Reforming our corrections system is an underdiscussed topic. Because, sadly, felons are the ultimate 'other': very few can be bothered to think about conditions they live in.

[Donald Johnson]

Brett, it'd be helpful if you gave actual examples of government using violence or stupid laws to harass or jail or hurt innocent people. Or else you could point to cases where people were guilty but were given much stiffer sentences than any rational person would think was deserved.

Funny thing is, I think there are probably a huge number of such cases. The New Yorker had an article some months back about some county sheriffs down South who were arresting and jailing and basically stealing the property of innocent people, using the war on drugs as a pretext. It wasn't the Feds. But I was genuinely shocked.

I think black Americans could probably give a few million examples of unfair treatment at the hands of the government.

I don't expect the government will do anything to me, but I'm a middle class white person whose criticism of the government is limited to some online ranting. If I had classified information on how the government screwed up in killing some innocent people in the drone program, I'd frankly be terrified of being a whistleblower and supplying what I knew to Glenn Greenwald or Jeremy Scahill. The government comes down much much harder on whistleblowers who violate the law then it does on, say, torturers.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Said civil forfeiture article.

[thompson]

DJ:

You weren't addressing me, but this is the kind of thing that Popehat brings up on a regular basis, with varying quality. The libertarian rant gets a little strong on popehat, but I find one of the bloggers (Ken White) is pretty good at breaking down complex legal issues. You could troll popehat yourself, but some posts specifically about government agents engaging in questionable behavior are below. Maybe not your thing, and I haven't personally verified every story there, but when I've checked against other sources they seem to be reasonable.

http://www.popehat.com/2014/02/05/rhode-island-cops-vigilant-in-face-of-scourge-of-people-making-fun-of-state-representative-scott-guthrie/

http://www.popehat.com/2014/02/04/how-commonwealths-attorney-paul-b-ebert-touched-people/

http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/22/government-weighs-government-role-in-coercing-confessions-from-innocent-citizens/

http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/20/kelly-thomas/

http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-recovery-for-rape-and-torture-by-police-in-new-mexico-is-1-6-million/

http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/09/a-funny-joke/

http://www.popehat.com/2013/12/20/best-article-best-headline-on-our-rape-happy-police-state/

The list goes on...

The government comes down much much harder on whistleblowers who violate the law then it does on, say, torturers.

Whistleblowers and torturing prisoners are two other good examples where the government " using violence or stupid laws to harass or jail or hurt innocent people. Or else you could point to cases where people were guilty but were given much stiffer sentences than any rational person would think was deserved."

Aaron Schwartz also comes to mind.

[wj]

What could solve that is either a massive increase in spending or just sending less people to prison, for example by making recreational drug use legal.

Or there is a third possibility: drop the draconian length of sentences that have been added over the years in the name of being "tough on crime." Not to say that the guilty should not be punished. But some of the sentences which get handed down, mandatory sentences in most cases.

If you cut down the length of time people are in prison to something rational, that cuts the prison population just as dumping the War on Drugs nonsense would.

[thompson]

If you cut down the length of time people are in prison to something rational, that cuts the prison population just as dumping the War on Drugs nonsense would.

Why not both?

[thompson]

Ah, and another great example of government overreach against a minimally guilty individual:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/nyregion/unarmed-man-is-charged-with-wounding-bystanders-shot-by-police-near-times-square.html?_r=1&

[CharlesWT]

Some states, like Texas, are reducing their prison populations. This likely has a lot more to do with budgetary constraints than any kind of humanitarian impulse on the part of politicians.

[Brett Bellmore]

"It might also be worth considering what our experience is when that "evolved protection racket" is not in place. The closest example I am aware of (feel free to argue that it isn't a very good example) is Somalia."

I will argue that Somalia is a terrible example of a place lacking government. The problem with Somalia is that it has multiple governments, fighting over who gets to be the top dog. You don't prove that crime gangs are nice by pointing to a turf war. And I don't have to claim that being in the middle of a turf war is somehow better than having one dominant gang lording it over you. Unless maybe that gang is of a genocidal bent.

This is the dilemma of government, IMO: Government is a nasty institution, AND it is largely unavoidable. Get rid of your own, and your neighbor's takes over, or the local crime gangs grow up to take it's place.

But being inevitable is not the same as being good. Government is a very nasty institution, we have to invent new names for the nasty things government does, just to avoid this being in our face all the time. "Tax" instead of "rob". "Arrest" instead of "kidnap". We've bifurcated our vocabulary to avoid what's really going on being too painfully obvious.

Being inevitable doesn't mean that government is good, but it does force us to make the best of a bad situation.

There are two basic approaches to making the best of this bad situation:

1. Try to get some good out of the government. Insist, for instance, that, if you're going to pay for "protection", the Don actually provides it. Naturally, the courts have ruled that the Don doesn't have to provide it, but you can usually, if you're lucky, set up the incentives so that it gets provided anyway. It helps that it is usually in the government's own interest to suppress (other people's) attacks on it's citizens, it can extract more surplus from them that way.

2. Try to chain and neuter government, keep around one, but hobbled to the point where it's only capable of fending off alternative governments, but not up to doing too much damage itself.

You can see that these approaches have a certain tension between them. You keep Godzilla chained up in the mountain, he's not very useful for digging harbors or sending into battle against Roddan. And, if Godzilla IS chained up in the mountain, not leaving a trail of crushed bodies everywhere he goes, some people get to thinking Godzilla is nice, he'd never do that sort of thing, and urge that the chains be loosened so he can do more good.

That's what Democrats are up to, with some unfortunate assistance from Republicans: Unchaining Godzilla, because they think he's nice. Well, he's not, he's a bloody monster, and we'll find that out fast enough if you get enough of the chains removed.

"Brett, it'd be helpful if you gave actual examples of government using violence or stupid laws to harass or jail or hurt innocent people.

Why, I did. I cited the new gun control laws in Connecticut. They've made possession of a few ounces of sheet metal and spring into a felony, equivalent to sexual assault. Own an inanimate object, without hurting anyone. Sexually assault somebody. See the equivalence? I don't. Felonies ought to be things that hurt people, or have high probability of doing so, not acts that are inherently harmless, where any harm derives from a later decision to do harm.

But when you ask me to demonstrate my claim that people are being hurt over stupid laws, and start citing the experience of people who were factually innocent, I think you've missed the point.

[russell]

Why do you think government is going to be any better or worse than the human beings who participate in it, and who are governed by it?

You talk about "government" as if it was some weird institution imposed on us by an alien life form.

10,000 years of recorded human history indicates that government is *a thing that humans do*. It's not going to be any better or worse than we are, because we create it and we participate in it.

The problem isn't "government", the problem is human beings. Remove government from the picture, and the problem(s) - the propensity for violence and corruption, power games, take your pick - don't go away. They just find other channels.

The presence of government, if anything, constrains those tendencies. That's why it persists as an institution.

What you want is not less government, or no government. What you want are different humans.

[russell]

They've made possession of a few ounces of sheet metal and spring into a felony

A very">http://www.democraticunderground.com/12621917">very brief summary of the law in question.

A fairly detailed summary of the law in question.

Basically:

No magazines holding more than 10 rounds
No AR-15s, although IIUC if you already own one and register it, you can keep it
All sales including private sales require a NICS check
You gotta be 21 to buy ammunition, although IIUC if you hold a gun permit currently you're good to go

Just trying to keep it real.

[russell]

sorry, hosed the tag.

Very brief summary of the law.

[Donald Johnson]

"But when you ask me to demonstrate my claim that people are being hurt over stupid laws, and start citing the experience of people who were factually innocent, I think you've missed the point."

Well, no, I've given real examples that demonstrate why one should be legitimately wary of government. Here's the thing--when one has real examples you don't have to use euphemisms, like "a piece of sheet metal with a spring" when you're talking about a magazine for a rifle. Instead, you could say "someone got x years in jail for the crime of possessing or using some drug even though he hadn't hurt anyone else." Or you could say, as I did, that the police sometimes use the drug war as an excuse for actual theft. Or you could say that the government takes crimes against its own "right" to do things of questionable morality in secret far more seriously than it takes war crimes committed by itself. Or you could talk about the use of Tasers on people where it doesn't seem justified--the liberal blogger digby frequently writes about that.

Some libertarians make really good arguments on issues that would appeal to people across all party lines, because they talk about real injustices committed by government that hurt people or in some cases kill them. But if it's middle class white people who think taxation is the same as theft, then it's just another extremist political philosophy that isn't going to work in the real world, like communism.

Thanks for the links, Thompson. I'll look at at least some of them later.

[hairshirthedonist]

Who here is arguing in favor of stupid laws that unduly punish people who don't deserve it, as a general matter? I'm sure there's room for disagreement on particular laws and whether they could be characterized that way, but I don't think anyone is starting out with the goal of putting (what s/he thinks are) stupid laws on the books, or that anyone (here, at least) wants to enable abuses of power.

The more we ask the government to do, the more cracks there are for 'extralegal' activities.

While this may be true, it doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't ask government to do more. The reason we may be asking the government to do more is that the human world continues to become more complex, with increasing interdependencies. So the question isn't simply whether we should avoid the greater possibility of undesirable extralegal government activity, but also a question of whether the alternatives to *more government* are even worse.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Who here is arguing in favor of stupid laws that unduly punish people who don't deserve it, as a general matter? I'm sure there's room for disagreement on particular laws and whether they could be characterized that way"

Exactly: Nobody admits to favoring stupid laws that punish people who don't deserve it. They invent BS rationalizations for enacting laws like that one in Connecticut. And then other people, who don't particularly like the group being screwed with buy the BS rationalizations, because, hey, it's skin off nose of somebody they don't really like.

[hairshirthedonist]

I guess I'd have to know what sort of screwing is being done in CT before deciding whether the law was stupid or not. Even then, if we were to disagree, would that necessarily mean I was inventing or buying a BS rationalization, rather than simply formning a different opinion in good faith?

[Hartmut]

There are a few cases on the books of stupid laws that were intentioanlly stupid. E.g. I know of one case where a lawmaker wanted to make a point that his colleagues did not take their job seriously and proposed a bill that went through (and iirc is still valid). It says that when more than one car arrive at a crossing no one may proceed until every other car has (a deliberate 'jam every other day' situation).
The pi!=3 case is at minimum disputed.
And then there are the 'poison pill' amendments of course.

[russell]

Some libertarians make really good arguments on issues that would appeal to people across all party lines, because they talk about real injustices committed by government that hurt people or in some cases kill them.

Radley Balko.

They invent BS rationalizations for enacting laws like that one in Connecticut.

Maybe a significant number of people in CT wanted the law. Is a stronger "rationalization" needed than that?

And, what's it to you? You live in SC. I thought you were all about devolving government to the lowest, most accountable level.

[Countme-In]

Different Humans is a good band name.

But would they play the same instruments?

Brett dances to the beat of a different human drummer.

Russell actually is a drummer and one of them regular-type humans and please don't change.

Beatidude and the Different Humans, opening tonight at Vic's Irish Rice Paddy and Conch Bar.

Guns don't kill people, people kill different humans.

Therefore, different humans need bigger guns that don't kill people to defend themselves against people with guns that don't kill people.

To be continued.

"Exactly: Nobody admits to favoring stupid laws that punish people who don't deserve it."

Who is this "Nobody" person you speak of?

For example, somebody somewhere (probably the lawmaker who sponsored the legislation who has consumed one too many drinks and who is flagged down at a random DUI checkpoint) favors an upper limit on blood alcohol levels for drivers whether or not the blood alcohol levels have contributed to any driving infractions which deserve punishment, and even many of those infractions are subjective, particularly if nobody (that guy again) has been harmed while the infracting is underway, and punish people who don't deserve it.

The number of drinks is the number of bullets in the clip and the car is the gun, but until someone else is harmed, our boy Nobody doesn't deserve to be punished, does he? (we won't complicate matters by finding a gun in the car, too)

Well, yeah he does.

I admit to favoring those stupid laws. In fact, I've admitted to a lot more than that.

But then my middle name is Nobody.

[wj]

I will argue that Somalia is a terrible example of a place lacking government. The problem with Somalia is that it has multiple governments, fighting over who gets to be the top dog.

But isn't that exactly the point? Somalia got to this position by having the government collapse and nothing there to take its place -- initially. And now, as you say, we have multiple would-be governments contending, militarily, for power.

And what lesson could we draw from this? If you get rid of government, even just mostly rather than entirely, what you get is not a libertarian paradise. What you get is armed groups forming and fighting to set up a government that they want/can control. (You may have what amounts to armed anarchy initially. But that doesn't last.)

And note that the various would-be governments, in a place where there are lots of weapons freely available, are not trying to convince people to support them. They are fighting it out, as best they can, to force people to accept them.

[Brett Bellmore]

And that would be a good point, were I advocating getting rid of government, rather than reducing it in size.

"Maybe a significant number of people in CT wanted the law. Is a stronger "rationalization" needed than that?"

Where an explicitly guaranteed civil liberty is involved? I would like to think so.

[thompson]

The presence of government, if anything, constrains those tendencies. That's why it persists as an institution.

What you want is not less government, or no government. What you want are different humans.

Eh, I am underwhelmed by those statements.

First of all, the presence of government does many things, some good, some bad.

Second, its not a zero sum game. It's not simply: more government means less violent gangs and less government means more violent gangs.

Government is a tool that can be useful, is often required, and can be dangerous in some situations.

A circular saw is really useful, but I wouldn't trim my nails with it.

Third, "different people" is such a cop out. Do you think people have been voting and appointing bad people deliberately all these years?

Prison guards are beating inmates under thin pretext? Why don't we hire better ones? It's so obvious!

What we need is a government that acts as a check against itself, and is limited enough in scope that the people can act as a further check.

[wj]

OK, if you just want to reduce it in size, how big (small?) do you think it should be? Or (as seems to be true of most of the libertarians I have encountered, but may not be for you) does is always need to be smaller?

Because it occurs to me that the there is a lower threshold, below which it appears that the place gets into trouble. That's well below the size of our current government, of course. But the discussion would seem to need some idea of where the limit is.

[Brett Bellmore]

"OK, if you just want to reduce it in size, how big (small?) do you think it should be?"

Hold on a sec, let me check how deep the water is in my bathtub. ;)

No, seriously? I think the federal government ought to be big enough, ideally, to prevent either Mexico or Canada from invading, and stop the Bloods or the Crips from taking it's place. And small enough that doing that kept it too busy to go looking for anything more to do.

[wj]

Thanks for the serious answer. I may disagree with the threshold you prefer, but at least we can discuss that independently of the other arguments about specific things that we think (and often agree) the government should not be doing.

[thompson]

OK, if you just want to reduce it in size, how big (small?) do you think it should be?

This is where one dimensionality gets in the way. It's not just the size of the government. It's the size and reach and methodology of the thousands of different government components.

Each one of those needs to be considered independently. And each one of those has trade offs.

Me, personally? I'd say a lot of aspects of government need to be trimmed back. I'd say other aspects need to be restructured to provide for better internal checks.

And I may lump all that together into a "government needs to be smaller" rant, because in many/most of those areas I feel the government is either too large or too poorly regulated. But in actuality each aspect of it needs to be evaluated independently.

[thompson]

And to expand on that a little: I'd also think there are some things the government needs to do more of (all though admittedly fewer). And I view the overreach of government in some areas leading to the underfunding and underfocus on some critical areas.

Infrastructure is a good example, I think.

[russell]

Where an explicitly guaranteed civil liberty is involved?

Which leaves the question of what, precisely, the explicitly guaranteed civil liberty is, open.

As it has been for decades if not centuries.

Stupid commas, how do they work?

Eh, I am underwhelmed by those statements.

Hey, I do my best. I'll try to clarify.

My point is not "all we need to do is put better people in government". There are folks who will make that argument, I am not among them.

My point is that disparaging government because governments often do bad things fails to notice that every human institution, anywhere, ever, has often done bad things, because it's a *human* institution.

Saying that "government is a necessary evil" is like saying that human family structure is a necessary evil, or building houses is a necessary evil, or cooking food is a necessary evil, or investigating the natural world is a necessary evil.

It is, I suppose, one way to look at it, but it's kind of negative, and I'm not sure what the point is.

Humans, when present in numbers greater than, say, a few hundred, organize themselves into polities. It's what we do.

For reference, please see all of recorded human history.

Man is a political animal. Where have I heard that before?

And, humans are a mixed lot, and the work of their minds and hands, likewise.

I agree, what's desirable are governments structured such that there are useful checks and curbs on the scope of responsibility and the exercise of power, and where the ultimate seat of power and authority lies with those governed.

[thompson]

russell:

Thanks for clarifying.

It is, I suppose, one way to look at it, but it's kind of negative, and I'm not sure what the point is.

The point, I guess, is as a counterpoint to those (not you) that see any wrong perpetrated by the government as the sole responsibility of a low level jerk that abused their power, and not as a pretty predictable consequence of giving any organization constructed of humans power without rigorous checks and oversight.

I'd say statements like that don't do justice to the complexity of the situation, even if I am guilty of using them.

They further turn the discussion into the one dimensional 'should government be bigger or smaller', which is also a disservice to the complexity of the task.

I agree, what's desirable are governments structured such that there are useful checks and curbs on the scope of responsibility and the exercise of power, and where the ultimate seat of power and authority lies with those governed.

Well said.

[wj]

I'd agree that simply saying "government should be smaller" usually over-simplifies the situation. But, as Brett appears AFAIKT to demonstrate, there is a serious contingent for whom it actually does reflect their view of the world. Their preferred size of government is such taht it is much faster to just enumerate the handful of things that they will approve of, than to work thru everything government does and evaluate each one.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Saying that "government is a necessary evil" is like saying that human family structure is a necessary evil, or building houses is a necessary evil, or cooking food is a necessary evil, or investigating the natural world is a necessary evil."

I think it's more like saying that amputation for gangrene is a necessary evil. The stuff the government does, that distinguishes it from non-government, is nasty stuff. Inherently so. It's not the sort of thing you'd do for yucks on a Saturday night if it weren't needed.

It's not like you'd say, "Hey, we don't really need to, but why don't we conscript a few hundred thousand people, and send them off to kill or be killed? I could be fun!" Sure, there are people who enjoy the things that make government, government.

They're SICK.

[_cleek_]

The stuff the government does, that distinguishes it from non-government, is nasty stuff.

indeed, food and restaurant health and safety inspections can probably be pretty nasty. and violent.

and maintaining safe and well-marked roads can probably get pretty sweaty and smelly. and violent.

[Countme-In]

"It's not the sort of thing you'd do for yucks on a Saturday night if it weren't needed."

The Beavis and Butthead theory of government.

Neither is brain surgery, cleaning out the grease traps at the McDonalds franchise, or drilling a hole in a widget on a drill press, but I guess folks are falling all over themselves in the private sector on a Saturday night to step up for the fun.

Now, government sewage IS nasty. Must be something in their diet.

Private sector sewage they should bottle as cologne or craft balsamic vinegar.

No wonder they segregate them into different pipes so we tell whose sh*t goes down the tubes faster.

Is the thread exhausted or is it the arguments that went belly up a few days ago?

You can always tell when we men have gone on too long chewing the fat when you look up and notice all of the women have slipped out of the room some time ago to sample the cooking sherry.

[CharlesWT]

THE ROADZ!!!1!1!

[Hartmut]

As even that old proto-fascist Platon knew, an army strong enough to deal with foreign invasion is also strong enough to take over at home. The main problem government (as an extension of the citizenry) has to deal with is to keep said army from doing just that. He compared it to the training of dogs that will attack the enemy without hesitation but never their master. His solution was (as noted) in essence enlightened fascism working under the assumption that people could be trained like dogs with proper indoctrination.
The basic problem has stayed the same but we have refined the solution a bit in some regions of the world.
Still, a government that can fulfill even the most basic functions that even most libertarians are willing to accept it to do, is by nature strong enough to do serious harm. A government that can do no great evil is one not worthy even considering forming because it cannot do its job.

[bobbyp]

A government that can do no great evil is one not worthy even considering forming because it cannot do its job.

At long last, we have a winner.

[Hartmut]

Maybe one should add an 'either' at the end of that or someone could assume (that I meant) that doing evil IS the job.

[Brett Bellmore]

"indeed, food and restaurant health and safety inspections can probably be pretty nasty. and violent."

I really hadn't noticed that Underwriter's Laboratory was all that nasty and brutish. Though, for all I know, Michelin may be short.

The government, in its endless search to find something more to do, does many things that aren't nasty, and aren't distinctively governmental, either. And it has many optional traits, such as democracy. But the fact remains that the things that are distinctively governmental are essentially nasty, and at best necessary evils.

[russell]

it's easy to be right: all you need to do is define terms to mean exactly what you want them to mean.

[bobbyp]

I really hadn't noticed that Underwriter's Laboratory was all that nasty and brutish.

Heh. Tell that to a low cost Chinese light fixture manufacturer would couldn't get the sticker. Many specifiers and building code writers build UL into the specs. Government building officials and inspectors enforce these requirements. So what you have is a government sanctioned quasi monopoly.

Not that I'm complaining all that much.

You might also note that UL is now a for-profit concern. The long, storied, and respected reputation of this watchdog will soon be garbage. They will be subjected to the same pressures as the staid investment rating agencies who gave billions of dollars* of bundled housing bubble securities dreck a grade of "AAA".

(You might notice these failures are still around. The wonders of teh free market never cease to amaze.)

Subjected to the pressure to make a profit, and meet Street expectations (if they go public) UL cachet will soon be 'for sale' to the highest bidder.

*face value

[russell]

what's distinctly governmental about standardizing weights and measures? any standards body could do it.

what's distinctly governmental about a postal service? UPS could do it.

what's distinctly governmental about printing money? bitcoin could do it, right? banks used to do it all the time, in this country.

that stuff is Article I Section 8. Take it up with the sainted founders.

and what about nasty stuff.

police? there are private police forces.
army? there are private armies. the second largest employer in the freaking world is a private army. and they're not some weird third world bizarro bunch of freakazoids, it's a publicly traded company based in the UK.

you invent a bogus category like "distinctly governmental" and continue on as if it holds any weight. it's a load of crap.

governments have always done things that don't involve "nasty stuff". the US government is specifically authorized to do stuff - specifically enumerated stuff, not hand-wavy kumbaya liberal imagination living document stuff - that isn't nasty but is merely useful, right there in the constitution.

and lots and lots and lots of private actors have stepped up to the nasty stuff when it suited them, including today, in this country and elsewhere.

you're welcome to say your piece, but you don't get to make stuff up.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ok, so you don't think there's anything distinctly "governmental" about taxation, conscription, waging war, and generally all the issuing orders backed by threats of violence. Why do we have this word "government", then, if there's nothing that distinguishes it from anybody in the private sector?

[cleek]

int he private sector, taxation is sometimes known as "paying your dues".

conscription happens in private military, too. they used to call it being "Shanghaied".

waging war? yes of course private armies wage war. gangs are private armies and sometimes fight other gangs.

government is distinguished from the private sector in many ways. firstly, it's not private. it's a non-commercial enterprise which acts in the name of the country, not in the name of shareholders. it's the thing we set up to administer the laws we live under for that purpose, with those constraints.

[russell]

Why do we have this word "government", then, if there's nothing that distinguishes it from anybody in the private sector?

The question is not whether the private and public sectors are distinguishable.

You assert that we should only have government do things which require the threat of force. We should never ask government to do anything which we would not be willing to have government implement via the cracking of heads. Because, of course, you are convinced that government is nothing more than a protection racket, that's obviously its only purpose.

When folks point out a very wide range of things that governments do that do not involve the threat of force, you further assert that those things aren't properly the responsibility of government, and that government has somehow metastatized, illegitimately, to take them on.

It's a circular and self-serving argument, and it's bullshit.

Governments do, and have always done, an extremely broad range of things that have nothing to do with cracking heads, but which are simply useful and beneficial.

Governments can legitimately do whatever the governed consent for them to do. Full stop.

And yes, I know, TENTH AMENDMENT DAMMIT, but state and local governments are still governments.

In my world, government builds and operates schools and libraries, maintains a force of policemen and firemen, operates some excellent public parks, sponsors hospitals, builds and maintains roads bridges tunnels and ferries, sponsors or operates reasonably priced and useful public transportation, establishes and enforces standards for sound construction practices and wholesome food and drugs, delivers very good water to my tap, oversees the delivery of heating gas and electricity to my home, and runs the dump where everyone in town meets on Saturday to toss their garden waste and talk about the weather.

And that's just off the top of my head. And it's all totally legitimate.

It's your prerogative to see everything through the lens of your somewhat eccentric obsessions, but the rest of us are not obliged to play along.

[Hartmut]

Ever heard of the publicani or tax farmers? Taxation has been a private business for most of history and I could imagine that the idea would be hugely poular in some circles even today. It has also been some of the most effective ways to trigger actual revolutions. I guess that was one reason to take it out of the private market and hand it over to the government, although we hear that the real blooduckers are actually there and not in the saintly open and free market.
Btw, the term government derives from the Latin word for helmsman, the one sterring the ship. Not the one actually in command, that would be the captain (headman)or master (the one who is bigger).

[Brett Bellmore]

"You assert that we should only have government do things which require the threat of force. We should never ask government to do anything which we would not be willing to have government implement via the cracking of heads."

Because that IS how the government implements things, almost all of the time. The government has this hammer, and it treats almost all jobs given it as nails.

Is the state of Connecticut asking people to register their normal capacity magazines? Suggesting that they not buy any more of them? No, it's threatening people who don't do as their told with jail time. It's cracking heads.

Why even involve the government, if you don't need the threat of force? Just because you think the government is cool, or something?

[_cleek_]

wow. talk about hammer and nails...

[hairshirthedonist]

No, it's threatening people who don't do as their told with jail time. It's cracking heads.

Except that it's not. Any law needs some sort of penalty if it is to be enforced, but that doesn't make it "cracking heads" if what the law requires is reasonable. The law doesn't say, "You have a gun or some ammo, so come over here and get your head split open." It doesn't say that about jay-walking or littering or picking up after your dog, either, in case anyone was wondering

[hairshirthedonist]

Taxation has been a private business for most of history and I could imagine that the idea would be hugely poular in some circles even today.

The notion of privatizing toll roads was bandied about frequently not so long ago, but it seems to have died down, AFAICT. Either way, it leaped to mind quickly after reading that, Hartmut.

[wj]

Toll roads may seem, in theory, like a great way to privatize that part of our infrastructure. But take it from one who grew up in the West, they have two major problems:
First, having to keep piles of change in the car, and stop constantly to pay, is a real hassle. Perhaps those who have always had to deal with it find it tolerable. But every time I go east and try to drive, I find my blood pressure rising.
Second, they are only suitable for places with fairly high traffic density, in order to support adequate revenue. Which huge parts of this part of the country don't have. (And which is also why they are only used, even in the east, on major thoroughfares.)

[russell]

Because that IS how the government implements things, almost all of the time.

False.

Why even involve the government, if you don't need the threat of force? Just because you think the government is cool, or something?

If something is useful, but not necessarily profitable.

If it's very important that something is done rather than not, whether it's profitable or not.

If people want something to be universally, or at least very broadly, available, regardless of any given individual's ability to pay for it.

If something involves resources that constitute a commons.

If it enables participation in the political process or other public function, e.g. voting.

If it's naturally a monopoly, where redundant services or infrastructure don't add value, e.g. railroads, highways, water, sewer, electric power, and I'd add broadband.

If people freaking want it, and the private sector doesn't feel like making it happen, for whatever reason.

Off the top of my head.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, what's reasonable is, tautologically, reasonable. If you think it's "reasonable" to threaten people with 2 years jail and loss of their civil rights over not telling you about owning an inanimate object that was perfectly legal a year ago, and is used in the exercise of one of those civil liberties, I think YOU are unreasonable. Stark raving bonkers.

How about we enact a law requiring all paper feeders to hold no more than ten sheets? And then make into a felon anyone who doesn't report owning one? Perfectly reasonable, right? Might, in somebody's fevered imagination, inconvenience a counterfeiter, and it wouldn't actually prevent anyone from printing anything. You could still run a newspaper, you'd just be mildly inconvenienced.

I don't think you would call this reasonable, if the right under attack were one you valued.

[russell]

all guns, all the time.

[hairshirthedonist]

How about we enact a law requiring all paper feeders to hold no more than ten sheets? And then make into a felon anyone who doesn't report owning one?

When someone kills a bunch of first-graders with one, let me know.

If, in your mind, having to report something is the same as being cracked on the head, stark raving bonkers might be more rightly applied to you, Brett.

Your over-reliance on silly analogies and metaphors, coupled with false equivalencies is Just. Getting. Old.

[Brett Bellmore]

As old as your determination to treat a civil liberty like a dispensible privilege.

"If people freaking want it, and the private sector doesn't feel like making it happen, for whatever reason."

Precisely: If you want something sold, and people don't want it enough to pay for it, you want the power to force them to buy it.

You treasure government, because you want to over-ride other people's choices, it's as simple as that.

[russell]

Any law needs some sort of penalty if it is to be enforced

Just last week I had to pay 17 cents in overdue fines to the library.

Plus, $65 to the town for my annual park and recreation sticker. And if I don't get the sticker, they won't let me park in the beach parking lot. Plus, they won't let me take my grass clippings to the dump!

Tyranny!

To the barricades, y'all.

And for the record, "no magazines with more than 10 rounds" is not the same as "disarm". "Register your firearm" is not the same as "disarm".

Disarm means TAKE ALL OF YOU FIREARMS AWAY, and NOT ALLOW YOU TO GET ANY MORE, AT ALL.

That's what "disarm" means.

And yes, it's a PITA, because lots of firearms come out of the box with magazine capacities greater than 10 rounds. And, if you want to shoot lots and lots of bullets for whatever reason, you might have to swap in a fresh magazine more often than you do now.

But, as we've told countless times when this stupid tired topic comes up, it's trivially easy - seamless, takes less than a second - to swap in a new magazine.

Right? Isn't that why there's no freaking point to a limit on magazine capacity?

In any case, "PITA" is not the same as "violates my civil liberties".

Is it an overreaction? Maybe so. A couple dozen dead little kids brings that out in people.

Jeebus, am I ever sick of talking about f***ing guns.

No nut like a gun nut.

[russell]

You treasure government, because you want to over-ride other people's choices, it's as simple as that.

Nobody's gonna make you ride the bus, Brett.

[hairshirthedonist]

Precisely: If you want something sold, and people don't want it enough to pay for it, you want the power to force them to buy it.

You treasure government, because you want to over-ride other people's choices, it's as simple as that.

How does this apply to, say, the national highway system (or most of the many examples russell provided)? Is there a market mechanism whereby people can choose to buy one? Do you deny the existence of collective-action problems? Are the positive externalities provided by national infrastructure the inventions of liberals - a coordinated ruse to fool people into thinking they need the government?

[hairshirthedonist]

I think we're back to this:

...then it's just another extremist political philosophy that isn't going to work in the real world, like communism.

Posted by: Donald Johnson | March 10, 2014 at 09:00 AM

[_cleek_]

You treasure government, because you want to over-ride other people's choices, it's as simple as that.

so now he's an anarchist.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Are the positive externalities provided by national infrastructure the inventions of liberals - a coordinated ruse to fool people into thinking they need the government?"

Are the positive externalities provided by infrastructure supposed to carry the weight of having a drug war, the EPA banning wood stoves, and so on? I'm perfectly willing to admit the government does some useful, worthwhile stuff.

If only it would stop at that point, and not do the other stuff, too...

[russell]

If only it would stop at that point, and not do the other stuff, too...

you'll get no argument from me on this.

so now he's an anarchist.

just as long he's not an antichrist.

[hairshirthedonist]

I'm perfectly willing to admit the government does some useful, worthwhile stuff.

If only it would stop at that point, and not do the other stuff, too...

That's cool. It's also completely at odds with the absolutism of what you previously wrote.

I, too, am generally against the drug war. I haven't looked into the wood-stove issue enough to have an opinion.

[Brett Bellmore]

The "absolutism" of what I previously wrote?

I've noticed that some liberals seem to have a problem with the concept of a "necessary evil". The thought seems to be that if something is necessary, it can't really be evil, or that, if you recognize that something is evil, you must be denying that it's necessary. Or some such.

Government is evil, AND it is necessary. To affirm the first part of that dillemna is not to deny the second part, it is to recognize a tragedy.

But that doesn't mean wen have to accept any more government than IS necessary. The excess is just evil.

[russell]

I turn the tap, water comes out.

Necessary, and not evil.

In any case, my personal point of no return has been achieved. Carry on as you wish, I'll just thank you to keep your "drown it in a bathtub" schtick down there in SC.

[hairshirthedonist]

But, Brett, who is it that wants to pay for highways, and whom do they want to pay to provide them? Somebody - liberals, I suppose - like forcing people to buy things they don't want to pay for. You object to that. But that's exactly the case in a national system of highways.

There is no viable private-transaction, free-market solution. No one in the private sector wants to sell anyone a national system of highways, and no one in the private sector wants to pay a private actor to do it. So we use government to do it, and we collect taxes. If that's not what you're talking about, then I guess I don't understand what you're getting at.

In any case, that's what sounds absolute to me.

It's not a question of not understanding what a necessary evil is. If anything is a necessary evil, it is a military, it is a criminal justice system, it is the bureaucracy of regulation.

But I'm not seeing how highways are evil, or that government is being evil when it builds them. Maybe they aren't even necessary, but only really, really useful.

So I think your Venn diagram of government, which I think has a necessary circle fully within a larger evil circle, needs some work.

[CharlesWT]

"But I'm not seeing how highways are evil, or that government is being evil when it builds them."

Building highways causes environmental damage, violates personal property rights, destroys neighborhoods and communities. Building the interstate highway system did a great deal of environmental damage.

You have to balance the good against the evil and decide switch side of the ledger comes out ahead.

[Ufficio]

Why do we have this word "government", then, if there's nothing that distinguishes it from anybody in the private sector?

Dunno, maybe the language bifurcated?

[wj]

Building the interstate highway system may have done a lot of environmental damage in itself. But you have to look at the alternatives. Consider what we had before, and would presumably continue to have now, without it. I drove Route 66 back in the day. As total environmental impact goes, it seemed a lot worse than I-44/I-40.

And that's before we consider the damage either expanding what we had then to deal with increased traffic now, or constraining the economy and manufacturing a lot more stuff in multiple locations closer to each market. Multiple small manufacturing locations are less efficient, and do more environmental damage, than one large one.

So it's not as open and shut a case as one might think at first glance.

[Brett Bellmore]

"But I'm not seeing how highways are evil, or that government is being evil when it builds them."

It takes money from people against their will to pay for it. It forces people to sell their land, whether or not they want to.

Do you really want to claim that either of these actions aren't evil? If they're necessary to achieve some other good, they may be necessary evils, but still, are they the sort of thing you'd excuse being done if they weren't necessary?

[bobbyp]

The EPA has not made wood burning stoves illegal. That is simply not true.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/24/3321941/epa-wood-stoves-2/#

Bellmore needs to get out of Plato's cave and stop boxing shadows. A good dose of fresh air mandated by those totalitarians in the EPA could do wonders.

Ya' never know.

[bobbyp]

Do you really want to claim that either of these actions aren't evil?

The system of private property is pure evil. Discuss.

[hairshirthedonist]

So eminent domain and taxation are necessary evils. And since taxation is a necessary evil, government must be a necessary evil in each and every endeavor it undertakes, including building highways (and rescuing victims of natural disasters, providing social services for the handicapped, feeding poor children) because at least some people don't want to pay taxes. They are forced to do so, regardless of being represented within their government. It doesn't even matter that the money being taken in the form of taxes would have been unobtainable as income without the benefit of the good and necessary (but also evil) things the (evil) government does.

So what the hell isn't evil? It seems just about everything is once you have self-aware being with will in the universe, since just about everything affects something else in some way, and certainly not everyone has consented to those effects. You can't make anything without consuming resources. Nothing can live without consuming resources.

Birds, evil. Electrons, evil. Thoughts, evil. Ambiguous gestures, evil. Bow ties, evil. Toaster ovens, evil. Mathematicians, evil. Blogs, evil. Puppies, super-duper evil.

[_cleek_]

what russell said

[russell]

Birds, evil.

Our local crew of robins eats the winterberries, then craps all over our cars.

Nasty, brutish little gooey red turds.

The rabbits are eating the bottom foot or so of leaves off of the euonymus.

Evil, everywhere.

[Countme-In]

Evil wabbits, and tall too.

Conversation overheard in the Garden of Eden:

Serpent: Share an apple, you two.

Adam: Sounds good to me, but wouldn't that be, um, you know .... evil.

Eve: Well, maybe it's a necessary evil, all things considered, wink, wink.

Adam: Wait, that's supposed to be my line.

Serpent: Tastes good, too.

Eve: See, Adam. Can you spell "necessary"?

Adam: Yes, I can and yes, I do see, and I'm seeing a lot more than I bargained for. You take the first bite, Evey, honeybunch.

Eve: No, you.

Adam: waggling his fanny, batting his eyes, and introducing a mince into his voice like Groucho Marx, the great Hebrew Prophet, making fun of Margaret Dumont's coyness: No, you! Go ahead. Just give it a little kiss.

Eve: I suppose that's necessary, too?

Adam: It is, my dear, it is.

Eve: Well, alright.

God: EVIL!!!!!

Adam: Damn!!!

God: Precisely.

Eve

[Brett Bellmore]

"The whole point of the EPA’s proposed regulations, however, is that there are not currently stoves that pass the emissions test."

Sure, they're not kicking down doors and confiscating wood stoves, any more than they went door to door confiscating light bulbs. They've "merely" issued a regulation no existing wood stove on the market can meet. That's "all".

The EPA, which does not manufacture wood stoves, figures the new regulation won't be that hard to comply with. Meanwhile, have fun buying a wood stove next year.