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Ed G.'s Profile

Ed G.
Name:
Ed G.
Hometown:
Chicago, IL
Joined:
Feb 24, 2011

Recent Comments

Ed G.

skipsul: To turn this back to the original point:

1.  Post Office - I think we can all agree this needs to go private.

2.  Ambulance service - should be private, but also needs the stink of our current insurance racket removed so that a 12 block ride doesn't cost $16k.

3.  .....

Part of the of the cost driver on ambulance service is insurance reimbursement. Just like with medical services, if insurance negotiates a rate based on the prevailing rate then it would amount to fraud for the ambulance service to charge less to the uninsured than they do the insurance company. And since much of the business for ambulances will come from insurance payers then there is great incentive to inflate the "normal" price - even if it means many of the uninsured eventually turn into uncollectible accounts to be written off. It's a terrible game that gets played.

Ed G.

Mike Hinton

Ed G.

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The way I see it is I give you my explanations, you say you disagree and are not convinced, and then somehow I'm supposed to capitulate even though I find your arguments unconvincing as well.

Whatever your intentions are, at this point it feels more like trolling than honest debate, and I would appreciate it if you would respect my request and let me see how others respond to these ideas independently of your input.

I've done much more than merely disagree with you and say I'm not convinced. But no, I don't expect you to capitulate. I expect you to provide reasonable answers to reasonable challenges. Your premise mostly boils down to: if people expect things to be different then they will be. I'm simply challenging that assertion here.

Others are free to respond to your idea. So am I, and I'll continue doing so. This is a place for discussion, so discuss. Or don't. The choice is yours.

Ed G.

Mike Hinton

Ed G.

And as we've covered in previous threads, Mike, the right circumstances you cite will necessarily involve either suppression of or evolution of human nature. I'm still not sure why you think that's plausible. · 4 minutes ago

Ed, we've already been through this and it's no longer fun. (I actually come to Ricochet to enjoy myself.)  I'd appreciate it if you would let me have conversations with others without jumping in to specifically question everything I say on every thread you find me. · 4 minutes ago

I don't question everything you say, nor am I following you around. I only question what you say concerning anarcho capitalism because: you admit that you don't know much about it, that it's unlikely to work anytime soon, and that you don't have answers to my criticisms. Yet  you keep bringing it up anyway. So I'll keep questioning as long as you keep bringing it up.

Edited 20 hours ago
Ed G.

I wouldn't be opposed to privatized fire services (or other services - except lawmaking, law enforcement, and judiciary) but it's not a slam dunk case.

The biggest challenge that any model - public or private - faces is conflicting motives. In a public model or a voluntary model, the goal is public safety. Of course other goals creep in and start to crowd out the main goal; unions, job security, political payoffs, political attacks, personal safety (of the firefighters), etc. Private firms aren't immune to this and even start off with an entirely different goal: profit. Of course profit isn't a dirty word, and that profit must be derived from something valuable (ie public safety). However, these motives will come into conflict often, and don't be surprised when profit wins out more often than public or employee safety.

So it's all about tradeoffs. Privatization can certainly be better, but it won't always be.

Ed G.

Mike Hinton

Guy Incognito: skipsul's point brings up the main reason a libertarian society can never last.  Simply put, someone will always try to seize power to further their own ends, and the only way to stop them is to have someone else with more power, which would itself destroy the libertarian designs.  So, either way it descends into tyranny eventually.

I say this while noting that small government systems generally perform better, and which I believe to be the ideal way to run a society.  But, like with the humans in the Matrix, human nature always works to reject an ideal world. · 2 hours ago

This is what all AnCap (libertarian ideal) conversations end up devolving to. It's certainly plausible that it will never work, but there are still those of us who see it as plausible that it would work under the right circumstances. .....

And as we've covered in previous threads, Mike, the right circumstances you cite will necessarily involve either suppression of or evolution of human nature. I'm still not sure why you think that's plausible.

Ed G.

Mike Hinton

Guy Incognito

Free-markets almost always work, even in places like Iraq.  The trick is preventing them from dissolving into cronyism and (possibly benevolent) tyranny.

A politician, I believe in one of China's capitalist oases, said that the most difficult thing in politics is doing nothing, because every force in a society is trying to get the government to intervene on their behalf.

The challenge of privatizing the fire-departments (a colossal task) is just the first step.  The larger problem is keeping them from being re-nationalized, which would be long battle doomed to failure. · 0 minutes ago

I'm of the opinion that it largely depends on expectations.....

What is this opinion based on?

Ed G.

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Ed G.

Also, I don't see any reason to suppose causality or even correlation between belief in government and belief in non-government constraints.

Well, you can't just suppose causality. I actually thought carefully about that before posting and tried to word my comment in a way that would leave causality out of the picture. (If I failed, I apologize.)

But I do think there is correlation. If sufficient constraints can exist outside of government, what is the need to impose more? · 10 hours ago

I didn't mean to suggest that you're making arguments thoughtlessly; your arguments are consistently thoughtful.

But who says that sufficient constraints can exist outside of government, aside from anarchists?

Also, if a belief in sufficient non-government constraints isn't the cause of a belief in less need for government constraints (as you explicitly argued in #185), then what is the correlation you're proposing?

Edited on May 18, 2013 at 4:08pm
Ed G.

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Ed G.

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

.....

.....

.....

Maybe this is easiest to see from the other direction:
A lot of people favor expansive government because  they doubt (or simply lack awareness of) how much non-governmental constraints can influence human behavior.

For example, people who doubt that the risk of earning a bad reputation is enough to keep most businesses from engaging in unscrupulous practices tend to be much more supportive of regulating businesses than those who already believe that loss of reputation already acts as a powerful natural constraint on businesses' bad behavior.

.....

I agree less with the rest of your post. It's not that I favor expansive regulation of business because I think loss reputation isn't much of a deterrent (I don't favor expansive regulation at all), it's that I think loss of reputation is hardly sufficient for keeping civil society civil or for preventing/punishing harm, and so therefore it's a reason that we need government at all and some government regulation and oversight of business in particular.

Also, I don't see any reason to suppose causality or even correlation between belief in government and belief in non-government constraints.

Ed G.

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Ed G.

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

I notice all these procedural constraints you list are already embedded in government. Why only list procedural constraints already embedded in government?

Because we're primarily talking about the different ways that libertarians and conservatives think about government and the specific ways that the power to make and enforce law is constrained.

But surely, existence of procedural constraints outside of government can be good evidence that expansive government powers are less necessary.

.....

Ok, I agree with you on this, but we've been talking about constraints on government behavior. If most people end up agreeing too, then the constraint of democracy and elections comes into play.

Ed G.

Quinn the Eskimo

Ed G.

.....

This is not addressed to anyone in particular, but is there any limiting principle in local regulation for a conservative?  If Toledo, Ohio decided to confiscate guns, I think there would be a lot of resistance to the legitimacy of the move, not simply the wisdom.

Sure: the charter document and any other subsequent agreements, interpretation of such documents, self government, competing interests, elections.

These aren't quite principles, I understand (more procedures), but at a certain point it doesn't matter what principle I think should serve as a limit if those around me disagree. If people around me no longer care for a right to bear arms then I'm still protected by the prior agreement we have in place and I can have my day in court. They can change the agreement if enough people agree, but they'll have to go through that exercise at least as long as they still see value in rule of law. If they stop valuing the rule of law then I highly doubt that any abstract principle will constrain that monster anyway.

Ed G.

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Salvatore Padula

However,  in my experience you are more likely to hear conservatives making arguments in favor of procedural constraints such as democracy, separation of powers, federalism, and subsidiarity...

I notice all these procedural constraints you list are already embedded in government. Why only list procedural constraints already embedded in government? Are there no procedural constraints existing outside of government? That strikes me as unlikely. · 2 hours ago

Because we're primarily talking about the different ways that libertarians and conservatives think about government and the specific ways that the power to make and enforce law is constrained.  And by "law" I mean law in the common sense as opposed to the "private law" sense that Sal was using on that Ethiopian Trucker thread.

Ed G.

Joseph Stanko

Salvatore Padula

..... Not all non-believers are nihilists and your dismissal of a hypothetical you who falls into that category is just evading the question rather than engaging in good faith.

.....

It's not entirely hypothetical.  I was raised Catholic.  I lost my faith growing up.  I decided I would find the real truth in philosophy.  I searched for it, and ended up a nihilist.  This greatly depressed me.  Then something (grace?) prompted a renewed interest in the faith of my childhood, I started reading and quickly discovered that I had never really understood what I had rejected.  And now I'm a practicing Catholic again.

So for me Catholicism is the only plausible alternative to nihilism.  I wasn't claiming all non-believers are nihilists, just that for me, personally, those are the only two options on the table. 

I'm still confused, though. What's the alternative for a non-believer if not nihilism?

Ed G.

GayFreedomLover

Michael Collins

TG

 

Natural law arguments are not compatible with reductive materialism.  If there is an objective moral order (one that exists independently of the human mind) that means there are a bunch of "values" just hanging out there in space somewhere.   "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an imperative sentence, -a command.   But who commands it?  Parents, or society?  But parents and society often command us to to return runaway slaves, or round up the Jews, which are against the Golden Rule.   Is the Golden Rule a result of evolution?   Ted Bundy is just as much a product of evolution as is Albert Schweitzer.   .....

Well, at least you seem to understand what I'm (as an agnostic) struggling with. · 11 hours ago

You're not alone in that struggle, GFL. I think it's a common one for Ricochet members (even us theists), one some of us weren't really conscious of until we came here and were afforded this civil room in which to explore and work things out.

Ed G.

GayFreedomLover

Salvatore Padula

Michael Collins

MJBubba:

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.....

Agreed, though you very rarely hear people refer to the Pagan-Judeo-Christian tradition for some reason. I wonder why.

Also, I have a question for anyone who cares to answer. Why is "Judeo" added to Christian in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I'm not sure that modern America, for example, owes more of its cultural heritage to Judaism than it does to Germanic Paganism.

If you change "cultural heritage" to "intellectual heritage" I think you might conclude Judiasm is the larger influence.  Judiasm is at the origin of the Abrahamic religions and it is a religious tradition that has devoted enormous effort to the analysis of ethical and moral questions.  It has shared much of the fruit of that intellectual effort with western culture.  I'm just not sure germanic paganism can say anything similar.

I'm not sure we even need to substitute "intellectual" for "cultural" for your point to be valid. I'm not certain that "intellectual" can be removed from "cultural" without both coming to ruin. Different thread, I know, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Ed G.

Salvatore Padula

Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Sal, Ed, you're both lawyers, right?

.....

..... but the closer analogy is to the difference between substantive and procedural due process. Procedural due process is the notion that the state can't do something to you without first having a hearing, or whatever other procedure is deemed appropriate. Substantive due process ... is the notion that the government cannot do some things to you no matter what procedural hoops it jumps through.

First thing's first: I am not a lawyer; I'm an accountant.

To piggyback on Sal's definitions, I'd further say that a libertarian's narrow view of "harm" and "non-aggression" usually puts them in the substantive due process frame of mind while a conservative's broader interpretation usually puts them in a procedural due process frame of mind. For instance: the NYC soda size limit. Libertarians are more likely to argue that NYC has no right to such regulation while a conservative is more likely to argue that NYC (though not  the feds) certainly does have such a right even if we personally think it's a bad idea.

Edited on May 17, 2013 at 4:03pm
Ed G.

Salvatore Padula

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Salvatore Padula

Midget Faded Rattlesnake

Salvatore Padula

Blake:

.....

There's certainly some truth to the idea that libertarians are more normative and conservatives more focused on procedural safeguards...

Weird. I would have put it the other way round -- that conservatives are more normative while libertarians are more focused on procedural safeguards.

How do you figure? .....

The biggest procedural safeguard is keeping the government out of places where it doesn't belong.

.....

I can understand that viewpoint. I just would characterize the limitation of government as substantive and the various means as procedural.

Sal, you beat me to it. "Keeping the government out of places where it doesn't belong" is a substantive or normative assertion if it's to have any real meaning or guiding influence. Libertarians use term like "non-agression", "harm", and "property rights" as if they have objective meanings in accord with libertarian ideals; conservatives also use these words, but we allow that others mean them differently than us and that the currently popular conception will breathe (understandably and acceptably so), so procedural limits are what we rely on to keep things within the margins.

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