[maester_miller]

I’m no expert on this, but here’s my best guess.

I would assume that the big-wigs who call the shots at the hospitals are huge fans of big-govt’ and have absolute trust in the regulators’ ability to stop poor quality. Also, the very existence of the regulator gives them plausible deniability.

Take the purchase of faulty consumer goods, for instance. In decades past, if you bought a product that didn’t work, you returned it to your point of sale and demanded a refund from the merchant. It was his responsibility to ensure the products he sold were of high quality and functioned as promised. If he fails to live up to this, his reputation is tarnished. Today for many goods, this no longer applies. You are directed NOT to return defective electronics to the place of purchase, but rather to file a claim through the manufacturer. The retailer himself passes the buck.

On a similar level, when the government advertises “we are here to make sure your food is safe,” unsafe food automatically becomes, at least in part, a failure of government. One they will undoubtedly demand more of your money to fix. So long as retailers can say “hey, I only sold food that was government approved” they can shift the blame to the government. This gives them less incentive to spend valuable resources double-checking product quality themselves.

[maester_miller]

Have you tried any of Dr. J’s lectures on Western Civ yet? He incorporates his powerpoint into his video, making it easy to reference without having to flip back and forth. Each lecture also does in fact have a quiz at the end (although very short and simple, still useful).

[maester_miller]

Who is to decide that we can’t have 15 subway systems? If an additional subway system is a bad idea, those who attempt to build it will lose vast amounts of money. If it is true that an additional subway system is a bad idea, nobody will attempt to buil,d one in the first place.

[maester_miller]

Not true, because what others think of you will greatly affect how you are able to live your life.

If you are well known to be a thief or a murderer or other such things, it is likely that nobody will be willing to trade with you, with the possible exception of other thieves and murderers. Doesn’t sound like a very pleasant life to me.

Also, I’m no expert on objectivism, but I have read Atlas Shrugged and the characters did not seem to hesitate to use violence in self-defense. If you attempted to assault or steal from an objectivist, they would likely defend themselves and their property against you.

[maester_miller]

There is also the issue of crowding out. Government spending can only come from one of three sources: taxation, debt, and money printing. Taxation is economically inefficient, and diverts resources away from their most productive use to less productive, politically favored uses. Debt does much of the same, with the added penalty of interest, as discussed above. Money printing will also do this by creating inflation.

In other words, if the government “borrows” a million dollars from an actual person, business, or foreign government, that million dollars is immediately gone, and transferred to an entity (the US federal government) that is likely to spend it on less urgent needs than what it would have otherwise been spent on. That alone is a problem with government debt, regardless of whether it is ever actually paid back or not.

[maester_miller]

It will certainly be amusing to watch all the statists who have spent the last 100 years using the incorporation doctrine as the excuse for all sorts of federal meddling and power grabs suddenly do a complete 180 and start arguing for states rights and such.

[maester_miller]

ET,

I believe that, for whatever reasons (populism probably) Lincoln and the others made a great effort to try and convince the people that they were essentially continuing the legacy of the founders, rather than imposing some radically new ideas.

I’m currently taking a course in Mises Academy from Tom DiLorenzo about Hamilton, Clay, and Lincoln and he pretty convincingly argues that Lincoln and the Republicans were simply continuing the same nationalistic policies that Hamilton and Clay brought about before them.

[maester_miller]

hayek_novice, you might consider posting this in the Western Civ discussion forums as well. I believe Dr. J addressed this at one point, but I cannot recall exactly what he said.

I believe it was mostly #2, I think he points out that the countries that embraced protestantism were the ones who also led the way in the industrial revolution.

[maester_miller]

You could probably counter this line of thought by pointing out that the very first gun control laws passed in the United States were passed specifically to disarm freed slaves, and were entirely racist in nature.

I remember reading an excellent article on this awhile back (several months ago, well before the recent shooting and “debate), but I do not have the link handy…

[maester_miller]

David,

Just to play Devil’s Advocate here…

If God was truly omnipotent, what would be the need of creating a sun and so many other planets and galaxies and such if the only truly important beings he created were humans?

While I wouldn’t presume that heliocentrism “disproves” religion, I would say that it could potentially cast some serious doubt on some of the prevailing religious doctrines of the times, much in the same way that dinosaurs and carbon dating methods and evolution cast doubt on certain religious tenets, but do not necessarily disprove the entire notion of a creator. Presumably, if we ever had contact with an alien race, many secularists would declare that as “proof” that religion is wrong, but in reality it would simply cast doubt on conventional interpretations of religion.

[maester_miller]

Anyone who watches Django expecting a documentary on the root causes of slavery has some much bigger issues…

[maester_miller]

I believe that a lot of the libertarian objection to immigration law comes from issues surrounding respect for private property. The argument, as I have seen it, is that if you own a piece of property, you also should be able to control who can and who can not be present on your piece of property.

But immigration law subverts this, and declares that certain people (namely, those who lack permission by the state) may not be present on your property, even if you invite them. This is a violation of property rights.

Now, in an anarcho-capitalist society, this would easily be handled by contract. If a bunch of property owners wanted to get together and form some sort of mutual defense collective, they would be free to do so. One of the conditions for joining the collective might be “by joining, you agree not to allow any ‘undocumented individuals’ access to your land.” However, in the current statist model, nobody ever agreed to any of this. It is a pre-existing arrangement forced upon us by the state. If the state is allowed to tell you who can and who can not be present on your land, do you really OWN the land?

[maester_miller]

Professor Herbner,

Wouldn’t the costs of intermediate goods be included in the costs of final goods though? For example, it is much more expensive to purchase a car than it is to purchase a bunch of iron ore. The costs of the mining and refining are a part of the total purchase price of the car, yes?

[maester_miller]

I’m not really familiar with the details of the arugments on either side, but I would just like to point out that what is “speculation” to one party is usually risk management to the other party. Someone who is long a futures contract for corn is speculating the price will rise, but the person who sold the contract is likely locking in profits to protect themselves from the possibility that prices might fall.

So logically, if we were to ban futures trading on agricultural commodities, that would eliminate this form of risk protection for farmers, who would now be forced to trade their crops at volatile spot prices all the time. My personal opinion is that this increase in volatility would probably do great harm to the food supply, as many farmers would more easily be forced out of business due to short-term fluctiations in prices.

[maester_miller]

I completely agree. With all due respect to Dr. Woods and the other staff, I’ve always found the discussion boards here to be rather clunky. If I’m remembering the name correctly, I was using vbulletin message board sites back in the 90s, with a more enjoyable and seamless interface than these boards have…

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