Civil unrest may force June election...

Permabear

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Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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Key phrase: "expensive litigation".

If I suffered food poisoning due to apparent negligence by a major food producer, which of us might be better placed to meet the costs of litigation?

thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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Well there are plenty of companies that do not care about their reputation for acting ethically and will hope to advertise that fact away to keep people thinking they are acting ethically. Countless examples of that.

As for expensive litigation, the person affected will in many cases not be able to afford to take on a large company and will most likely go bankrupt before the company. In this case, the person loses out and the company wins unless the person is rich enough to afford a lawyer for the duration of the case and any appeals.

Justice comes at a price in the system and your system and so justice will no prevail. Then you have the problem of corruption in the legal system which just throws another spanner in the works so I think such a system is doomed to failure. Just my opinion though.

Companies regularly have to withdraw products from the market because they turn out to be dangerous. People also unfortunately get injured, or even killed, regardless of whether the government is involved or not. I'm not saying that death is "acceptable"; but you can't deny either that it happens. The government can never be an omniscient protector from all harm.

They are withdrawn once they know of the affects because of the consequences of having knowledge that a product they sell is harmful and continuing to sell it. Usually this cases are small and caught early and I think that is a consequence of government rules on what chemicals cannot be used in a product. If you don't then products are harmful but only in the long term will continue to be used because there is no direct way of attributing the death to a particular product so the company will feel no negative impact so why would they withdraw the product?

Making drugs illegal doesn't curb their availability; it only creates a black market that drives up levels of crime and racketeering. It ensures that drugs are costly and of dubious quality. It results in vast amounts of public money being wasted on futile law enforcement. At the end of the day, anyone who wants to use drugs can still do so.

I don't think it can be denied that the vast majority of people will obey the law because it is the law. As a result, I think drug problems would increase especially among teenagers who have not had the experience of friends who have destroyed their lives with drugs yet. I am for legalisation of less harmful drugs such as cannabis for the reasons you have outlined but something like heroin should not be easily available. I think spending a lot of money on preventing people becoming addicted to such an addictive substance is worthwhile even if it does not stop all people from doing it.

I believe we'll have greater economic productivity. We'll have more and better-paid jobs. We'll have better health care, better transportation, better all-round standards of living. We'll people taking more responsibility for themselves, their families, and their communities. We'll eradicate the mentality that tells people that the State should provide for their every need, and we'll have more people making something of their lives, rather than tossing around on the dole.

There weren't many people tossing around on the dole during the boom. Recessions are inevitable, your system is work or die. I disagree with such a system because of the death part when it might not be any fault of the person that they are in those circumstances.

I don't believe that people have the "right" to have their needs met by a redistributionist welfare state. I believe people have the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness in their own way, and make what they can of their lives, so long as they do not interfere with other people's right to do the same.

The people own the state. The state should act in their interests and it is upto the people to elect those they feel represent their interests. If people want a state that looks out for its poorest citizens, they are entitled to it. If we had fairer distribution of wealth, people would be more open to your suggested system but realistically as long as a small number of people control the wealth of the nation, such a system will never have popular support IMO.

I think everyone believes people have the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness in their own way. I don't think the current system interferes with that.

Even if I thought your system was as good as the current system, it would not be enough of an incentive to change the system. I think we should not get in the way of markets where ever possible but I believe we need the state to intervene in certain cases or at least the threat to companies that the state can intervene if they get out of order.

P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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You take the position that the individual should be free to pursue his self-interest. Do children not also have that right?

Mr.Micro

originally posted by donegalfella
So it's ironic that you should invoke Stalin to challenge the premise of a liberal state!

I was merely demonstrating an extreme where humankind in this case Stalin pursued his own interests, using the machinations of the state to do so at the expense of the many. He was one man, and even when he was dead in his bed his henchmen were terrified to go near him.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the pursuit of personal self-interest. There is something wrong when a government coerces the private citizen into paying for the mistakes of bankers and financiers.

No dispute there, but if its seen as for the general good then it as to be accepted in a democracy.

That's right. But instead of respecting human egoism, ambition, and the desire for individuation as the core of human nature, the social democrat tries to force us into working and striving altruistically for the greater good. Flawed model.

Yes it is flawed, as those who put no effort in get rewared for doing nothing as they are carried by the state, to quote a peom I once read " they also serve those who only stand and wait ". There is nothing wrong with altruism IMO. There will always be people who have disease, disablement, mental health disorders and those less intelligent or able than others, so the model we have at the minute is not perfect or efficient or even fair, but if its for the greater good then I am satisfied with it.

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peasant

donegalfella wrote: »

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and you call yourself a motors mod?

Ever heard of NCAP, the EU emission regualtions, the californina zero emissions law, the international regulations regarding fleet fuel consumption?

thebman

peasant wrote: »

and you call yourself a motors mod?

Ever heard of NCAP, the EU emission regualtions, the californina zero emissions law, the international regulations regarding fleet fuel consumption?

A point I was going to make. NCAP ensures people that don't have a full understanding of safety can make like for like comparisons for a start which is what put safety higher on the agenda for car companies.

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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In fairness, it isn't that the state couldn't research these things if they wanted to and I'm sure they did discover some safety devices in state run universities.

Anyway while we are on the topic of road safety, I guess we need to ask who is going to maintain and build the roads and will there be speed limits in your system?

What about insurance, will it be compulsory? What if someone can't pay?

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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That's just trolling :rolleyes: I can throw out pointless examples of private sector stupidity too. Not really going to achieve much though is it?

Roads will be built and maintained privately. And of course there will be speed limits, since the providers of the roads won't want to be sued for negligence.

You don't see any problems with this implementation given you don't need two roads going to the same place? Each one will be like a monopoly for tolls. Either that or you'll have two roads for no reason.

No. But if someone doesn't want to take out motor insurance, he's surely exposing himself to extraordinary liability if he causes a collision.

The driver without insurance probably won't be able to pay since he couldn't afford insurance. So the uninsured driver won't pay the other drivers hospital bills now will he/she? That's a significant problem I'd say.

peasant

donegalfella wrote: »

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Nope ..that was a (failed) attempt at humour ...which you don't seem to have a sense of

donegalfella wrote: »

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Euro NCAP provides motoring consumers with a realistic and independent assessment of the safety performance of some of the most popular cars sold in Europe.

Established in 1997 and now backed by seven European Governments, the European Commission and motoring and consumer organisations in every EU country, Euro NCAP has rapidly become a catalyst for encouraging significant safety improvements to new car design.

From NCAP "about us"

From the 1970s, a number of European governments had been working, through the European Experimental Vehicles Committee (EEVC), on assessing various aspects of car secondary safety. By the early 1990s, this research had resulted in the development of full scale crash test procedures, for protection of car occupants in frontal and side impact, and a component test procedure for assessing the protection of pedestrians, hit by the fronts of cars.

By 1994, proposals for the adoption in European legislation of the EEVC test proposals were being strongly resisted by the car industry. In June 1994, the UK Department of Transport considered the set up of an NCAP in the UK, which could later expand across Europe. The programme would be more comprehensive and based on the test procedures developed by the EEVC. In July 1995, those interested in expanding the programme to Europe met at the European Commission to discuss how this might be taken forward.

from NCAP "history"

If you try and argue a point, next time please get your facts right instead of quoting a review of the Trabant.:rolleyes:


I'm done with discussing your liberal theories, as at no point have you convinced me that you actually know how to put these into action or how to practically apply them.

TBH ...your theory (as you present it) sounds more like a religion based on belief rather than a workable political model ...and this aint the religion forum:D

portomar

donegalfella wrote: »

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now this is (one of) the place your argument falls on its arse. if you go back to your leaving cert history book you'll find that it was a Laissez faire Liberal government that allowed people to starve while still exporting grain from the island. Why? because it was owned by private enterprise. When the liberals were elected to the commons in the height of the famine, they actually CUT funding for soup kitchens feeding the poor in ireland. They expanded the poor house scheme, having starving people put to use for the private sector to earn their money, the result being roads to nowhere and endemic disease. The famine happened under a developed state system but one that actively excluded itself from being any description of welfare state, now explain to me donegalfella, how the famine was caused by illiberal policies? The situation under the famine was created by two varyingly 'liberal' governments, the effects of which were made worse by the more Laissez Faire leaning Whigs. this could and would not happen under a social democratic government in ireland today, or any other western social democratic government.

im having trouble with the word liberal in this argument, i consider myself economically centre, morally 150% liberal. I agree with donegalfella on the notion of private citizens being allowed to do whatever they want without harming anyone else, up to and including use of hard drugs. I am still a social democrat who believes in redistribution of wealth but in a different way to the cac handed governemnts we've had the misfortune to be blessed with the last decade or six.

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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The landlords regarded the land as their private property. Are we now looking at a hierarchy of values in the relationship between property and owner?

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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Not at all. I'm saying something much simpler: that the landlords owned the land; under the law, they were free to dispose of it as they wished. Tenants (Catholic or otherwise) generally did not have the means to buy the land, and the landowners generally did not wish to sell it, at least until driven to do so by the collapse in their incomes.

You seem to believe that their property rights should have been abrogated. That does not sit well with your general advocacy of the right to private property.

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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So what are you saying?

However, you seem to have a poor sense of the historical problems relating to land ownership in Ireland, if you believe that the only problem was that tenants didn't have the means to buy and the landlords didn't wish to sell.

I didn't say it was the only problem; note my use of "generally".

In fact, I didn't say it was a problem at all.

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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Opposing these things was not solely a liberal undertaking. Further, some people who are described as liberals did not oppose religious intolerance in Ireland, particularly after 1798.

You also said

The entire system of landlordism was illiberal, in that it made private land ownership virtually impossible and left the Irish dependent on an absentee class that did not have their interests at heart.

I am picking on what seems to be an inconsistency in what you say. Private land ownership was not virtually impossible. Nearly all the land was privately owned -- by the landlord classes, not by the people who occupied and worked the land. The form of liberalism you advocate gives prominence, even primacy, to property rights. You are being inconsistent if you do not affirm the property rights of landowners.

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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So everything that happened before the liberal age can be deemed null because people did not enjoy the natural rights of which you now speak? It's beginning to sound dangerously selective.

Why concentrate on denial of rights to Catholics? Dissenters also suffered discrimination in the eighteenth century. Oddly, the liberal tradition in Ireland emerged largely from that segment of the population.

Permabear

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earwicker

My form of liberalism gives ethical primacy to natural rights...

But that's the problem. There's been considerable debate over what, if anything, constitutes a "natural right." Rousseau, for example, offered the notion of the social contract as an alternative.

The notion of a "natural right" was a politically expedient tool for displacing the notion of the divine right of kings; that alone suggests to me that it was far from simply "natural." Another problem with the notion of a "natural right" is that there's been so much debate over what actually constitutes one. "Natural rights" are also often in conflict with each other.

P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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It's implicit in your attitude to the property rights of Irish landowners in the 19th century.

Because they were the group most affected by the Famine that you claim was caused by liberal policies.

I never said that the famine was caused by liberal policies. I explicitly declined to engage in a discussion of the causes of the famine. I did point out that people starved in the absence of a welfare state, an observation that I think is generally accepted.

You have been representing a position that you suggest has good philosophical underpinnings, and is a developed model for an orderly society. I did not, and do not, accept that your foundations are sound. Now I add to that a belief that the edifice you have constructed on them is no more than a piece of jerrybuilding given a quick lick of paint in a colour that you like.

I'll have none of it.

Permabear

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P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

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So without the Poor Laws, things would have been better? Not only is this unprovable, it is absurd.

I think we have an Irish version of Godwin's law.