From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Jul 05 2002 - 21:47:44 MDT
At 11:50 AM 7/5/02 -0700, Reason wrote:
>And who finances this costly process of coercively subsidising people who
>are unwilling to invest their own time in checking products that they buy?
This seems a very strange question to me. Taxpayers finance it. By and
large, it seems, a plurality of these taxpayers continue to vote into
office politicians who pledge to sustain the system of specialists who
check products for safety. Things could be done differently. All you need
to do, if you really dislike this current practice, is to convince that
plurality to call for some alternative way of doing things. A totally free
market, let's say.
For example, if you find it unendurable to be prevented from crossing an
intersection at high speed *just because some damned red light is on*, make
your case to the citizenry and, if you are sufficiently persuasive, have
traffic regulation abolished. If you feel *really* strongly about this
infringement of your natural right to do what you will, drive through the
red lights anyway, but you might not enjoy the consequences.
>Let the market decide whether companies who label their product contents do
>well.
Yes, that's a good slogan for your political platform. It has much to be
said for it, and it has indeed been argued powerfully in the USA (I
understand) for generations. Let the voters continue to decide whether and
to what extent the market should decide. How's that for a slogan?
>Why, oh, why, does everyone seem to think that it's ok to force a million
>people to do something because a couple of guys want them to?
Why indeed? (Or a whole list of them, for that matter?)
Damien Broderick
[devil's advocate at large]
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