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Government Control

PiemanFiddy

PiemanFiddy

Dark-Type Gym Leader
194
Posts
11
Years
von Weltschmerz said:
Marijuana doesn't make food taste better, haha. I think you got some misinformation. Marijuana stimulates the appetite and makes people hungry. When people are hungry... food "tastes better" because they are simply glad to have some food. The only offensive thin that you did was put smoking weed in line with rape. It wasn't intentional, however, so I'm not offended anymore. Being a "pothead" isn't anything bad. It just means you are known for smoking a lot of weed. If that is bad, I don't know. That's opinion. I don't think so, but I know plenty of people who do.


ALSO: I googled it and the first page(minus one link to wikipedia) was about the Colorado/Washington legalization. And that does not surprise me.. They way that most search engines work is that they provide you with the most recent trends in page hits for webpages containing the words you googled. With that being the most recent news... it only makes sense. Give it a while, and it'll be something else. I saw no reddit memes and no images of bums(not even in google images). So I take that offensively as you obviously made it based on your own perception of "potheads" and not what Google actually had in store.





By personal affairs, I mean matters that affect only them. Obviously enough the government should step into stop rape... but they should not step in to stop me from smoking a joint. Domestic violence is also a crime that harms someone other than the perpetrator. But to give you an example you might understand easier... It would be kind of like the government making it illegal for the family to argue because it make affect them badly mentally. Arguing doesn't really "harm" anyone but the people who decide to take part in it. I'm not going to be an emotional wreck because my neighbors got in argument. I might call about a noise complaint... but that is a different situation entirely. It also would be different if the parent was yelling at/verbally abusing their child... that is not an argument and THAT affects more than the perpetrator in adverse ways. I mean... some things are going to make you feel bad... and you're just gonna have to suck it up, but lines are drawn. Obviously it wouldn't be illegal for a parent to reprimand their child, so long as their "punishment" is not abusive in either physical or verbal means.



Well what I meant is that the police force has rules to adhere to. Rules set by the federal government. One such "rule" is that they are merely enforcers of the law, not judicators. That they can arrest someone for breaking a law, but they cannot pass official judgment on whether they are guilty or innocent... nor they can decide the punishment. The punishment would, first of all, have to be standard for everyone. The only route I could see the police taking to "make their own punishment" is by offering solutions to arrest. By saying, "If you do x, we won't arrest you." But again, that is not something they are supposed to do, either.

Just what I always thought. Didn't mean to offend. If I did, I apologize.
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Yeah, I never meant to tie in Marijuana with Rape, so I apologize if that was a mistake on my part, but I was just trying to seperate the two and define them so that a younger or less-informed demographic could understand me. =/ ...but yeah, I always sorta assumed that Marijuana made food taste better since most people around youtube seem to claim that. If that's some sort of myth or lie, I apologize for being misinformed. XD


Yes of course, I understand that. I never meant to imply that the Government should restrict couples from arguing, or parents from grounding their kids.... I just used Domestic Violence and etc. to make an example about Personal Affairs.. which is something I do agree with. The government SHOULD be able to control those situations if they get out of control. :P


I didn't actually mean JUST google. Most of the google search engine is based off of how often you visit certain webpages. I suppose since I visit reddit a lot, I saw a lot of memes covering it. It could also have something to do with what I searched and what you searched. Personally, I searched "Is Marijuana legal?" and I think the first or second result was a yahoo answers things, and then images showed a bunch of news stories and bums... SOME images showed reddit memes, but I didn't see everything as a meme. Sorry if it offended you.


I understand that the Police have rules to adhere to. That's how martial law is created. I never said the Government should abandon to help them altogether, but rather lower the amount of security for it. The more security, the more worried they are, which inevitably leads to things like Cameras on stop-lights. Unecessary spying.


Once again, sorry if I offended you. I was just giving you things based on MY personal experiences.
 
Esper

Esper

10,769
Posts
14
Years
In short, yes, I think it's good to have some government control/regulation. In theory we shouldn't need it - people should take responsibility for themselves and the consequences of their actions - but in practice it doesn't really work like that. You can't just up and leave your job for a better one because your boss doesn't pay well. There may be no higher paying jobs, or they may be too far away and the cost of travel negates the higher pay, or a dozen other things that make it functionally impossible to improve your lot. That's why we need minimum wage laws.

Whenever topics like this come up I'm reminded of something I heard from my econ teacher in high school: externalities. In economic terms these are the things that don't get calculated into the price of a transaction or business but nevertheless have an affect somewhere. Pollution is a great example: your factory is on some land you own and in the process of running your business the factory generates waste. You leave on your own land, but it seeps into groundwater, or a river, and affects a nearby town negatively. This is why we have air quality standards and things of that nature. There would be no solution otherwise because the factory owner could say "Hey, this is my land. I'm doing what I want. Don't like it? Move somewhere else. No one's stopping you."

Government needs to step in whenever externalities are bad or hazardous for people. That's what you get with safety laws, because people acting on their own while driving without restrictions will cause accidents and people will getting hurt. How much we restrict people is the only real question. We make people follow traffic laws because it prevents lots of accidents. We make people wear seatbelts even though that won't affect accidents, but will prevent/ameliorate injuries when accidents do occur, thereby ensuring families' lives aren't thrown into chaos, emergency personnel aren't overburdened saving people's lives, governments aren't paying for medical care which could have been prevented, and so on. We don't mandate that everyone ride buses instead of their own cars, even though that would reduce pollution (and bad health effects) and accidents. We see that as too much of a burden on people.

I think of government control in a law-of-diminishing-returns-kind of way. A little control helps a lot, a little more still does good, a little more and you're still getting some benefit but not much, a little more and you're not seeing much improvement at all, a little more and you're hurting things.
 

von Weltschmerz

the first born unicorn
135
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Feb 18, 2013
Scarf said:
-snip-
Pollution is a great example: your factory is on some land you own and in the process of running your business the factory generates waste. You leave on your own land, but it seeps into groundwater, or a river, and affects a nearby town negatively. -snip-
Click to expand...

At this point, his actions affect more than just him... even if they were done on his land. If he disposed of such hazards properly, then it would affect no one. Then the government would have no reason to step in it. The government should definitely be able to step in at the point. But should it matter WHAT I'm producing in my factory? I mean... so long as I manage it properly so that it affects no one but myself? That is kind of what I am getting at here.

As for the seatbelt issue and what not... You've got me totally convinced on that. I can definitely see how that would come into play.
 
Esper

Esper

10,769
Posts
14
Years
von Weltschmerz said:
At this point, his actions affect more than just him... even if they were done on his land. If he disposed of such hazards properly, then it would affect no one. Then the government would have no reason to step in it. The government should definitely be able to step in at the point. But should it matter WHAT I'm producing in my factory? I mean... so long as I manage it properly so that it affects no one but myself? That is kind of what I am getting at here.
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Personally, I feel like there hasn't been a good enough track record for people disposing of things properly so I'm still in favor of there being people to check to make sure crap gets disposed of correctly. But more than that, I believe in preventing bad crap in the first place so I'm in favor of rules being in place which require certain standards to be met. You can't keep air pollution on your land, amirite? Better to keep from making as much as possible.
 

von Weltschmerz

the first born unicorn
135
Posts
11
Years
  • Seen Feb 18, 2013
Scarf said:
Personally, I feel like there hasn't been a good enough track record for people disposing of things properly so I'm still in favor of there being people to check to make sure crap gets disposed of correctly. But more than that, I believe in preventing bad crap in the first place so I'm in favor of rules being in place which require certain standards to be met. You can't keep air pollution on your land, amirite? Better to keep from making as much as possible.
Click to expand...

Well yes... That is why we allow them check that we operate to safety standards. Notice I didn't say if he kept them on his land, I said "If he disposed of such hazards properly." Leaving it on your own land was purely your concept. Disposing of it properly would mean in a way condoned by the federal government This would INCLUDE air management. Sure... you can't exactly "dispose" of smoke and smog... but you can operate in the way that produces the least of it. All of that, I believe, would be valid for the government to enforce.

Yet still... you did not answer my question. So long as I followed every guideline that they provided for in terms of a "clean and safe" factory... should it matter what I produce? I mean... so long as I'm meeting the guidelines and dealing about it in a responsible way... what difference would it make what I produce?

And let's say it is NOT a factory. Let's say it is a farm. Two farms, actually. And let's compare them side-by-side. Get up early, work the fields. Tend to the animals, AND the homestead. Harvest your crop(s) after a long, hard season of work and enjoy it. Only... the feds come around and say that the owner of Farm B has to pull all his crops, even though he acted no differently than did the owner of Farm A. The difference, then? Farm B grew marijuana, Farm A grew corn. The only people affected by the choice in crop? The owners of the farm. Farmer B obviously can't go sell his goods like Farmer A could... but the only thing that this equates to is Farmer B not having the money that Farmer A would. But in this instance... neither farmer affected anyone but themselves. No pollution issues, no anything and would it be right, at this time, for the federal government to step in and act as they did?
 

TRIFORCE89

Guide of Darkness
8,123
Posts
19
Years
von Weltschmerz said:
At this point, his actions affect more than just him... even if they were done on his land. If he disposed of such hazards properly, then it would affect no one. Then the government would have no reason to step in it. The government should definitely be able to step in at the point. But should it matter WHAT I'm producing in my factory? I mean... so long as I manage it properly so that it affects no one but myself? That is kind of what I am getting at here.
Click to expand...
Are there any instances of the government saying what can or cannot be produced/sold? Outside of prostitution I guess.

I can think of more example of the government saying how something should produced, but not what should be produced
 
Livewire

Livewire

14,092
Posts
14
Years
Going by the "Government should only do what people can't themselves' line of thinking: The funny thing is that the average person can't do much of anything on their own. Gonna be completely self sufficient? Grow your own food? Make your own fuel? build your own transportation? Make your own currency? So where does that put Government control?
 
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