On Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:56:28 -0500, "Lloyd E. Sponenburgh"
lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:

"ATP" fired this volley in
:

If they have any sense, they know that depending on someone else's
good judgment is not a wise thing to do.

--
Ed Huntress

Every time I snowboard I depend on the good judgement of other riders
and skiers on the mountain. They are not tested, certified or
licensed.

Yep. What Ed completely misses is, that in a 'healthy' society, we
presume folks will use good judgement

That's not a healthy society, Lloyd. That's a confederacy of suckers.

...,and we penalize only those who do
not.

After people are dead?

It becomes an incentive to consider ones actions. People in such a
society learn that freedom of choice equates to responsibility for their
actions.

Right. So let's allow drinking and driving. There are some people who
can get away with it -- for a while. And killing someone with your car
gives you a great incentive to learn about rhe responsibility that
comes with freedom of choice, eh?

That's why we have regulations -- because there are a lot of assholes
out there. If they get burned or blow their own nose off, that's a
good lesson. If they kill or injure someone else, that's a really bad
lesson.

It's a matter of safety and sense, Lloyd. Lots of people have no sense
of the first and none of the latter.

That's what YOU "miss." You're throwing all of these "incentives" into
the same pot, and don't distinguish between learning something the
hard way at your own expense, and learning the hard way at someone
else's expense.


In Ed's perfect world, we would penalize the entire society by taking
away all the good things 'normal' people deserve in order for the
government to better "protect us all" from the dull-witted scumbags that
our Islamic Ayatollah-in-chief wants to elevate to "favored son" status.

Horse****, with all due respect. I've seen the result that dull-witted
scumbags can produce. I know a family that was destroyed by a drunk
driver. It could have been some asshole in his garage with a pile of
explosives.

You appear to live in a "perfect world" yourself, Lloyd, where
innocent people don't die because of the dimwits. Based on what you're
writing, it's an imaginary world of abstractions.

You can't make generalizations about these things. You have to think
of the specific consequences of these "freedoms." Of course, most
people will say "we aren't talking about drunk driving." But of course
you are. Unless and until you distinguish between the nonsense idea
that we'd all be better off if people "learned" to consider their
actions from experience, and the saner idea that some experiences are
things we can't let happen by default, there is nothing here except a
lot of hot air.

Your freedom of choice ends at my nose.


And Ed, that's exactly where we are headed. The government is
progressively taking over every aspect of our lives, to eventually leave
us all as subservient to it's "loving care". The last thing they want is
for citizens to have means - any means - of protecting themselves against
the government.

If you're start "protecting yourself against the govenment" with some
means of "protecting yourself against the government," please let me
know first, so I can be out of range. g


'Sounds like George Orwell's Ingsoc to me!

It sounds like solipsistic nonsense to me. There's a real world out
there, beyond the perfect system of self-regulation that you seem to
imagine.

The irony here is that I'm as opposed to foolish regulations as anyone
you know. Then I read the posts here, and find that there is an
equally foolish opposite: the fairy-tale notion that everything would
be just fine if we got the govenment out of everything, and let us all
learn about responsibility on our own.

Fine. But what do you do about the dead and injured?

--
Ed Huntress