A Usenet persona calling itself Wolfgang wrote:


"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
A Usenet persona calling itself Wolfgang wrote:


"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
...It's coercive socialism, no matter how you look at it. Coercive
socialism is
evil. Profoundly, ineluctably evil in its every manifestation, no matter
how
glossily covered, prettily dressed up or facilely excused. It always and
inevitably ends in oppression, tyranny and terror.

As good an argument for refusing the services of firefighters as one
could
ever hope to encounter.

Well, not quite. Firefighting falls under the general heading of services
made necessary by the concept of "exported harm."

Because there is always a danger that a fire on one person's property can
(and often does) spread to other property, and because no individual
property owner is adequately prepared to deal with a fire once it's out of
control, it is reasonable for government to provide skilled and equipped
resources at public expense to prevent exported harm, and it's also
reasonable for government to spread the costs of such specialized training
and equipment over all of those who contribute to the risks involved. This
is the same rational for taxes for military spending.

The link between the harm of uncontrolled fire and the extraction of money
from the public is quite direct, and the risks are shared by all persons
in
the community equally because everyone is placed at risk by an
uncontrolled
fire.

On the other hand, the link between one's private health care issues and
some sort of overall public harm is extremely tenuous at best, and doesn't
justify the forcible extraction of money from everyone in order to provide
health care for some. The risks are not equal.

Cholera is private? Diphtheria? Malaria? Dysentery? Influenza? Typhus?
Typhoid? HIV? Syphilis?

Excellent questions all, and the answer is "no, they are not."
That's why public health efforts funded by involuntary taxation to prevent
and control such outbreaks are perfectly acceptable. All people are placed
at risk by this exported harm, all people pose a risk of transmission
(exportation) of this harm, thus all people may be required to pay to
prevent it and may be compelled to be innoculated and/or isolated as
necessary to prevent the spread of such diseases. That's one of the
contracts people agree to when they live together.

However, diabetes, broken ankles and heart disease are not a public health
threats, which means that the government has no call to impose the costs of
treating such individual illnesses on others, because there is no exported
harm that justifies imposing this burden on others.


How much risk does a burning farmhouse in the middle of a section of wheat
or corn represent to the body politic?

Rather a lot, actually, something you'd know if you lived on a farm. Range
fires kill more firefighters every year than forest fires do.

But the point is that fires don't just occur in farmhouses in the sticks.
Municipal fire companies were originally set up in this country because of
severe problems with urban fires and the ineffectiveness of "subscription"
based volunteer brigades in places like New York and Chicago. More harm was
exported by the Great Chicago Fire than has ever been exported by all forest
fires combined since 1700.

Is this not a private home care
issue?

No, it's not. Now, whether or not the farmhouse owner chooses to demolish
(or build) his house with his tractor is not an issue of exported harm, and
therefore the government has no reason to interfere.

How about municipal water treatment? Where is the "exported harm" in
allowing anyone who wants it to drink polluted water?

The same reasons you cite above: Cholera, Diptheria, etc. Again, it's a
public health issue. Contaminated water can spread disease. The same is true
of municipal sewage systems. Treating effluent is done to eliminate the
public health threat inherent in untreated sewage. All members of the
community contribute to the sewage and consume the water, and thus all
members can be legitimately required to share in the economic burdens
involved in keeping both sanitary.

But now we come to the question of when are water quality treatment
standards legitimate and when are they illegitimate?

Standards that water be non-infective are appropriate because of the risk of
exported harm through disease outbreaks.

Standards that control contamination that is NOT contagious, such as lead or
arsenic are NOT legitimate, at least insofar as being imposed as an unfunded
mandate by the federal government, because, provided citizens have adequate
notice, they can choose not to drink the water and thus not be exposed to
the hazard that only harms those who consume the water.

Certainly citizens are entitled to KNOW what the quality of their water is,
and whether harmful chemicals or substances are in the water, and in what
quantity, but beyond that, it becomes a matter of individual assumed risk,
not a matter for federal interference in local water provider policy and
practice. If people want to drink pesticide-laced water, that's their right.

The classic case is the Clinton Administration's charade of lowering the
federal standard for acceptable levels of arsenic in water just before
Clinton left office, purely in order to hand Bush a "hot potato" that was
factually unnecessary and factually imposed a crippling financial burden on
tens of thousands of rural water system operators for no credible reason.

Arsenic levels were set properly before, and there was no objective evidence
of a risk of exported harm that justified changing them.

Stupid as you are, you've missed the one bit of equity hidden in all your
twaddle. The rest of the world cares every bit as much about your wellbeing
as you do about theirs.

So what? I didn't ask them to care for me, nor do I accept their "caring" if
financial strings are attached. The "rest of the world" cannot decide it
"cares" about me and then force me to pay for their "caring" if I don't want
their help.


Wolfgang
who, deriving a great deal of satisfaction from annoying one nitwit at a
time, cannot understand why anyone would go to all the trouble inherent in
wholesale.

Economies of scale and viral replication theory.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser