Originally posted by: Future Shock
Originally posted by: Amused
I really weep for our future if this is the kind of crap they are feeding you in schools today.
For all your fatalistic bullsh!t, NONE of that has happened. There is no land logged to the point nothing grows. There is no farmland ruined by the big bad "acid rain."
And eminent domain goes against Rand's principles.
For every phantom ill you see from economic freedom, the social conservative sees the same number of phantom ills from social freedoms.
You're both elitist authoritarian ninnies.
What do you mean today? Read my rigs in my sig - having purchased my first PC in 1981 during college I'm older than you most likely...you can call me daddy.
And you have NO fscking clue as to your facts. Read Jared Diamond's latest book "Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive" for DETAILED explanations of 8 major civilizations that have been destroyed via over foresting. Diamond is a anthropology professor at USC who's life work is studying the rise and fall of civilizations, and his work is peer reviewed. His cited references will give you about 200 more papers and books for further references should you need them - but the basic facts is that not only has humanity over forested and destroyed simply that forest (see Australia), in REPEATED cases (Easter Island, American Pueblo indians, etc.) deforestation brought down the entire civilization, as wood was a core technical requirement either for producing goods, or in their food chain.
But you are correct in that WE DON'T DO THAT NOW in the US (go to Australia if you would like to see a modern culture that until very recently STILL did that, and has deserts to show for it). And THAT is because of federal regulations preventing over foresting, including limiting the harvesting of old growth forests, mandatory replanting programs, etc.
Since my original post was on how someone could be socially libertarian, and yet not a total proponent of unbridled business, I point these types of regulations as a success - business gets what it wants, but the externalities are factored in and the costs are borne by the businesses that created them. EXTERNALITIES was the econ word that I missed from my original post - it involves creating EXTERNAL COSTS from your own profit/loss calculations. In my mind, it IS the role of a central government to ensure that externalities are brought back into the profit/loss calculations of those businesses that are generating them. Hey, if you run a business, and can't deal with the externalities, they you are either a poor businessman (because you don't know how to price your product to include those costs), or a shyster. One or the other. Neither one merits defense.
Future Shock