Personally, I'm in support of 'all of the above'. The internet today fills the place that phones did back then. I also think that the 1st applies to more than hand operated printing presses and the 2nd to more than muskets.
If a law doesn't make sense anymore, it's time to amend or repeal it.
Excessively small control of waterways results in more economic harm because you get gridlock, so 'nobody' gets 'anything'.
For the pinkertons - I suggest studying history. It was bad, they were used more to enforce virtual slavery than libertarian freedom. It's part of the reason I'm a moderate - I keep the lessons of history in mind. That's actually conservative.;)
An HOA is a form of government, if a limited and unofficial one. You have elected representatives, and it can pass 'laws', IE rules and regulations, that affect you in the future, and your only option is to campaign against them, summon help from a higher government power, or leave the community.
Also, leaving said community is only marginally easier than leaving the country. I've left the country multiple times, so I know just how hard it is. Fact is, once you have your bags packed, it's only marginally harder to leave the country than it is to move to another house in the same city.
You are still making arbitrary judgments for the country as a whole.
And you keep flipping the goal posts. First you attack me for 'micromanaging', then you attack me for NOT micro-managing by dividing the country into arbitrarily small chunks for special treatment on the pollution front.
I've already outright acknowledged that it's not perfect, but that I consider the gain in efficiency and freedom to be worth it.
Because they don't work, and because entire societies have destroyed themselves in pursuit of your false and unworkable solutions.
Please provide citations for the societies that have pursued my solution, and how they destroyed themselves. Heck, please provide a citation for a society that tried 'simply' charging for pollution, as opposed to issuing 'permits' and charging 'fines', often waiving them, and finding it a disaster.
you justify policies based on reasoning about groups of people and what is best for them; that is a progressive viewpoint, not a libertarian.
'Groups of people' = groups of individuals. Do not mistake my referring to 'groups' as anything more than shorthand, and my admittedly flawed grasp of the english language. I also don't claim to be a fundamentalist libertarian. You're trying to shove me into a different pigeonhole, but if we got into topics where you weren't looking at something that causes wide amounts of generalized harm, you'd quickly get into where I'd be giving the progressives even more heart burn.
Especially given that pollution tends to affect LOTS of individuals, if not the country as a whole.
Though I guess you have convinced me - there needs to be something in the system where if the pollution is somehow concentrated enough to affect individuals specifically enough to separate out the harm, then said individuals should have the right to seek compensation from the polluter.
I'd only have the EPA charging for the 'generalized' harm, that is too diffuse for proper compensation.
Whether those choices produce good or bad outcomes for those individuals, or what groups you divide society into, is irrelevant.
You're forgetting the principle of non-aggression. Where I differ from fundie libertarianism is that I believe that there needs to be a recourse other than the expensive court system to try to manage and prevent the harm up front, rather than trying to bankrupt the company after the fact, leaving many harmed with no recourse from a bankrupt company.
Why should death and serious injury be the deciding factor?
ewibble and Jane Q. Public make good points, but mine is a lot more prosiac.
It's simple enough: The statistics available for serious injury accidents in the USA is detailed enough to chart known BAC levels and get a good idea of how various levels really affect driver's tendencies to get into serious accidents.
That data is simply unavailable for minor and no injury accidents, and we're already making it such that 'busted for DUI' is the biggest 'cost' for low BAC drivers, and it can be a real moneymaker for police departments.
Flying car lanes would wind up being violated to shave off "precious" seconds.
You still have to consider that, unlike with ground traffic, you have a lot more 'lanes' in the air. Ergo, traffic jams are much less likely unless everybody wants to land at the same spot. Possible, but less likely.
Other than that, it appears that you didn't realize that I was talking about the collision-avoidance problem, not the 'requirements' for giving everybody a flying car. I wasn't disagreeing with the need for self-driving flying cars, I was disagreeing that the problem is harder in the air.
Well, the first rule of a self-driving car should be 'don't hit anything'. The second should probably be 'don't impede traffic'.
So yeah, avoiding you should be one of their primary jobs.
The problem that I was pointing out, that the USAF is having with drones is that in some ways there's a 'valley' where you have too much automation for the operator to pay sufficient attention, yet not enough to handle all situations, such that you still need the operator.
Imagine a job where you stare at something. As long as the object does nothing, you do nothing. If the object does something, you have 5 seconds to hit a button. The object normally does something about once every other 8 hour shift.
Ideally you'd replace said human with automation ASAP, because the average human is going to suck at that job.
It can't get you to your destination if your destination is off road, if there is significant construction in between, significant rain, snow or ice on the road, etc...
Right now it's equivalent to a very safe 'fair weather' driver. The type that stays home if conditions aren't optimal.
Nonsense, the insurance would never get shifted onto the manufacturer, because maintenance happens after that, and is part of the accident risk.
Over in England, the cost for insuring a young/new driver is apparently so out of whack that car companies are selling their cars with 3 years of full coverage insurance included. Now, yes, these are cheap cars of the type that aren't likely to do as much damage even if they hit something else, but the manufacturer is already including the maintenance and insurance for the first 3 years in the price.
At a big enough discount that there's apparently not much of a 2nd hand market for these cars.
The collision-avoidance problem, in some ways, is multiplied in the air. At least on the ground you have specific lanes with traffic control devices on them (lights, etc.).
Just the opposite. Consider that we developed drones long before we developed a self driving car. You can program specific lanes for flying, they're used all the time by commercial aircraft, but by the same token there's a lot less static clutter, margins are greater(no worrying about whether the kid on the side of the road will dart out), etc...
There are reasons why we developed self-piloting plants decades before we developed self-driving cars.
Actually, this would be a problem. The USAF is currently struggling with some of this - they automated their drones too much, operators don't have enough to do to keep proper attention on the drone in case something does happen. They're actually considering removing some of the automation...
I don't disagree that this is the most likely current situation, but it's going to be virtually impossible to keep the driver from doing other things as you remove more responsibility and control from them.
An airplane doesn't have this fail safe stop option, and needs to have human overlords present at all times to take control if something happens the programmers didn't foresee.
Even then, there's arguments for removing the human pilots today because they actually cause around half the accidents.
On the other hand, if you study actual injury statistics inside the USA, you'll find that you don't see serious increases in serious injury accidents until around.2%.
The majority of fatal accidents involving alcohol as a real contributing factor are well above.2%, so if.05 is lost within statistical noise, is it really saving lives?
My point is some people seem to believe that if a business refuses to accept your cash in payment you are discharged of the obligation to pay; which is not the case.
Again, I'll clarify a bit: I'm not saying a business can't refuse cash. It CAN in 'most' cases. The ONLY time it's obligated to accept cash is when you actually OWE them money. My common example would be the sit-down restaurant. The meal has been delivered and consumed, the debt created.
Then, per 31 USC 5103, US currency is legal tender for that debt. While UCC article 3 might not apply(I've seen judges contort more to make something applicable), you've still made a valid offer to pay.
This can be modified in some ways with a previously agreed upon contract, but unless the business has gone out of it's way to tell you that cash isn't accepted before they extend you credit, they have to take it.
Like I said, if they end up taking it to court, the worst the court is going to do is tell them to take the cash and be happy, assuming that the 'cash' isn't in some crazy state like 'all pennies', 'folded into 10k paper cranes' etc...
Oh yeah, and they're not obligated to take partial payment.
Do you have a citation on how the courts handle a reasonable attempt to pay in cash? IE bills of reasonable denomination that have not been defaced or altered?
Okay, they don't have to accept $100 worth of pennies or $10k worth of $1 bills. What about 5 $20 bills or 100 $100s*?
*$100 being the highest denominator in common circulation
Not really. When you go to a store, the seller has no obligation to sell you anything.
The context, in this case, is a sit-down restaurant. The meal has already been served and consumed. You're not getting it back. The eater has incurred a debt with the restaurant for the price of the meal.
They have to accept cash at that point. A gas station or McDonalds would be free to keep their product and refuse the cash, because the exchange hasn't happened yet.
Sure - I'll just quote UCC Article 3, Negotiable Instruments, part 6. Discharge and payment.
(a) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the effect of tender is governed by principles of law applicable to tender of payment under a simple contract.
(b) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument and the tender is refused, there is discharge, to the extent of the amount of the tender, of the obligation of an indorser or accommodation party having a right of recourse with respect to the obligation to which the tender relates.
(c) If tender of payment of an amount due on an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the obligation of the obligor to pay interest after the due date on the amount tendered is discharged. If presentment is required with respect to an instrument and the obligor is able and ready to pay on the due date at every place of payment stated in the instrument, the obligor is deemed to have made tender of payment on the due date to the person entitled to enforce the instrument.
And 31 USC 5103 - United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
So I submitted legal tender and you refused. I'm happy because you just 'wrote off' my debt.
I'll note that the MOST the courts would do is tell you to accept my cash.
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
It's not intent to defraud, but merely that it wouldn't be suited to be reissued. So those 'track this bill' stamps are okay, because they can be reissued. Drawing a lewd image on them, knowing that the bank wouldn't knowingly reissue it, would be.
Keep in mind the difference between a sale and a debt. If you OWE a company money, they must accept cash to settle it. If you're PRE-PAYING, ie giving them payment before the good is provided or service rendered, then they don't have to accept cash to provide the service.
There is no law requiring someone to accept legal tender in payment of a debt; and failure to do so does not absolve someone of liability for the debt.
U.C.C. – ARTICLE 3 – NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS , PART 6. DISCHARGE AND PAYMENT 3-603. TENDER OF PAYMENT. (a) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the effect of tender is governed by principles of law applicable to tender of payment under a simple contract. (b) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument and the tender is refused, there is discharge, to the extent of the amount of the tender, of the obligation of an indorser or accommodation party having a right of recourse with respect to the obligation to which the tender relates. (c) If tender of payment of an amount due on an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the obligation of the obligor to pay interest after the due date on the amount tendered is discharged. If presentment is required with respect to an instrument and the obligor is able and ready to pay on the due date at every place of payment stated in the instrument, the obligor is deemed to have made tender of payment on the due date to the person entitled to enforce the instrument.
31 US Code 5103 - Legal tender - United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
If I owe you $2k and show up with 20 authentic $100 bills and you refuse them, I'm debt free.
Now, if you're selling a car(for example) for $2k and you don't want cash, you're free to refuse to sell me the car for my $2k cash. But you're not allowed to hold me hostage if you provide me services before payment and I offer to pay by cash.
Disclaimer first, this is US centric, though it 'should' work in many countries.
So absent a state law failure to accept cash in no way eliminates a debt.
Actually, it kind of does. Work out the logic and realize that not all businesses are creditors.
Take two restaurants. 1. Fast food joint. You place your order, they tell you a total, and you pay before they give you your food. NOT a creditor, if they don't want to take cash they don't have to. 2. Sit down traditional restaurant where the bill comes AFTER your meal. They're thus a creditor because they extend you credit(your food) before payment. If I eat at the restaurant(and the no cash policy isn't explained to me before my meal) and offer cash to settle the bill, they MUST take it. Otherwise I can indeed pretty much just walk out without paying if they refuse valid US currency.
That refusal DOES effectively eliminate the debt because, let's say the business continues to ask for payment. I offer cash. They take me to court. NO SANE JUDGE is going to say 'no, you have to pay by debit card!' because US Currency has been declared, by law, a valid payment method for all debts, 'public or private'. I offered valid payment for the debt, they refused it. It's on them, not me. I offered to pay and they declined to receive said payment.
Consider the examples: Bus line: You pay BEFORE you ride, no debt. Movie Theater: You buy your ticket before seeing the show. Convenience stores & gas stations: Pay first. Now, some gas stations even today operate on a credit basis for their filling stations, so they would have to accept cash. Given that a number give discounts for cash, it's not a big deal for them.
I wasn't actually talking about private policing, but the medieval situation with river travel - lots of forts/castles put up to extract revenue from passing traffic. As for private policing, look up the Pinkertons.
While I'd reform the police a lot, complete privatization isn't something I'd put on the table.
For the HOA - it's a micro-government. It can pass laws and enforce them without the consent of the owners of the homes, short of them selling and moving away. On a country scale that would be equivalent to fleeing the country.
As for the pollution of the 19th and 20th century, well, they were actually generally better off with the pollution than they would have been without the industry. Which is what I'm trying to get at.
Except for possibly a few air pollutants, what possible justification is there to impose national standards on any of this?
Ground pollution tends to get into our water supplies. Water tends to be even more direct. Especially with ground pollution, there can easily be enough delay that the one who caused the pollution is gone by the time it becomes a critical problem. It's better to prevent the pollution in the first case in these scenarios.
No, what you argue is that government should continue to give businesses a blanket license to pollute, you simply haggle about the degree and you assert vehemently and without any evidence that the license businesses get is "science based".
Strawman, I'm not licensing them anything(IE giving them license to freely pollute). I'm charging them pretty much from the first kilogram of pollution*, and I specifically mentioned charging them more than the estimated harm.
So industry would be pushed to control the pollution in order to save the fees, but if the pollution is unavoidable by current technology but still worth the economic activity, they pay their fees and we move on.
*And the only reason I wouldn't charge there is that at sufficiently low levels it's just not worth it.
The problem is that your "proposals" are nothing more than wishful thinking.
Then why does it get your goat so much?
You're objectively not a libertarian because you repeatedly argue from the point of view of having government impose policies for the good of society or the majority.
Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm not a libertarian. Like I said before, even I disclaimed that I'm a 'moderate' libertarian, which means that I don't agree with the party 100%. I still fit with libertarians a hell of a lot better than the major 2, where I say that I agree with each about 25% of the time, and disagree with both of them, especially when THEY agree with each other, about 50% of the time.
That's the point. Libertarians are for limited government. I also never called you an anarchist, I said you were closer to anarchists. I quite carefully didn't call you one.
Now, as a practical minarchist, that doesn't mean that I'm going to push for the end of all government. I might want to take a hacksaw to most departments, but I'd actually eliminate only a minority of them. There are even a couple I'd expand until we got the population adjusted to the new situation.
It what bizarro world are those two not conservatives?
I'm a member of a board where I'm considered a raging liberal...
While they correctly identify(in my opinion) that there's not actually that much difference between Obama and Romney, that's because they consider BOTH unacceptably liberal, with Obama about half a step further.
Meanwhile, most 'liberals' consider Obama a DINO, a rather conservative individual.
Read the article a bit closer, they're talking about a 40% electricity drop for the 1800 or so residents of "Block Island", who are currently serviced by diesel generators(mostly). Additionally, part of the project would be running a power line to the mainland, that could transmit power not only from the wind farm to the mainland, but bring energy back when needed.
Between the two, I can easily see a 40% drop. Diesel for electricity is expensive.
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Personally, I'm in support of 'all of the above'. The internet today fills the place that phones did back then. I also think that the 1st applies to more than hand operated printing presses and the 2nd to more than muskets.
If a law doesn't make sense anymore, it's time to amend or repeal it.
Excessively small control of waterways results in more economic harm because you get gridlock, so 'nobody' gets 'anything'.
For the pinkertons - I suggest studying history. It was bad, they were used more to enforce virtual slavery than libertarian freedom. It's part of the reason I'm a moderate - I keep the lessons of history in mind. That's actually conservative. ;)
An HOA is a form of government, if a limited and unofficial one. You have elected representatives, and it can pass 'laws', IE rules and regulations, that affect you in the future, and your only option is to campaign against them, summon help from a higher government power, or leave the community.
Also, leaving said community is only marginally easier than leaving the country. I've left the country multiple times, so I know just how hard it is. Fact is, once you have your bags packed, it's only marginally harder to leave the country than it is to move to another house in the same city.
You are still making arbitrary judgments for the country as a whole.
And you keep flipping the goal posts. First you attack me for 'micromanaging', then you attack me for NOT micro-managing by dividing the country into arbitrarily small chunks for special treatment on the pollution front.
I've already outright acknowledged that it's not perfect, but that I consider the gain in efficiency and freedom to be worth it.
Because they don't work, and because entire societies have destroyed themselves in pursuit of your false and unworkable solutions.
Please provide citations for the societies that have pursued my solution, and how they destroyed themselves. Heck, please provide a citation for a society that tried 'simply' charging for pollution, as opposed to issuing 'permits' and charging 'fines', often waiving them, and finding it a disaster.
you justify policies based on reasoning about groups of people and what is best for them; that is a progressive viewpoint, not a libertarian.
'Groups of people' = groups of individuals. Do not mistake my referring to 'groups' as anything more than shorthand, and my admittedly flawed grasp of the english language. I also don't claim to be a fundamentalist libertarian. You're trying to shove me into a different pigeonhole, but if we got into topics where you weren't looking at something that causes wide amounts of generalized harm, you'd quickly get into where I'd be giving the progressives even more heart burn.
Especially given that pollution tends to affect LOTS of individuals, if not the country as a whole.
Though I guess you have convinced me - there needs to be something in the system where if the pollution is somehow concentrated enough to affect individuals specifically enough to separate out the harm, then said individuals should have the right to seek compensation from the polluter.
I'd only have the EPA charging for the 'generalized' harm, that is too diffuse for proper compensation.
Whether those choices produce good or bad outcomes for those individuals, or what groups you divide society into, is irrelevant.
You're forgetting the principle of non-aggression. Where I differ from fundie libertarianism is that I believe that there needs to be a recourse other than the expensive court system to try to manage and prevent the harm up front, rather than trying to bankrupt the company after the fact, leaving many harmed with no recourse from a bankrupt company.
Better they 'make their money' through the form of taxes, which is a heck of a lot more efficient than trying to do it through fines and such.
Especially when a DUI conviction often carries work disruption that 'earns' nobody money, being a form of 'broken window'.
Why should death and serious injury be the deciding factor?
ewibble and Jane Q. Public make good points, but mine is a lot more prosiac.
It's simple enough: The statistics available for serious injury accidents in the USA is detailed enough to chart known BAC levels and get a good idea of how various levels really affect driver's tendencies to get into serious accidents.
That data is simply unavailable for minor and no injury accidents, and we're already making it such that 'busted for DUI' is the biggest 'cost' for low BAC drivers, and it can be a real moneymaker for police departments.
Flying car lanes would wind up being violated to shave off "precious" seconds.
You still have to consider that, unlike with ground traffic, you have a lot more 'lanes' in the air. Ergo, traffic jams are much less likely unless everybody wants to land at the same spot. Possible, but less likely.
Other than that, it appears that you didn't realize that I was talking about the collision-avoidance problem, not the 'requirements' for giving everybody a flying car. I wasn't disagreeing with the need for self-driving flying cars, I was disagreeing that the problem is harder in the air.
Well, the first rule of a self-driving car should be 'don't hit anything'. The second should probably be 'don't impede traffic'.
So yeah, avoiding you should be one of their primary jobs.
The problem that I was pointing out, that the USAF is having with drones is that in some ways there's a 'valley' where you have too much automation for the operator to pay sufficient attention, yet not enough to handle all situations, such that you still need the operator.
Imagine a job where you stare at something. As long as the object does nothing, you do nothing. If the object does something, you have 5 seconds to hit a button. The object normally does something about once every other 8 hour shift.
Ideally you'd replace said human with automation ASAP, because the average human is going to suck at that job.
That's why I said 'there's arguments for', I agree with you, but there's still the occasional incident so they want the human there.
What part of autonomy is missing?
It can't get you to your destination if your destination is off road, if there is significant construction in between, significant rain, snow or ice on the road, etc...
Right now it's equivalent to a very safe 'fair weather' driver. The type that stays home if conditions aren't optimal.
Nonsense, the insurance would never get shifted onto the manufacturer, because maintenance happens after that, and is part of the accident risk.
Over in England, the cost for insuring a young/new driver is apparently so out of whack that car companies are selling their cars with 3 years of full coverage insurance included. Now, yes, these are cheap cars of the type that aren't likely to do as much damage even if they hit something else, but the manufacturer is already including the maintenance and insurance for the first 3 years in the price.
At a big enough discount that there's apparently not much of a 2nd hand market for these cars.
The collision-avoidance problem, in some ways, is multiplied in the air. At least on the ground you have specific lanes with traffic control devices on them (lights, etc.).
Just the opposite. Consider that we developed drones long before we developed a self driving car. You can program specific lanes for flying, they're used all the time by commercial aircraft, but by the same token there's a lot less static clutter, margins are greater(no worrying about whether the kid on the side of the road will dart out), etc...
There are reasons why we developed self-piloting plants decades before we developed self-driving cars.
Actually, this would be a problem. The USAF is currently struggling with some of this - they automated their drones too much, operators don't have enough to do to keep proper attention on the drone in case something does happen. They're actually considering removing some of the automation...
I don't disagree that this is the most likely current situation, but it's going to be virtually impossible to keep the driver from doing other things as you remove more responsibility and control from them.
An airplane doesn't have this fail safe stop option, and needs to have human overlords present at all times to take control if something happens the programmers didn't foresee.
Even then, there's arguments for removing the human pilots today because they actually cause around half the accidents.
On the other hand, if you study actual injury statistics inside the USA, you'll find that you don't see serious increases in serious injury accidents until around .2%.
The majority of fatal accidents involving alcohol as a real contributing factor are well above .2%, so if .05 is lost within statistical noise, is it really saving lives?
My point is some people seem to believe that if a business refuses to accept your cash in payment you are discharged of the obligation to pay; which is not the case.
Again, I'll clarify a bit: I'm not saying a business can't refuse cash. It CAN in 'most' cases. The ONLY time it's obligated to accept cash is when you actually OWE them money. My common example would be the sit-down restaurant. The meal has been delivered and consumed, the debt created.
Then, per 31 USC 5103, US currency is legal tender for that debt. While UCC article 3 might not apply(I've seen judges contort more to make something applicable), you've still made a valid offer to pay.
This can be modified in some ways with a previously agreed upon contract, but unless the business has gone out of it's way to tell you that cash isn't accepted before they extend you credit, they have to take it.
Like I said, if they end up taking it to court, the worst the court is going to do is tell them to take the cash and be happy, assuming that the 'cash' isn't in some crazy state like 'all pennies', 'folded into 10k paper cranes' etc...
Oh yeah, and they're not obligated to take partial payment.
Do you have a citation on how the courts handle a reasonable attempt to pay in cash? IE bills of reasonable denomination that have not been defaced or altered?
Okay, they don't have to accept $100 worth of pennies or $10k worth of $1 bills. What about 5 $20 bills or 100 $100s*?
*$100 being the highest denominator in common circulation
The fix is to tender the bills in a non-assholish way. IE reasonably large bills, not defaced or origamied.
You show up with 7 'clean' 20 bills to pay a $128 bill, you should be good.
Not really. When you go to a store, the seller has no obligation to sell you anything.
The context, in this case, is a sit-down restaurant. The meal has already been served and consumed. You're not getting it back. The eater has incurred a debt with the restaurant for the price of the meal.
They have to accept cash at that point. A gas station or McDonalds would be free to keep their product and refuse the cash, because the exchange hasn't happened yet.
Sure - I'll just quote UCC Article 3, Negotiable Instruments, part 6. Discharge and payment.
(a) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the effect of tender is governed by principles of law applicable to tender of payment under a simple contract.
(b) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument and the tender is refused, there is discharge, to the extent of the amount of the tender, of the obligation of an indorser or accommodation party having a right of recourse with respect to the obligation to which the tender relates.
(c) If tender of payment of an amount due on an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the obligation of the obligor to pay interest after the due date on the amount tendered is discharged. If presentment is required with respect to an instrument and the obligor is able and ready to pay on the due date at every place of payment stated in the instrument, the obligor is deemed to have made tender of payment on the due date to the person entitled to enforce the instrument.
And 31 USC 5103 - United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
So I submitted legal tender and you refused. I'm happy because you just 'wrote off' my debt.
I'll note that the MOST the courts would do is tell you to accept my cash.
18 US Code 333 - Mutilation of national bank obligations:
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
It's not intent to defraud, but merely that it wouldn't be suited to be reissued. So those 'track this bill' stamps are okay, because they can be reissued. Drawing a lewd image on them, knowing that the bank wouldn't knowingly reissue it, would be.
31 USC 5103 - Legal Tender and UCC 3-603 Tender of payment disagree.
Keep in mind the difference between a sale and a debt. If you OWE a company money, they must accept cash to settle it. If you're PRE-PAYING, ie giving them payment before the good is provided or service rendered, then they don't have to accept cash to provide the service.
There is no law requiring someone to accept legal tender in payment of a debt; and failure to do so does not absolve someone of liability for the debt.
Yes there is -
U.C.C. – ARTICLE 3 – NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS , PART 6. DISCHARGE AND PAYMENT 3-603. TENDER OF PAYMENT.
(a) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the effect of tender is governed by principles of law applicable to tender of payment under a simple contract. (b) If tender of payment of an obligation to pay an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument and the tender is refused, there is discharge, to the extent of the amount of the tender, of the obligation of an indorser or accommodation party having a right of recourse with respect to the obligation to which the tender relates. (c) If tender of payment of an amount due on an instrument is made to a person entitled to enforce the instrument, the obligation of the obligor to pay interest after the due date on the amount tendered is discharged. If presentment is required with respect to an instrument and the obligor is able and ready to pay on the due date at every place of payment stated in the instrument, the obligor is deemed to have made tender of payment on the due date to the person entitled to enforce the instrument.
31 US Code 5103 - Legal tender -
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
If I owe you $2k and show up with 20 authentic $100 bills and you refuse them, I'm debt free.
Now, if you're selling a car(for example) for $2k and you don't want cash, you're free to refuse to sell me the car for my $2k cash. But you're not allowed to hold me hostage if you provide me services before payment and I offer to pay by cash.
Disclaimer first, this is US centric, though it 'should' work in many countries.
So absent a state law failure to accept cash in no way eliminates a debt.
Actually, it kind of does. Work out the logic and realize that not all businesses are creditors.
Take two restaurants.
1. Fast food joint. You place your order, they tell you a total, and you pay before they give you your food. NOT a creditor, if they don't want to take cash they don't have to.
2. Sit down traditional restaurant where the bill comes AFTER your meal. They're thus a creditor because they extend you credit(your food) before payment. If I eat at the restaurant(and the no cash policy isn't explained to me before my meal) and offer cash to settle the bill, they MUST take it. Otherwise I can indeed pretty much just walk out without paying if they refuse valid US currency.
That refusal DOES effectively eliminate the debt because, let's say the business continues to ask for payment. I offer cash. They take me to court. NO SANE JUDGE is going to say 'no, you have to pay by debit card!' because US Currency has been declared, by law, a valid payment method for all debts, 'public or private'. I offered valid payment for the debt, they refused it. It's on them, not me. I offered to pay and they declined to receive said payment.
Consider the examples:
Bus line: You pay BEFORE you ride, no debt.
Movie Theater: You buy your ticket before seeing the show.
Convenience stores & gas stations: Pay first. Now, some gas stations even today operate on a credit basis for their filling stations, so they would have to accept cash. Given that a number give discounts for cash, it's not a big deal for them.
sorry for delay, life is busy sometimes.
I wasn't actually talking about private policing, but the medieval situation with river travel - lots of forts/castles put up to extract revenue from passing traffic. As for private policing, look up the Pinkertons.
While I'd reform the police a lot, complete privatization isn't something I'd put on the table.
For the HOA - it's a micro-government. It can pass laws and enforce them without the consent of the owners of the homes, short of them selling and moving away. On a country scale that would be equivalent to fleeing the country.
As for the pollution of the 19th and 20th century, well, they were actually generally better off with the pollution than they would have been without the industry. Which is what I'm trying to get at.
Except for possibly a few air pollutants, what possible justification is there to impose national standards on any of this?
Ground pollution tends to get into our water supplies. Water tends to be even more direct. Especially with ground pollution, there can easily be enough delay that the one who caused the pollution is gone by the time it becomes a critical problem. It's better to prevent the pollution in the first case in these scenarios.
No, what you argue is that government should continue to give businesses a blanket license to pollute, you simply haggle about the degree and you assert vehemently and without any evidence that the license businesses get is "science based".
Strawman, I'm not licensing them anything(IE giving them license to freely pollute). I'm charging them pretty much from the first kilogram of pollution*, and I specifically mentioned charging them more than the estimated harm.
So industry would be pushed to control the pollution in order to save the fees, but if the pollution is unavoidable by current technology but still worth the economic activity, they pay their fees and we move on.
*And the only reason I wouldn't charge there is that at sufficiently low levels it's just not worth it.
The problem is that your "proposals" are nothing more than wishful thinking.
Then why does it get your goat so much?
You're objectively not a libertarian because you repeatedly argue from the point of view of having government impose policies for the good of society or the majority.
Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I'm not a libertarian. Like I said before, even I disclaimed that I'm a 'moderate' libertarian, which means that I don't agree with the party 100%. I still fit with libertarians a hell of a lot better than the major 2, where I say that I agree with each about 25% of the time, and disagree with both of them, especially when THEY agree with each other, about 50% of the time.
That's the point. Libertarians are for limited government. I also never called you an anarchist, I said you were closer to anarchists. I quite carefully didn't call you one.
Now, as a practical minarchist, that doesn't mean that I'm going to push for the end of all government. I might want to take a hacksaw to most departments, but I'd actually eliminate only a minority of them. There are even a couple I'd expand until we got the population adjusted to the new situation.
It what bizarro world are those two not conservatives?
I'm a member of a board where I'm considered a raging liberal...
While they correctly identify(in my opinion) that there's not actually that much difference between Obama and Romney, that's because they consider BOTH unacceptably liberal, with Obama about half a step further.
Meanwhile, most 'liberals' consider Obama a DINO, a rather conservative individual.
Read the article a bit closer, they're talking about a 40% electricity drop for the 1800 or so residents of "Block Island", who are currently serviced by diesel generators(mostly). Additionally, part of the project would be running a power line to the mainland, that could transmit power not only from the wind farm to the mainland, but bring energy back when needed.
Between the two, I can easily see a 40% drop. Diesel for electricity is expensive.