The difference is Europeans think, to different extents, that the state has to supply some services, not just jail pushers.
Of course, some Europeans don't think that at all, they are just in the minority.
I do agree that Europe, unlike America, has never held that an individual's life is his own, and that he does not exist as a servant to the needs or whims of others.
That would be true, but the government uses a lot of MS software. By keeping the specs of a bunch of things closed or by not adhering to standards, they end up costing us, the taxpayers more in the long run. By locking the government into proprietary technologies that they are the only ones who can have a 100% guarantee they are rendering the document "correctly" the government will keep buying into them. Its effectively the same as having a public works bid but only allowing one company to bid.
I don't disagree that how a government spends money is important. However that is secondary to the question of what is the primary purpose of a government. It's primary purpose is to protect individual's from force or fraud. This is contrary to the purpose of anti-trust laws, whose purpose are to prevent people from becoming "too successful". This is just another way of saying "you are free, unless your freedom makes you too successful". This political power causes government to become a blunt weapon that companies/politicians try to wield against each other, using lobbyists, graft and pull to "take a swing" at other companies. This "weapon" should simply not exist.
However, the lack of anti trust cases only work in a free economy. The economy of the USA especially with copyright, patents and IP is not free. Repeal the DMCA, software patents, reduce the length of copyrights to a sane term. Then we can get rid of anti-trust.
As I stated - making the government into a weapon is not going to solve anything. I don't normally go for the stupid platitudes, but this is definitely a case of "two wrongs don't make a right". Advocates for change in IP law will never achieve that change by advocating for increase in bureaucrat control over our lives, while diminishing the rights of individuals to deal with each other voluntarily.
The primary Christian moral commandment, as demonstrated by the crucifixion, is that self sacrifice is your highest moral virtue. God allowed his perfect, unblemished son to die for the sake of lowly sinners.
If your child was dying, and you had to choose between saving a stranger and your child, who would you save? Most people would (and should) save their own child first - but this is not the Christian ideal.
Self-sacrifice is the basis for altruism, which holds that anything done for yourself is evil (or neutral), and anything done for others at the expense of yourself is the good.
When this morality is translated into the political realm, it endorses the idea that the government should sacrifice the most successful businesses to the least successful.
That, in a nutshell, is the link between Christianity and anti-trust.
once [corporations] have disproportionate resources (economy, manpower, social influence), its a simple matter to utilize those resources to coerce people.
That is false - regardless of how successful a company is, it can still only deal voluntarily with everyone. All entities must always deal with each other through mutual consent.
But government is... the best way for us to deal with entities that are trying to infringe upon our rights.
I would say this more stongly: the government is the only way to deal with entities that are trying to infringe upon our rights; however, the government, itself, should never infringe upon our rights.
Today's government eschews individual rights - you are not regarded as a sovereign entity, free to pursue your own life. Instead, you are regarded as a servant - of whomever is currently shouting the loudest about "the public good". You are not free to pursue your own life, as you see fit. You must sacrifice your life for whomever the government demands, and you must bend your will to whatever rules and regulations they demand of you.
If the government did not have power to expropriate our money, turn around and give it out as favors, then corporations would not be funneling huge amounts of money to politicians (which they only do to curry favor).
That is why we need a separation of state and economics, just as we have a separation of church and state - and for the same reason.
Just think, if there was no separation of church and state, would that make it the church's fault for all the government power it wielded?
1. If Italians are forced to pay for the system with taxes, then it isn't free. Any more than the American postal or government-education systems are "free".
2. wtf are you talking about
3. Going to Venice to see government Wi-Fi doesn't exactly sound like a blast to me.
Hurting and killing people is already against the law. Regulations do not change that.
All regulations do is substitute the will of the bureaucrat for the mind of the individual, at the point of a gun.
No company can succeed by hurting or killing people - unless of course the government, itself, is propping that company up - telling everybody not to worry about where food comes from, not to think about the reputation of companies, just feel free to buy anything from anywhere and feel secure that the government controls everything for the better.
No - there really isn't - not in a fundamental sense.
Both companies make voluntary deals with everyone involved, to mutual advantage. Both companies make products that people like and want, and people are willing and glad to pay for them. Both companies provide technologies that help their customers make a lot of money, using them.
As long as companies are dealing with everyone voluntarily, the government should not be involved. Only when a business violates an invidual's rights through force or fraud should the government get involved.
Anti-trust is based on the altruist idea that the more successful you are - (aka "selfish") - the more evil you are, and the evil successful need to be brought down to favor the less successful, or failures. This also happens to be the moral underpinning for bailouts, welfare, "soak the rich", government healthcare, and many more.
The government is behind all of those problems: "Too big to fail", laws favoring business over individuals, and persecution of successful businesses.
You are taking a "I'm fine with it until it changes" stance - but how does that attitude help anything? You are not even identifying the source of the problem, which is the power that the government wields over individuals and businesses.
Once you have named this source, you can fight against it, explicitly, instead of taking an "I'm fine with it until it (magically) changes" approach.
Personally I think a good look at many of the large corporations that handle our food, and the type of hardball they can and do play, make Micro$oft look pretty warm and fuzzy.
If a food corporation has done something wrong, they should be held accountable in a court of law. Otherwise, it is really not your concern how they do business. If people in the food industry wanted the government to control how you do your job, I would tell them the same thing.
Accountability is the price of freedom. With rights come responsibility.
The point is that regulations do not provide accountability. I'm not sure what about that is difficult to understand.
Socialized firefighting came about because capitalism failed so spectacularly.
I will assume, for the moment, that you are an honest intellectual, concerned with truth. In that spirit, I ask you to provide me evidence of the "spectacular failure" of which you speak.
My mind and the contents of my thoughts are not determined by what others think of me.
Then you are the pinnacle of arrogance. You ignore all the suffering and death and the opinions of others on the topic.
You are not responding to what I said. What I said was that I think for myself. I look with my own eyes, and think with my own mind, to discover the truth. You call that arrogance? I call anything short of that a renunciation of the requirement that life places upon you: to think. I will not, as you seem to advocate, allow other people's opinions substitute for my own judgment.
...not everyone started life with the same amount of money and property...until this initial unfairness is remedied
Would you rip money away from a bystander and give it to a bum? Would you tear the clothes of off someone and give it to someone who needs new clothes? But this is exactly the kind of moral cannibalism you are advocating. It does not become more dignified when the government regiments the process through taxation at the point of a gun.
you have no "right" to freely exploit the suffering of those who started with less and neither does society.
In a Capitalist society, those who started with less have the same rights as everyone else, and they are equally protected under law.
Capitalism is an economic method, not a political system.
Capitalism is also a social system - based on individual rights in which all property is privately owned.
you... have a stupid, blind faith in it as a philosophy.
If you intend to practice economics in either an academic or industry capacity, you would do well to jettison the ad hominem attacks and stick to attempting to using logic and facts to convince people of your arguments. Calling people names(especially people who themselves are intellectually very active with a lot of education), really only reflects on you. It does not make you look smarter, it does not make you more right.
Extreme capitalism (not even total capitalism)
What is the difference? Capitalism is the system based on individual rights in which all property is privately owned. (There are other aspects to Capitalism, to be sure, but they are not essential to the definition)
Wealth consolidates until it becomes unacceptable in the level of exploitation of those born poor and then there is a revolution.
Capitalism is the system that eliminates physical force from human relationships (a fundamental aspect of individual rights). Nobody can stop another person from working hard and succeeding, and nobody can take what another person has by force. This is the opposite of collectivist systems (like Socialism) in which your life is meaningless, except as a sacrificial animal for the popular collectivist goal of the day.
If you'd like to present a counter example, just find me one country with a flat tax that has maintained it for 50 years.
Even if a flat tax were essential to Capitalism (which it isn't), your argument is not even logical. Even if there were a country with a flat tax for 50 years, it would not prove me right. How long a flat tax "has lasted historically" i
I'm all for lesser restrictions on individual access to medical equipment and drugs, but not for letting people sell services without being held accountable.
That's a good start. But regulations don't "hold people accountable". They simply substitute the will of the bureaucrat for the will of the individuals who otherwise would be free to engage in voluntary transactions.
A guy standing outside your house offering to save it from burning down if you give him 90% of the value is not a good fit to the capitalist model.
In a Capitalist society, people are free to create and pay for fire departments, if they want to (and as has been done in the past)
Yeah, why don't you move to Estonia or some other hellhole that subscribes to such sophomoric views.
You are actually the first I have heard refer to the beliefs and actions of the founding fathers as "sophomoric", which is a sad, disrespectful smear. These were highly educated men whose ideas were unprecedented in all of human history - they were radicals for setting men free from other men, and their ideas are more relevant today than ever.
You're arguing ethics while the rest of the world looks at us as barbaric morons...
My mind and the contents of my thoughts are not determined by what others think of me. Substituting other people's opinions for the contents of your own mind is what sheep and cowards do.
...who let the poor members of our society suffer and die from treatable illnesses
I am not my brother's keeper. I will choose if, when, and how I will help someone. Neither you, bureaucrats, kings, nor my parents have the moral right to dictate how I live my life - so long as I respect others' equal right to be free.
The reason capitalism works is because it exploits human nature in a beneficial way.
The reason Capitalism works is because it is the only political system consistent with the requirements for human life, which requires that humans must be free to think and act, to discover how to live and improve their life, and deal with others voluntarily, free from coercion - either from other individuals, or from groups.
It's the same reason capitalism fails in particular cases.
From what I have studied, any of the so-called failures of Capitalism were either failures of the regulatory-state, or not failures at all.
Umm, so you expect patients to diagnose themselves before seeking treatment?
My point is that people are not free to use their minds to creatively solve problems, because regulations force people to do things the way our rulers want us to.
you seem to be one of those libertarian economists with a strong, but unsupported belief that an unregulated free market will somehow magically solve all problems.
So when thinking, self-responsible, people solve problems, you call it magic? So the only "non-magical" way to solve problems is: when bureaucrats impose their will on everyone at the point of a gun?
I am not a Libertarian, because Libertarian's do not agree on the moral foundation for liberty, and these discrepancies manifest themselves in vastly differing political beliefs, such as: anarchy, competing governments, minarchy, and others. I am an Objectivist.
If you are a student of economics and history, then have you studied Von Mises and other Austrian economists?
I personally know of many professional economists and historians who advocate Laissez-Faire Capitalism. It is essentially the framework advocate by the founding fathers.
For you to call it a "simplistic philosophy" is just a smear that avoids the effort required to understand and apply the ethical and political arguments advocated by such people.
Pollution is not "bad". Human life requires pollution, and generally - the more pollution, the better your life.
The problem is not to eliminate pollution (which would require the elimination of the human race), but rather to simply move move it away from people.
The best way to protect individual's against pollution is the widespread protection of individual rights, including property rights. When all property is privately owned, and all individual's rights are protected - then pollution must be disposed of safely. Otherwise the polluter would be liable for the damage they cause.
Your post ignores the fact that U.S. healthcare practitioners are already incredibly regulated: whom can practice medicine, where they can practice, who they can treat, who they must treat, how they must deal with insurance, what they can charge, etc.
For example, I ought to be able to study the hell out of, say, the 10 most common reasons to visit the doctor, and create a low-cost "McDonald's" kind of fast-healthcare for just those ten things. It would be fast, cheap, and only deal with those 10 things. That kind of free-market solution can never exist in today's (and worse - tomorrow's) ever-growing regulated welfare-state.
We open the door for the individual humans in Iran trying to get to a representative democracy
What's the difference between being controlled by the Mullahs, and being controlled by 51% of the population?
What Iran needs is a push for individual rights, that is, the idea that an individual is free, regardless of what the Mullah's or the majority tell them to do.
The 10th amendment to the U.S. constitution specified that powers that are not explicitly delegated by the constitution are reserved to the state or the people.
There are plenty of people in the U.S. believe the individual is not subservient to the group/state/tribe, and who do not genuflect before the almighty bureaucrat.
It is a false alternative to say that you either support arbitrary government powers or anarchy. An alternative to both of those is to have a government whose sole purpose is to protect you, the individual, from others.
The government is little more than people with guns (or people controlling the people with guns) and a charter for how those guns will be used.
You say those guns should dictate the usage of the EM spectrum. Others say those guns should control your speech in society. Yet others think you should be forced bend knee to a supernatural being. None of these are valid in a government whose charter is to protect the individual.
But they are all equally valid in a government in which the individual is nothing - just a subordinate cog to the collective.
There is no reason that the essential benefit of limiting liability through corporations could not be accomplished through contract law. That is already done in some ways, such as indemnification.
Although I agree that, today, the government plays a heavy hand in these matters.
A Government Solution:
1. Pass regulations that don't allow buggy releases.
2. Require dev studios to make games of each genre.
3. Give special legal powers to developers to unionize, preventing firings, and forcing employers to deal with them.
4. Give companies billions after they fail, and claim it was a failure of the free market.
5. Appoint a Game Czar.
6. Takeover the game companies, firing the company heads and appointing government stooges.
7. Transfer ownership of the company to the government, give a minority stake to the developers.
8. Make great games!
The government is supposed to represent the will of the people.
That would be true, if we lived in a democracy. But we live in a constitutionally limited republic, whose purpose it is to defend the individual against the tyranny of "the public".
The idea that the individual is sovereign is unique in history to the U.S. It doesn't matter if 51% want to hang you up on the cross. They cannot (constitutionally).
If today were a TV show, I would call it "Government Gone Wild", as the government and big business have bloomed into a symbiotic orgy of taking your money and spreading it amongst themselves and the people who vote them into power.
I would submit to you that force should be abolished from human relationships, and it's only appropriate use is in self-defense.
The government has a legal monopoly on the use of force in society, and that therefore that monopoly must be placed under the strictest of guidelines as to it's purpose and available functions.
Our government was founded on the idea that the individual is sovereign, and the purpose of government is to protect your sovereignty. The government itself should never infringe on your individual rights.
To protect the individual, there are a few legitimate things the government must do: provide military, courts, police.
The rest of the things you mentioned should be accomplished by free individuals dealing with one another on a voluntary basis, using trade and contracts.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is Europeans think, to different extents, that the state has to supply some services, not just jail pushers.
Of course, some Europeans don't think that at all, they are just in the minority.
I do agree that Europe, unlike America, has never held that an individual's life is his own, and that he does not exist as a servant to the needs or whims of others.
That would be true, but the government uses a lot of MS software. By keeping the specs of a bunch of things closed or by not adhering to standards, they end up costing us, the taxpayers more in the long run. By locking the government into proprietary technologies that they are the only ones who can have a 100% guarantee they are rendering the document "correctly" the government will keep buying into them. Its effectively the same as having a public works bid but only allowing one company to bid.
I don't disagree that how a government spends money is important. However that is secondary to the question of what is the primary purpose of a government. It's primary purpose is to protect individual's from force or fraud. This is contrary to the purpose of anti-trust laws, whose purpose are to prevent people from becoming "too successful". This is just another way of saying "you are free, unless your freedom makes you too successful". This political power causes government to become a blunt weapon that companies/politicians try to wield against each other, using lobbyists, graft and pull to "take a swing" at other companies. This "weapon" should simply not exist.
However, the lack of anti trust cases only work in a free economy. The economy of the USA especially with copyright, patents and IP is not free. Repeal the DMCA, software patents, reduce the length of copyrights to a sane term. Then we can get rid of anti-trust.
As I stated - making the government into a weapon is not going to solve anything. I don't normally go for the stupid platitudes, but this is definitely a case of "two wrongs don't make a right". Advocates for change in IP law will never achieve that change by advocating for increase in bureaucrat control over our lives, while diminishing the rights of individuals to deal with each other voluntarily.
The primary Christian moral commandment, as demonstrated by the crucifixion, is that self sacrifice is your highest moral virtue. God allowed his perfect, unblemished son to die for the sake of lowly sinners.
If your child was dying, and you had to choose between saving a stranger and your child, who would you save? Most people would (and should) save their own child first - but this is not the Christian ideal.
Self-sacrifice is the basis for altruism, which holds that anything done for yourself is evil (or neutral), and anything done for others at the expense of yourself is the good.
When this morality is translated into the political realm, it endorses the idea that the government should sacrifice the most successful businesses to the least successful.
That, in a nutshell, is the link between Christianity and anti-trust.
once [corporations] have disproportionate resources (economy, manpower, social influence), its a simple matter to utilize those resources to coerce people.
That is false - regardless of how successful a company is, it can still only deal voluntarily with everyone. All entities must always deal with each other through mutual consent.
But government is ... the best way for us to deal with entities that are trying to infringe upon our rights.
I would say this more stongly: the government is the only way to deal with entities that are trying to infringe upon our rights; however, the government, itself, should never infringe upon our rights.
Today's government eschews individual rights - you are not regarded as a sovereign entity, free to pursue your own life. Instead, you are regarded as a servant - of whomever is currently shouting the loudest about "the public good". You are not free to pursue your own life, as you see fit. You must sacrifice your life for whomever the government demands, and you must bend your will to whatever rules and regulations they demand of you.
If the government did not have power to expropriate our money, turn around and give it out as favors, then corporations would not be funneling huge amounts of money to politicians (which they only do to curry favor).
That is why we need a separation of state and economics, just as we have a separation of church and state - and for the same reason.
Just think, if there was no separation of church and state, would that make it the church's fault for all the government power it wielded?
1. If Italians are forced to pay for the system with taxes, then it isn't free. Any more than the American postal or government-education systems are "free".
2. wtf are you talking about
3. Going to Venice to see government Wi-Fi doesn't exactly sound like a blast to me.
Hurting and killing people is already against the law. Regulations do not change that.
All regulations do is substitute the will of the bureaucrat for the mind of the individual, at the point of a gun.
No company can succeed by hurting or killing people - unless of course the government, itself, is propping that company up - telling everybody not to worry about where food comes from, not to think about the reputation of companies, just feel free to buy anything from anywhere and feel secure that the government controls everything for the better.
Theres a big difference between MS and Google.
No - there really isn't - not in a fundamental sense.
Both companies make voluntary deals with everyone involved, to mutual advantage. Both companies make products that people like and want, and people are willing and glad to pay for them. Both companies provide technologies that help their customers make a lot of money, using them.
As long as companies are dealing with everyone voluntarily, the government should not be involved. Only when a business violates an invidual's rights through force or fraud should the government get involved.
Anti-trust is based on the altruist idea that the more successful you are - (aka "selfish") - the more evil you are, and the evil successful need to be brought down to favor the less successful, or failures. This also happens to be the moral underpinning for bailouts, welfare, "soak the rich", government healthcare, and many more.
Oh yeah, it's also a Christian ideal.
The government is behind all of those problems: "Too big to fail", laws favoring business over individuals, and persecution of successful businesses.
You are taking a "I'm fine with it until it changes" stance - but how does that attitude help anything? You are not even identifying the source of the problem, which is the power that the government wields over individuals and businesses.
Once you have named this source, you can fight against it, explicitly, instead of taking an "I'm fine with it until it (magically) changes" approach.
Personally I think a good look at many of the large corporations that handle our food, and the type of hardball they can and do play, make Micro$oft look pretty warm and fuzzy.
If a food corporation has done something wrong, they should be held accountable in a court of law. Otherwise, it is really not your concern how they do business. If people in the food industry wanted the government to control how you do your job, I would tell them the same thing.
Accountability is the price of freedom. With rights come responsibility.
The point is that regulations do not provide accountability. I'm not sure what about that is difficult to understand.
Socialized firefighting came about because capitalism failed so spectacularly.
I will assume, for the moment, that you are an honest intellectual, concerned with truth. In that spirit, I ask you to provide me evidence of the "spectacular failure" of which you speak.
My mind and the contents of my thoughts are not determined by what others think of me.
Then you are the pinnacle of arrogance. You ignore all the suffering and death and the opinions of others on the topic.
You are not responding to what I said. What I said was that I think for myself. I look with my own eyes, and think with my own mind, to discover the truth. You call that arrogance? I call anything short of that a renunciation of the requirement that life places upon you: to think. I will not, as you seem to advocate, allow other people's opinions substitute for my own judgment.
...not everyone started life with the same amount of money and property...until this initial unfairness is remedied
Would you rip money away from a bystander and give it to a bum? Would you tear the clothes of off someone and give it to someone who needs new clothes? But this is exactly the kind of moral cannibalism you are advocating. It does not become more dignified when the government regiments the process through taxation at the point of a gun.
you have no "right" to freely exploit the suffering of those who started with less and neither does society.
In a Capitalist society, those who started with less have the same rights as everyone else, and they are equally protected under law.
Capitalism is an economic method, not a political system.
Capitalism is also a social system - based on individual rights in which all property is privately owned.
you ... have a stupid, blind faith in it as a philosophy.
If you intend to practice economics in either an academic or industry capacity, you would do well to jettison the ad hominem attacks and stick to attempting to using logic and facts to convince people of your arguments. Calling people names(especially people who themselves are intellectually very active with a lot of education), really only reflects on you. It does not make you look smarter, it does not make you more right.
Extreme capitalism (not even total capitalism)
What is the difference? Capitalism is the system based on individual rights in which all property is privately owned. (There are other aspects to Capitalism, to be sure, but they are not essential to the definition)
Wealth consolidates until it becomes unacceptable in the level of exploitation of those born poor and then there is a revolution.
Capitalism is the system that eliminates physical force from human relationships (a fundamental aspect of individual rights). Nobody can stop another person from working hard and succeeding, and nobody can take what another person has by force. This is the opposite of collectivist systems (like Socialism) in which your life is meaningless, except as a sacrificial animal for the popular collectivist goal of the day.
If you'd like to present a counter example, just find me one country with a flat tax that has maintained it for 50 years.
Even if a flat tax were essential to Capitalism (which it isn't), your argument is not even logical. Even if there were a country with a flat tax for 50 years, it would not prove me right. How long a flat tax "has lasted historically" i
I'm all for lesser restrictions on individual access to medical equipment and drugs, but not for letting people sell services without being held accountable.
That's a good start. But regulations don't "hold people accountable". They simply substitute the will of the bureaucrat for the will of the individuals who otherwise would be free to engage in voluntary transactions.
A guy standing outside your house offering to save it from burning down if you give him 90% of the value is not a good fit to the capitalist model.
In a Capitalist society, people are free to create and pay for fire departments, if they want to (and as has been done in the past)
Yeah, why don't you move to Estonia or some other hellhole that subscribes to such sophomoric views.
You are actually the first I have heard refer to the beliefs and actions of the founding fathers as "sophomoric", which is a sad, disrespectful smear. These were highly educated men whose ideas were unprecedented in all of human history - they were radicals for setting men free from other men, and their ideas are more relevant today than ever.
You're arguing ethics while the rest of the world looks at us as barbaric morons...
My mind and the contents of my thoughts are not determined by what others think of me. Substituting other people's opinions for the contents of your own mind is what sheep and cowards do.
...who let the poor members of our society suffer and die from treatable illnesses
I am not my brother's keeper. I will choose if, when, and how I will help someone. Neither you, bureaucrats, kings, nor my parents have the moral right to dictate how I live my life - so long as I respect others' equal right to be free.
The reason capitalism works is because it exploits human nature in a beneficial way.
The reason Capitalism works is because it is the only political system consistent with the requirements for human life, which requires that humans must be free to think and act, to discover how to live and improve their life, and deal with others voluntarily, free from coercion - either from other individuals, or from groups.
It's the same reason capitalism fails in particular cases.
From what I have studied, any of the so-called failures of Capitalism were either failures of the regulatory-state, or not failures at all.
Umm, so you expect patients to diagnose themselves before seeking treatment?
My point is that people are not free to use their minds to creatively solve problems, because regulations force people to do things the way our rulers want us to.
you seem to be one of those libertarian economists with a strong, but unsupported belief that an unregulated free market will somehow magically solve all problems.
So when thinking, self-responsible, people solve problems, you call it magic? So the only "non-magical" way to solve problems is: when bureaucrats impose their will on everyone at the point of a gun?
I am not a Libertarian, because Libertarian's do not agree on the moral foundation for liberty, and these discrepancies manifest themselves in vastly differing political beliefs, such as: anarchy, competing governments, minarchy, and others. I am an Objectivist.
If you are a student of economics and history, then have you studied Von Mises and other Austrian economists?
I personally know of many professional economists and historians who advocate Laissez-Faire Capitalism. It is essentially the framework advocate by the founding fathers.
For you to call it a "simplistic philosophy" is just a smear that avoids the effort required to understand and apply the ethical and political arguments advocated by such people.
Speaking of rationality...
Pollution is not "bad". Human life requires pollution, and generally - the more pollution, the better your life.
The problem is not to eliminate pollution (which would require the elimination of the human race), but rather to simply move move it away from people.
The best way to protect individual's against pollution is the widespread protection of individual rights, including property rights. When all property is privately owned, and all individual's rights are protected - then pollution must be disposed of safely. Otherwise the polluter would be liable for the damage they cause.
Your post ignores the fact that U.S. healthcare practitioners are already incredibly regulated: whom can practice medicine, where they can practice, who they can treat, who they must treat, how they must deal with insurance, what they can charge, etc.
For example, I ought to be able to study the hell out of, say, the 10 most common reasons to visit the doctor, and create a low-cost "McDonald's" kind of fast-healthcare for just those ten things. It would be fast, cheap, and only deal with those 10 things. That kind of free-market solution can never exist in today's (and worse - tomorrow's) ever-growing regulated welfare-state.
You say all environmental scientists are drinking the same kool-aid
There are plenty of scientists not drinking the kool-aid
We open the door for the individual humans in Iran trying to get to a representative democracy
What's the difference between being controlled by the Mullahs, and being controlled by 51% of the population?
What Iran needs is a push for individual rights, that is, the idea that an individual is free, regardless of what the Mullah's or the majority tell them to do.
The 10th amendment to the U.S. constitution specified that powers that are not explicitly delegated by the constitution are reserved to the state or the people.
There are plenty of people in the U.S. believe the individual is not subservient to the group/state/tribe, and who do not genuflect before the almighty bureaucrat.
It is a false alternative to say that you either support arbitrary government powers or anarchy. An alternative to both of those is to have a government whose sole purpose is to protect you, the individual, from others.
The government is little more than people with guns (or people controlling the people with guns) and a charter for how those guns will be used.
You say those guns should dictate the usage of the EM spectrum. Others say those guns should control your speech in society. Yet others think you should be forced bend knee to a supernatural being. None of these are valid in a government whose charter is to protect the individual.
But they are all equally valid in a government in which the individual is nothing - just a subordinate cog to the collective.
Someone has to pay for these "coupons", and it's not the people who make the conversion boxes. It's you and me.
There is no reason that the essential benefit of limiting liability through corporations could not be accomplished through contract law. That is already done in some ways, such as indemnification.
Although I agree that, today, the government plays a heavy hand in these matters.
What if the train killed all its riders. Wouldn't that make make it more green?
A Government Solution:
1. Pass regulations that don't allow buggy releases.
2. Require dev studios to make games of each genre.
3. Give special legal powers to developers to unionize, preventing firings, and forcing employers to deal with them.
4. Give companies billions after they fail, and claim it was a failure of the free market.
5. Appoint a Game Czar.
6. Takeover the game companies, firing the company heads and appointing government stooges.
7. Transfer ownership of the company to the government, give a minority stake to the developers.
8. Make great games!
The government is supposed to represent the will of the people.
That would be true, if we lived in a democracy. But we live in a constitutionally limited republic, whose purpose it is to defend the individual against the tyranny of "the public".
The idea that the individual is sovereign is unique in history to the U.S. It doesn't matter if 51% want to hang you up on the cross. They cannot (constitutionally).
If today were a TV show, I would call it "Government Gone Wild", as the government and big business have bloomed into a symbiotic orgy of taking your money and spreading it amongst themselves and the people who vote them into power.
I would submit to you that force should be abolished from human relationships, and it's only appropriate use is in self-defense.
The government has a legal monopoly on the use of force in society, and that therefore that monopoly must be placed under the strictest of guidelines as to it's purpose and available functions.
Our government was founded on the idea that the individual is sovereign, and the purpose of government is to protect your sovereignty. The government itself should never infringe on your individual rights.
To protect the individual, there are a few legitimate things the government must do: provide military, courts, police.
The rest of the things you mentioned should be accomplished by free individuals dealing with one another on a voluntary basis, using trade and contracts.