Big Government; Tyranny Or Abject Failure To Do The Right Thing?

[mhouse2001]

Originally Posted by ManGoneADreamin

PLEASE STOP WITH THIS LIE


If we had private property rights in this country, and individuals owned 99.99999% of the land, then we would not have as much pollution..

But your own argument implies that we would still have pollution even if 99.99999% of the land was privately owned.
So, who's the guilty party then?

I will never agree that private enterprise cleans up its own act. I've seen building contractors toss toxic substances down the storm drain because they didn't want to have to dispose of it properly. I grew up in a steel town. During the day, the mill turned on the anti-pollution devices so they'd be in compliance. At sundown, those expensive items were turned off and the air became a dumping ground. Without regulation of some kind, we'd be living in muck. Our only resource here is government because people cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Of course, one could argue that the government could be just as bad, and I will agree with that. But the government is accountable to us and we can take them to task, while individuals and businesses aren't, which is precisely why they don't care. Where there's no profit, there's no incentive.

ManGoneADreamin, perhaps you should wake up.

[ManGoneADreamin]

[quote=ovcatto;11288023]I find if fascinating how a person can contradict their own argument with in the space of a few paragraphs.


[quote=ManGoneADreamin;11279026]PLEASE STOP WITH THIS LIE

If we had private property rights in this country, and individuals owned 99.99999% of the land, then we would not have as much pollution..

Just picking a Superfund site at random, I came up with the case of Hellertown Manufacturing Co., a subsidiary of Champion Spark Plug Co. which:

Between 1930 and 1976, Hellertown used five on-site lagoons for the disposal of its wastes. According to a preliminary assessment made by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (PA DER), the wastes disposed of on-site included ZINC plating waste, CHROME dip waste, cleaners, and cutting oils. The lagoons were unlined, permitting wastes to seep into local soils and rock strata. The lagoons covered approximately 50,000 square feet and could hold an estimated 18,400 cubic yards. In 1970, the company reported that it discharged 300,000 drums of wastes to the lagoons. In 1976, all five lagoons were filled with excavated material from construction of the City of Bethlehem Waste Water Treatment Plant. From 1976 until 1982, Hellertown discharged its wastes into the local sanitary sewer system.

all of which was done on its private property!

I could, in all likelihood, spend an entire day listing Superfund sites that were exclusively private property.

Yeah, that's the danger of having a government (local one) provide services. It doesn't monitor or protect it's customers the way a private company does.

If a private company messes up, the private company's customers can sue them and bring them to court and the state can possibly file criminal charges against the private company.

However, when the state is the one that owns a service and breaks the law.. the customers have no one to protect them from the state's crimes or lack of service. The state doesn't really prosecute itself ever.





Also, I do agree that what the private company did was careless and should be illegal. B.c they transmitted POLLUTION/WASTE onto other people's property via a sewer system... But if they would have only polluted their own property , without carrying it over to anyone else, than no crime would have been committed.



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It's kind of like owning a viscous dog that will bite anyone. If you keep him on your own property, and someone comes onto your property without permission and the dog bites the person, no crime has been committed.

However, if the dog goes onto another persons property (b.c you didn't shut the fence door or forgot to put his leash on) and bites someone. You are guilty of carelessness and endangerment and should be held responsible.