Here come the UK SWAF teams!

[pErvinalia]

Without having specific figures, neither you nor I can argue one way or the other from a practical basis. You argue from an ideological basis, so real facts mean nothing to you.

It depends on what you mean by "real facts."

But I have shown how society can benefit (whether it is to a net degree, we'd need a massive in depth analysis of years of data) from avoiding reduced workforce participation due to injury.

Yes, societies usually do benefit from enslaving the individual to the will of the majority. And workforce participation is generally speaking a good thing. However, there are things that are more important and beneficial than enforcing stupid rules that cost consumers billions and billions of dollars while interfering with their individual liberties and rights. Air bags were engineered and designed to REPLACE seat belts in automobiles. I know, I was around when they were invented. But a belt is never enough for nanny-staters, they mandate suspenders as well. So while there may be net economic benefits to mandating seat belts, there are net liberty costs to them, and the assessment of which is more important is not necessarily merely an economic one.

Your justification for imposing such regulations to enhance "workforce participation" makes the a priori assumption that workforce participation is more important than the liberty of the individual to assess and take risks. This assumption is based on your own socialist ideology that says that everyone is obligated to participate in the workforce so as to create benefits for society. The short version of that is called "slavery."

There is actual chattel slavery involving chains and whips and Jim Crow, and then there is the soft slavery of involuntary servitude to the collective that socialism insists on. When the government has the power to control your activities because it wants you healthy so you can labor, that's the death of individual liberty because the government views you as a chattel and a laborer who must be protected for the good of the collective, so he can work on behalf of the collective. This is not freedom, this is slavery and tyranny.

If I choose to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, or climb mountains without ropes, or ski down precipitous slopes, or skydive, or SCUBA dive or drive race cars or shoot guns or throw axes or drive my car without a seat belt, that is my sovereign right as a free individual and no one, especially not the government, has any business interfering with my activities so long as they do not initiate force or fraud on another.

And in most countries there's also the benefit of avoiding accident victims being a drain on tax payer funded health care.

And there is the nut of it! Taxpayer funded health care is nothing more than the thin edge of the Marxist Progressive wedge in its attempt to take complete paternalistic control of each and every individual and what they do, watch, read, speak, eat and breathe. That is in fact what Obamacare is all about. Obamacare is not about providing health care insurance to all, it is about making health care insurance so expensive and unprofitable that it drives the private insurance companies out of business, whereupon the President can declare a "health care emergency" and use his executive power to impose socialized medicine on the people of the United States without their consent.

Even in the US the argument might apply, as you have a form of compulsory health care participation. So if there's lots of automotive injuries, premiums go up, and those who wear seatbelts and are safe would be paying for those who aren't being safe.

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum

Nor have you addressed the inherent danger in allowing government to intrude so deeply into an individual's personal choices.

I've addressed that heaps of times. I'm ideologically more or less a libertarian (a social one, i.e. an anarchist), so I argue in favour of less rather than more government intrusion into personal lives. But I'm also a realist and realise that no ideologically pure system is likely to ever work, so society is best organised pragmatically around ideological points. And pragmatism says that a libertarian free for all would be detrimental to a lot of people, and that goes against the very point of coalescing into societies for mutual benefit.

You are no kind of Libertarian at all. You are a Marxist Socialist through and through, and what you just wrote proves it beyond any doubt. You don't like it when I discuss ideology because it conflicts with your ideology, which you cannot defend.

And you're a mentally retarded troll. Shouting "MARXIST" every time you can't debate properly is retarded. Post ignored.

[Hermit]

I think in order to ignore a post one does not quote it, let alone post a reply.

[pErvinalia]

Well, I meant that I'm not addressing the content of it, other than to pour scorn on it. Seriously, these idiotic Marxist rants by him are so fucking retarded. I can't believe he doesn't have enough awareness to notice how ridiculous this nonsense is.

[pErvinalia]

He's only a few steps behind Galaxian.

[JimC]

The funny thing is, there are also many examples where existing regulations, or people advocating further actions by the state go way too far, and I would probably find myself on the same side of the fence as Seth. Examples include banning certain types of food and drink because of issues such as obesity, drug laws and health and safety regulations that are more about the joys of red tape to a bureaucrat than actual benefits.

But there are also plenty of examples which, on pragmatic grounds, simply work. Seat belts and helmets are clearly effective in bringing down the road toll, and therefore the reduction in an individual's freedom will be acceptable to the vast majority of the population. This last point is what really counts, Seth; if you had a strong undercurrent of resentment or rebellion against the imposition of these rules by the state, it would be another matter.

If you believe that seat belts and helmets are acceptable to the vast majority of the population then why mandate their use? Why not just offer them as an option and allow the individual to decide if they wish to use them? The reason that they are mandatory is precisely because most people DO NOT want to wear them and only do so on the threat of a heavy fine. And the point is that where the liberties of the individual are concerned, what the vast majority of the population finds acceptable takes a distant second place to the rights of the individual to be left alone in situations where disobeying the regulation harms no one but those who have voluntarily undertaken to disobey. In short, society's interest in keeping me healthy so I can labor on their behalf is as nothing compared to my right to do as I please so long as I initiate neither force nor fraud.

The fines etc. might be necessary for a minority, but in Oz at least, the majority is very happy with the rule, so it will stay.

[piscator]

Lines, lines and more damned lines. Gotta draw them somewhere, eh? We don't do very well for ourselves without them, if history and personal experience are any guide, but it's a keen razor's edge for certain. The bureaucratic mindset is the chief culprit; bureaucrats (and hence bureaucracies) are self-aggrandizing by nature. Authority is addicting, and like any addiction requires larger and larger doses to achieve the same effect over time. Add a healthy disdain for the common man's intellect and a dash of Dunning-Kruger and you've got one potent, totalitarian brew indeed. It's a tricky balancing act, and I'm sometimes amazed we do as decent a job as we do.

Sounds like a cop describing cops.

[MrJonno]

Yes, societies usually do benefit from enslaving the individual to the will of the majority

Which in the end of the day is the only thing that matters.

Freedom and 'liberty' are nothing more than ideas that sometimes can benefit society , when they don't fuck freedom

[piscator]

I like it when Jonno puts his foot down.

[pErvinalia]

[Seth]

Without having specific figures, neither you nor I can argue one way or the other from a practical basis. You argue from an ideological basis, so real facts mean nothing to you.

It depends on what you mean by "real facts."

But I have shown how society can benefit (whether it is to a net degree, we'd need a massive in depth analysis of years of data) from avoiding reduced workforce participation due to injury.

Yes, societies usually do benefit from enslaving the individual to the will of the majority. And workforce participation is generally speaking a good thing. However, there are things that are more important and beneficial than enforcing stupid rules that cost consumers billions and billions of dollars while interfering with their individual liberties and rights. Air bags were engineered and designed to REPLACE seat belts in automobiles. I know, I was around when they were invented. But a belt is never enough for nanny-staters, they mandate suspenders as well. So while there may be net economic benefits to mandating seat belts, there are net liberty costs to them, and the assessment of which is more important is not necessarily merely an economic one.

Your justification for imposing such regulations to enhance "workforce participation" makes the a priori assumption that workforce participation is more important than the liberty of the individual to assess and take risks. This assumption is based on your own socialist ideology that says that everyone is obligated to participate in the workforce so as to create benefits for society. The short version of that is called "slavery."

There is actual chattel slavery involving chains and whips and Jim Crow, and then there is the soft slavery of involuntary servitude to the collective that socialism insists on. When the government has the power to control your activities because it wants you healthy so you can labor, that's the death of individual liberty because the government views you as a chattel and a laborer who must be protected for the good of the collective, so he can work on behalf of the collective. This is not freedom, this is slavery and tyranny.

If I choose to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, or climb mountains without ropes, or ski down precipitous slopes, or skydive, or SCUBA dive or drive race cars or shoot guns or throw axes or drive my car without a seat belt, that is my sovereign right as a free individual and no one, especially not the government, has any business interfering with my activities so long as they do not initiate force or fraud on another.

And in most countries there's also the benefit of avoiding accident victims being a drain on tax payer funded health care.

And there is the nut of it! Taxpayer funded health care is nothing more than the thin edge of the Marxist Progressive wedge in its attempt to take complete paternalistic control of each and every individual and what they do, watch, read, speak, eat and breathe. That is in fact what Obamacare is all about. Obamacare is not about providing health care insurance to all, it is about making health care insurance so expensive and unprofitable that it drives the private insurance companies out of business, whereupon the President can declare a "health care emergency" and use his executive power to impose socialized medicine on the people of the United States without their consent.

Even in the US the argument might apply, as you have a form of compulsory health care participation. So if there's lots of automotive injuries, premiums go up, and those who wear seatbelts and are safe would be paying for those who aren't being safe.

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum

Nor have you addressed the inherent danger in allowing government to intrude so deeply into an individual's personal choices.

I've addressed that heaps of times. I'm ideologically more or less a libertarian (a social one, i.e. an anarchist), so I argue in favour of less rather than more government intrusion into personal lives. But I'm also a realist and realise that no ideologically pure system is likely to ever work, so society is best organised pragmatically around ideological points. And pragmatism says that a libertarian free for all would be detrimental to a lot of people, and that goes against the very point of coalescing into societies for mutual benefit.

You are no kind of Libertarian at all. You are a Marxist Socialist through and through, and what you just wrote proves it beyond any doubt. You don't like it when I discuss ideology because it conflicts with your ideology, which you cannot defend.

And you're a mentally retarded troll. Shouting "MARXIST" every time you can't debate properly is retarded.

Calling people names because you cannot defend your ideology is not just retarded, it's rude and stupid too.

Post ignored.

Evidently not, given your response to it.

[pErvinalia]

You went full retard years ago. What do you expect us to do??!

[Seth]

Well, I meant that I'm not addressing the content of it, other than to pour scorn on it. Seriously, these idiotic Marxist rants by him are so fucking retarded. I can't believe he doesn't have enough awareness to notice how ridiculous this nonsense is.

I like to point out Marxism when it rears its ugly head, even when it does so subtly and in disguise.

You cannot be a Libertarian and believe in Socialism at the same time. They are mutually exclusive ideologies.

[Seth]

You went full retard years ago. What do you expect us to do??!

I keep hoping that one day you will grow up and act like an adult. Alas, I wait in vain it seems.

[pErvinalia]

You deserve nothing but ridicule. Lift your game and people might start treating you like an adult.

And regarding your previous post... I don't "believe in Socialism". I'm a pragmatist who advocates for the good bits out of anarchism (libertarian socialism), socialism, and communism, where it is appropriate in today's world.

Regarding you and Marxism, you haven't got a fucking clue what Marxism is. You also don't seem to realise that a lot of socialists hate Marxists. In short, you're an isolated nutbag who has very little clue about anything outside his own narrow existence.

[pErvinalia]

Merry Christmas, by the way...