Libertarian Environmentalism by dreamtrove

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

There must always be enough government to enforce the rules.

I think liquidating the assets of the bad actor until the damage is paid for is straightforward.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:36 AM

Prevention is also not a bad idea. All you need for that is an educated public and a close-knit community, where party divisions and bribes don't get in the way of health considerations.

If businesses are mostly small and local, and are part of a close-knit community, Bob is less likely to say, well, I played with George as a kid, but I'm going to go drill up his yard, pollute his water and gas his house now.

The problem is that right now you have lots of little businesses, but they're outsiders, and they're quick and move around and change names a lot. Normally this would still be addressable if the community as a whole pressured the company, enough bad PR, vanishing customers/ profit margins and project set backs, and people do give up or negotiate. But the other problem is they've also bought support from higher up in the food chain.

So my other recommendation is don't have anyone higher up in the food chain that can override the interests of an entire town.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:42 AM

Anthony

Thanks, but I strictly want non-govt'l solutions. I have watched for decades as the govt. steps in against the environment, and believe that within a couple of decades, the majority of all species of life on Earth will perish as a result, in fact, I am not only certain, I can prove that this is so.

But back to the issue at hand, implied liability is a good idea. It would be best if it were inherent in the economic system, so that any money could snap back, I've gnawed on this before.

At the moment, we have to deal with the economic system we have, and the model of govt economic punishment in the past has been "Oh look, you made a booboo on America, and you made 100 billion dollars doing it, here, pay 100 million dollar fine, and we'll use that to go buy some more weapons."

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:39 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I must not understand what you mean by 'no government.'

I can not see how you can enforce any rule system without a government. Whatever you decide upon, whether it be economic, punitive, or whatever... it'll have to be acted on by some body.

The moment you appoint someone or some group to act on behalf of the community, you've created a piece of government.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 7:38 AM

HARDWARE

1) Remove the myth of corporate personhood.

2) Remove liability caps on environmental damage and personal injury.

3) Make each and every corporate officer and executives personally responsible for the actions of their corporations.

4) Destroy several dozen corporations and hundreds of people's lives by seizing their property and assets as compensation for cleaning up the damage their companies have caused.

5) Stand back and watch corporations begin to fall all over themselves to make limiting environmental impact and increasing safety jobs number 1 and 2.

6) Socially engineer a return of the need to hold one's personal honor sacred.

7) Re-introduce dueling as a method to remove bad apples from society.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

...and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Luke 22:36

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 8:43 AM

phooey, deleted response.

Byte,

1)these small companies are created and destroyed at the whim of TPTB. killing any of them is a temp. setback.

2) As Condi says "We have to be right every single time, the terrorists only have to be right once." If we band fracking but one of the many towns upstream doesn't, we all lose our clean water.

Anthony

In absence of govt.

We've had two eco prez.'s TR, and Nixon. Assume the govt. is going to be anti-environment. Assuming that it would protect the environment is like assuming that it would prevent war. It's not just that the track record is terrible, the concept of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse is just a flawed model, and no tweak is going to fix it and make it a good idea.

You guys are going to need to solve this one anyway, or your whole libertarian agenda is shot. When any libertarian society becomes synonymous with toxic waste dump, it will be like socialism and genocide. Only a few fringe loons will ever support the idea, and the world will act quickly to crush any new one which crops up.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 10:07 AM

Well, obviously you have to defeat TPTB, which is why I said that bit about not having anyone higher on the food chain.

But my answer is small business, self-sufficiency, sustainability, and community focus once TPTB are gone. That's what my answer always is. I think once corruption is extinct, or nearly so, that'll work pretty fine.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 3:45 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Naive. Sorry Byte. Show me ONE society where there is not a TPTB. You pull down one, and another rises to the top. The most you can hope to do is limit the power of any entity, be it individual, government or corporation, while at the same time acknowlegding that people will always try to obtain power. We do that in our relationships at all levels of society, from friends and families, community organisations, employment places right up to government. To deny that is the way that people operate is dangerous and deluded, which frankly describes most anarchists. Power struggles exist even, maybe even ESPECIALLY in the absence of systems and processes. Removing a body of governance will not prevent people from obtaining and using power, as most revolutions demonstrate.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:20 PM

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:21 PM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

DT, you know that thing you keep talking about, where you claim that allowing one side to frame the debate results in a fixed debate?

You're doing that.

You're starting from a premise that government has never, can never, and will never do anything positive towards the environment.

I do not concede that point. I was actually in Los Angeles in 1972, 1985, 1997, and 2003. I've seen what government regulation did for air quality there. And I've seen what NO regulation did for air quality there, too. I've seen an entire city where all vegetation was brown 30 feet above the ground - looking at trees at a distance, there was a solid line above which every single one of them was brown and dying. It's not that way now, and hasn't been in a long, long time. I've seen lakes catch on fire. I've seen rivers where if you fell in, you were rushed to the emergency room.

No corporation took it upon themselves to improve these conditions, and I'm skeptical that any corporation WOULD do so unless heavily incentivized to do so. By a government. Because no other entity has the size and power to push corporations to do things they don't want to do.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
1) Remove the myth of corporate personhood.

2) Remove liability caps on environmental damage and personal injury.

3) Make each and every corporate officer and executives personally responsible for the actions of their corporations.

4) Destroy several dozen corporations and hundreds of people's lives by seizing their property and assets as compensation for cleaning up the damage their companies have caused.

5) Stand back and watch corporations begin to fall all over themselves to make limiting environmental impact and increasing safety jobs number 1 and 2.

6) Socially engineer a return of the need to hold one's personal honor sacred.

7) Re-introduce dueling as a method to remove bad apples from society.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

Waiting for Wulfie or DT to chime in with their usual anti-"social engineering" diatribes...

I'm with ya on doing away with liability limits and tort reform, though. Your points 1 and 3 might be mutually exclusive; if you grant corporate personhood, you SHOULD be able to hold corporate officers responsible for the actions of the whole, up to and including the death penalty.

What happens if a "bad apple" wins the duel? I'm probably not what you'd consider a "good apple", being a liberal and progressive and all, but I'm also not a bad shot, having been trained from 4 years old by a multi-time Army pistol match champion (my dad).

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:54 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Bad people can make good duelists, and are often better at it due to lack of hesitation and scruples. What a fun hobby for a man who likes to kill. Simply provoke one fight after another against opponents you are sure of defeating.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 4:56 PM

Kinda what I was thinking, Anthony. I don't really see how it weeds out the "bad apples".

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:57 PM

There's a Firefly-relevant point here. Atherton Wing seemed like a psychopath to me.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 6:52 PM

The question here is looking for a libertarian solution for the environment. Without one, the libertarian position is dead in the water because it will become associated with, as it is now being associated with, pro-environmental destruction.

Two years ago, most of the people I know considered themselves libertarians. Now most of the people I know say they'd never vote for a libertarian because of their horrid anti-green stance, and that we need authoritarian govt.

That happened in part because of fuck-ups from libertarians, and in part because of scare tactics by TPTB, but they have a point: The libertarian movement does not have an answer to how their social ideals will protect the Earth from destruction

I present

Mike.

Hardware's was a joke post.

I did not state that the govt. never did anything for the environment, I gave them Nixon and Teddy. The thing is, Bush will kill the environment, and every time we get someone like him, that will be the result. No one can "unkill" the environment, so the net effect is damage to the environment. Sometimes the govt. is killing it, sometimes it's not. But it has turned large areas into desert, clear cut all the forests and extincted 90% of the species living here in 1776. That, coupled with its records on indians, slavery, war, and treatment of environments and people of other countries makes the US govt. probably the most anti-Earth institution ever created.

All debates are framed, it's a matter of how they are framed, the frame of this one is simple:

Can someone come up with a libertarian pro-environment position, or do we accept Libertarians anti-Earth image? (If you don't consider yourself a libertarian, which I suspect you don't, then this question isn't for you.)

A "let the govt. handle it" regardless of my opinion on that solution, is NOT a libertarian solution, by the very definition.

Rand Paul says that GasStem has a libertarian right to go onto your land and dynamite it for profit if they have mineral rights, regardless of where they were gotten, from the govt, inherited, or sold to them by you, knowingly or not.

I think Rand Paul's analysis is severely fucked up. But that's the current libertarian position.

Anyone got a better one? Please fire away.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 7:22 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I must be confused, because the definition of Libertarianism to me is: The least government needed to protect people's rights.

It's fairly simple to extrapolate such protection to extend to 'not destroying the world I live in.'

Your premise of no government is not only alien to my philosophy, but alien to any reality that contains laws.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 8:23 PM

Anthony,

If the govt. has destroyed the majority of species, by any measure, and clearcut all of the forests and poisoned the water and the air, what possible measure of environmental protection do you consider is sufficient?

At any rate, a solution called "let the govt. have all the power and it will save us" is not even remotely libertarian.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 8:35 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

What preposterous extremes you deal with.

The best situation is to create a government-enforced system where parties which cause damage are wholly liable for that damage, to the utmost limit of their assets- which are frozen and liquidated as required upon detection of an incident, and distributed to parties affected and to ecological reconstruction efforts.

In any event, what is the alternative? Whoever you give the power to, they will potentially screw you over with that power. Whether it be government, industry, or your neighbor Fred.

This isn't a Libertarian question. It's a question of life. This problem exists under all proposed governmental systems, and also the absence of them.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 8:46 PM

It's not a preposterous extreme. Species loss and forest cover in the US as well as pollution are completely undisputed issues.

As I said, anecdotal, but I'm quite sure is very real: The libertarian movement is sacrificing all credibility over the issue of the environment.

Sure, the problem exists with or without govt. The "let the govt. handle it" has an obviously terrible track record, but it also is not a libertarian argument, and so does not strengthen the libertarian position, rather it weakens it considerably.

I was fishing for ideas. I thought someone here might actually have one. So far, I appear to be mistaken.

As I see it, there are two problems: 1) If there is no libertarian environmental solution, that is the end of libertarianism having any chance, and 2) if there is no libertarian environmentalism, there is no effective environmentalism.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011 9:13 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I honestly don't track you.

The Libertarian solution to the problem of environmental concerns is to stop shielding the bad actors from the consequences of their actions. To make them as liable as any man who burns down his neighbor's house, or poisons his neighbor's well. The Libertarian solution is to create equitable and unlimited liability, without legal loopholes through which bad actors can escape.

The solution, Dream, is to have government set down its shield, and treat everyone equally.

The problem where government facilitates ecological destruction is when they play favorites. So strip away the laws that protect favorites, and you're most of the way there. Less government for more protection.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 12:49 AM

Honestly, DT, you're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and wondering what's for dinner, when the iceberg's already slashed the side of the boat open...

You worry that the libertarians will "lose credibility" over their lack of an environmental plank for their platform. My position is that they lost credibility when they allowed the tea parties and the neo-cons to take over the movement. Anthony here is a libertarian; you should be more than a little disturbed and concerned that he finds himself more closely aligned with the likes of me these days than he does with the likes of such "neo-libertarians" as Rappy and Wulfie. They are the new face of the "libertarian" movement in this country, and they - not a "fuck 'em all, I got mine!" stance on the environment - are where libertarianism lost all credibility.

If you want credibility back for the movement, think about re-branding it. Libertarianism is now as tainted as the GOP was after Bush. For a whole segment of the population, it's now seen as essentially the same thing as Bush, or even worse, as a mass of misinformed people who are the butt of jokes with punch lines like "Keep your government hands off my Medicare!"

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 12:59 AM

By the way, I'm not convinced HW's post was "a joke". There were some decent ideas that he outlined, and a few incongruous ones that didn't track.

LIbertarianism suffers the same shortcoming as Adam Smith-style "free market" capitalism. It relies on "enlightened self-interest", and discounts the fact that many, many, MANY corporations and people are so very actively NOT "enlightened", and will in fact quite often vote in direct opposition to their own self-interest.

Communism fails because it presupposes an ideal world wherein everyone acts in a totally rational way. Pure socialism fails for the same reason. Pure free-market capitalism and pure libertarianism suffer the same fate, as does anarchy. People keep tripping over the "ism" part of these systems, where they should be noticing that the glaring feature such failures share is the "pure" ideology. People are never so dangerous as when they become zealots; political movements are no different.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 3:59 AM

Anthony,

I guess I'm operating under the assumption that that won't happen. Govt. is always going to be corrupt, but let's take that for a moment:

Assume they do, and we can get rid of the corporate infiltration into govt. Govt. doesn't really have an excellent track record of cracking down on abusers. My neighbor for years burned high sulfur coal and it pumped black smoke into my lawn. He put the smoke stack very low to the ground, so it did not blow over. When confronted, he said it was his right. No one was interested in interfering, despite that my air was unbreathable. The only thing that solved this was he moved away. I guess the other solution could have been me moving away.

So, if the govt. stops protecting polluters, who is going to hold them accountable?

Beyond the issue that "the govt." is not a very libertarian argument, it's also clearly not the case. They have a 200 year record of not doing it.

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 4:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Naive. Sorry Byte. Show me ONE society where there is not a TPTB. You pull down one, and another rises to the top. The most you can hope to do is limit the power of any entity, be it individual, government or corporation, while at the same time acknowlegding that people will always try to obtain power. We do that in our relationships at all levels of society, from friends and families, community organisations, employment places right up to government. To deny that is the way that people operate is dangerous and deluded, which frankly describes most anarchists. Power struggles exist even, maybe even ESPECIALLY in the absence of systems and processes. Removing a body of governance will not prevent people from obtaining and using power, as most revolutions demonstrate.

Magons.

From the early morning on, I spent most of yesterday breaking into cold sweats at random while I struggled to keep feelings of despair and agitation under control that were more consistent with someone in a bunker after an air raid alarm than at a desk. Normally, on my bus ride, I wear a hooded mask to keep people from talking to me.

When I got home, I tried to respond to your message, only to find that I had thoroughly exhausted myself, and was unable to form a coherent response, let alone have more complicated thoughts than discussions pertaining to Firefly. I had also made myself nauseated, and was more than a little irritated with myself.

Today, I scarcely have more energy because I was unable to sleep, but I am now trying to respond to you, because I owe you the courtesy of a response.

I have extreme anxiety problems, trust issues, paranoid delusions, and I suffer from panic attacks.

I tell you this, because I want you to understand my perspective when I tell you why I believe, unequivocally, that your generalization about human nature is incorrect. I will give you that SOME relationships and humans behave the way you describe - leaders of business, leaders of countries. And, as you mentioned, and which I assure you I am ENTIRELY aware, the people waiting in the wings to take over those businesses and those countries.

But if all human nature were as you describe, and everyone I know really was plotting against me, and trying to control me, then I would not be INSANE.

As to the issue of TPTB. If you never try to imagine a time where things may be different, then they never will be. If you never imagine things can improve, they will ALWAYS become worse.

DT: Sorry, used all my energy again.

Kwicko: I know you're pissed at DT right now, but this is an important discussion. If you have any ideas, please share them.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 5:38 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
So, if the govt. stops protecting polluters, who is going to hold them accountable?

The folks who's environment they polluted, prolly in a not very efficient and hostile fashion, as many human endeavors are, but suffice it to say it wouldn't take many of those types of incidents to show clear consequences in a cause and effect fashion even a child could understand.

Remember, protests evolved from riots that intially were more or less outright lynchings of lords who had pushed the people too far just one too many times - it's why today they're laughable because the threat of violence has been all but removed from them.

Oh, and Byte - I feel ya, but always worth quoting Kropotkin and Mutual Aid, when it comes to such things, because if we were not naturally cooperative as a species, how did we build civilization in the first place, neh ?

People do not cooperate because someone sticks a gun to their head and orders them to, they do so because that's how people ARE, have always been - those who do not do so are an aberration, created entirely by a society that rewards destructive, inhuman behavior, and is doomed to fail eventually for that exact reason.

The only question remaining is what to replace it with, but that's not really even a question because people are what they are, social creatures who prefer to build rather than destroy.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:04 AM

Quote:
Kwicko: I know you're pissed at DT right now, but this is an important discussion. If you have any ideas, please share them.

Byte, you have me at a disadvantage, and seem to have misread me. I'm *extremely* pressed for time these days, working 80+ hours a week, but find myself still wanting to participate. As such, I've been more than usually blunt to several posters, yourself included. It's not intended as an attack on your person, but merely a pointing out of some points of disagreement.

At the moment, I'm not currently terribly pissed at anyone (well, anyone HERE who isn't in public office, anyway!). I'm not "pissed" at DT. Perhaps a mite exasperated with some of his notions, but hardly angry. As the Angriest Man on the Internet™, I find myself oddly apathetic about several things. Being busy can do that to you! :)

Ideas? I'm thinking.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:25 AM

Frem,

That's a good start.

Okay, analyzing the problem: (correct me if I'm wrong)

1) The people would naturally get together to stop someone from destroying the Earth

2) they don't do so because a larger authority is putting a gun to their head

3) The govt. gun says "Don't organize without us, let us take care of it

4) The people step out of the way and wait for govt. to solve the problem

5) Govt. goes to the corporations who own it and asks them what they want done

6) So mote it be.

Now, one snag, sometimes in the third world people organize, and sometimes they don't. They need a little push, sometimes an inordinate amount of nudging, but people do coalesce.

The tendency of people to fall back on 4) is a large part of the problem, because it takes the weight off their shoulders, even when they know that 5) will be the result, they "hope" that it isn't. This is the problem that I was having with Anthony's response.

So, I'd say it's a couple of things that keep the people from organizing, one is the govt. gun threatening any independent organization, like, say, a pitchfork mob trying to stop the frackers. And the second would be people's natural tendency to defer to authority, the govt. as savior, whatever.

So, let's assume that we have to enact this solution in the current environment, and so we don't get to wait for society to collapse or the govt. to be overthrown, nor can we wait for govt. action which will never come.

How do we organize people towards their "natural cooperation" I think you just called it, without crossing the line, and prevent them from adopting a "let's wait for the govt. to fix it," even if the EPA is all oil men.

See recently posted FEMA thread for an example of a comparison of natural human cooperation vs. govt. intervention as a solution to a simple problem:

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=17&t=48356

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:38 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Keep in mind that when you get your pitchfork mob going, you've now got a government. A really bad one.

You organize your mob under rules, and you've got a marginally better government, but one that is still uncontrolled unless...

You enforce those rules. And now you've got the sort of government interference that you say won't work.

Let me be frank. Protecting the environment isn't something that disorganized individuals can do. And organized individuals are government.

You are operating under the default presumption that any government involvement instantly leads to wholesale ecological disaster.

So your premise is self-defeating. No organization is useless and dangerous. Organization is government. And therefore useless and dangerous.

You're going to have to accept that some level of government may be beneficial, or you're not really a libertarian or arguing a libertarian perspective. There's a word for "No Government" and it's not libertarianism.

--Anthony

_______________________________________________

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all”

Jacob Hornberger

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.”

Mahatma Gandhi

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 9:54 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The question here is looking for a libertarian solution for the environment. Without one, the libertarian position is dead in the water because it will become associated with, as it is now being associated with, pro-environmental destruction.

Could be those are your only options. Which I don't mean as an attack, Im just not sure there is much of a middle ground that would work in the real world.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 12:00 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
I do not concede that point. I was actually in Los Angeles in 1972, 1985, 1997, and 2003. I've seen what government regulation did for air quality there. And I've seen what NO regulation did for air quality there, too. I've seen an entire city where all vegetation was brown 30 feet above the ground - looking at trees at a distance, there was a solid line above which every single one of them was brown and dying. It's not that way now, and hasn't been in a long, long time. I've seen lakes catch on fire. I've seen rivers where if you fell in, you were rushed to the emergency room.

No corporation took it upon themselves to improve these conditions, and I'm skeptical that any corporation WOULD do so unless heavily incentivized to do so. By a government. Because no other entity has the size and power to push corporations to do things they don't want to do.

Yup. Me, too...I was surprised at the improvement, it made a believer out of me.

There is no way to protect the environment except government. Capitalism will never, never bring it about, for reasons stated by others. Small and self-sufficient is a lovely dream, but just that: a dream. It’ll never happen in a society as big as ours.

I actually like Hardware’s (except 6---impossible---and 7; see Mike’s post re 5). Yes, it would result in #5, however. But not holding corporate execs responsible merely means the corporation ups the price of whatever it sells to pay off the fines...in other words, WE pay.

Quote:
But it has turned large areas into desert, clear cut all the forests and extincted(sic) 90% of the species living here in 1776. That, coupled with its records on indians, slavery, war, and treatment of environments and people of other countries makes the US govt. probably the most anti-Earth institution ever created.

Gee, the “government” did all of that, eh? No corporations did any of it, no private enterprise was ever responsible for anything like, oh, I dunno, remember Erin Brokovich? PG&E would NEVER do any of that shit, would they? I think you’re willfully blind to the damage private enterprise has created over the years...

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If the govt. has destroyed the majority of species, by any measure, and clearcut all of the forests and poisoned the water and the air, what possible measure of environmental protection do you consider is sufficient?

Interesting way to frame a question, given I don’t believe it HAS. See what I mean?

Quote:
In any event, what is the alternative? Whoever you give the power to, they will potentially screw you over with that power. Whether it be government, industry, or your neighbor Fred.

This isn't a Libertarian question. It's a question of life. This problem exists under all proposed governmental systems, and also the absence of them.

BEAUTIFUL Anthony!

Quote:
1) If there is no libertarian environmental solution, that is the end of libertarianism having any chance, and 2) if there is no libertarian environmentalism, there is no effective environmentalism.

As far as the “libertarians” of today, there IS no environmental solution, you showed a prime example yourself with Paul. I don’t get your #2 however, as it presupposes that there can be no effective environmentalism without libertarianism. How’d you get that??

Mike, you got it, as far as I’m concerned:

Quote:
People keep tripping over the "ism" part of these systems, where they should be noticing that the glaring feature such failures share is the "pure" ideology. People are never so dangerous as when they become zealots; political movements are no different.

Once again I say “compromise”...it’s the only thing that work in the end. Getting “isms” to work TOGETHER, to compromise here and there, is the only way, as I see it, for ANY forward motion.

If you “get rid of the corporate infiltration into govt.”, you’ve got your best shot, in my opinion. Small government, from what I understand of libertarians, is what REAL libertarians want, not “no government”. And small government, if you get rid of corporate infiltration, should have as one of its reasons for being the protection of the country’s citizens. I don’t know how you achieve any of this. All I can tell you is pressure put on government by environmental groups HAS helped in many ways.

Quote:
I will give you that SOME relationships and humans behave the way you describe - leaders of business, leaders of countries

Byte, it doesn’t take ALL human nature; all you need is for those you mentioned to have the majority of the POWER, which they do now, for things to go wrong. It doesn’t take everyone in a corporation to be bad, or everyone in government...it only takes those who make the decisions; everyone else is just trying to make a living and survive. In other words, it only takes a very few with the power to be corrupt or selfish, and that affects many, many others. See?

Quote:
The folks who's environment they polluted, prolly in a not very efficient and hostile fashion, as many human endeavors are, but suffice it to say it wouldn't take many of those types of incidents to show clear consequences in a cause and effect fashion even a child could understand.

I reject that, Frem. It’s an obvious and individual solution, but violence doesn’t solve anything, and would just bring about more violence from the other side. In other words, he with the biggest guns wins...how is that different from dueling? DT, you like to “analyze” the situation from your stance, but that may not be the complete, or correct, analysis. I was going to take your example and go the other direction with it, but I see Anthony did it perfectly for me.

To answer the very first question: I don't believe today's libertarians DO give a damn about the environment. Now, if you could go back and get the original idea of libertarianism going, "government where necessary" would be a valid concept and there's your answer. IF you could keep corporate interests from buying out the government, big or small.

I still think your initial premise is wrong; yes, government has destroyed the environment (if you don't know about the clear-cutting of our old-growth redwoods up North of us and the selling of them to China at cut-rate prices, I do!). But government has also SAVED the environment, and I maintain that private enterprise has done FAR more damage to species and the environment than government ever has in this country. Neither of us can prove which is more at fault, so it's a moot point. We just disagree.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 12:06 PM

Quote:
Byte, it doesn’t take ALL human nature; all you need is for those you mentioned to have the majority of the POWER, which they do now, for things to go wrong. It doesn’t take everyone in a corporation to be bad, or everyone in government...it only takes those who make the decisions; everyone else is just trying to make a living and survive. In other words, it only takes a very few with the power to be corrupt or selfish, and that affects many, many others. See?

Oh hey, and I hate all those organizations for that very reason. Lookit that.

Let's pretend for my sake that I'm not a drooling brain damaged zombie banging my head against the wall, if only to flatter my self-esteem.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 1:10 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

Magons.

From the early morning on, I spent most of yesterday breaking into cold sweats at random while I struggled to keep feelings of despair and agitation under control that were more consistent with someone in a bunker after an air raid alarm than at a desk. Normally, on my bus ride, I wear a hooded mask to keep people from talking to me.

When I got home, I tried to respond to your message, only to find that I had thoroughly exhausted myself, and was unable to form a coherent response, let alone have more complicated thoughts than discussions pertaining to Firefly. I had also made myself nauseated, and was more than a little irritated with myself.

Today, I scarcely have more energy because I was unable to sleep, but I am now trying to respond to you, because I owe you the courtesy of a response.

I have extreme anxiety problems, trust issues, paranoid delusions, and I suffer from panic attacks.

I tell you this, because I want you to understand my perspective when I tell you why I believe, unequivocally, that your generalization about human nature is incorrect. I will give you that SOME relationships and humans behave the way you describe - leaders of business, leaders of countries. And, as you mentioned, and which I assure you I am ENTIRELY aware, the people waiting in the wings to take over those businesses and those countries.

But if all human nature were as you describe, and everyone I know really was plotting against me, and trying to control me, then I would not be INSANE.

As to the issue of TPTB. If you never try to imagine a time where things may be different, then they never will be. If you never imagine things can improve, they will ALWAYS become worse.

Geez, Byte. I had no idea my response would cause such a reaction. I'm really sorry if it sent you into a bad state. Not my intention at all.

If it is any consolation, I don't see that the fact that power dynamics exist in all human relationships as meaning that humanity if completely frakked, or even fundamentally bad. I didn't intent my post to convey that at ALL, but perhaps I feel more comfortable in acknowledging that than a lot of people do. It's kind of a key component in my job, so perhaps that is partially why.

Perhaps I can explain it a bit better. We are a social species, evolved to function in groups and I believe that is where we do best - if those groups are functional of course. All groups will naturally develop a power structure, with a person or group who will lead. There will always be leaders. In a best case scenario, in my view, there will be structures within a system that limits the amount of power a person can wield, there will be transparent systems for 'how you get to lead', there will be some capacity for participating in decision making for everyone, and there will be a way of turfing bad leadership as well as leadership succession. The structure usually takes the form of laws or a constitution, but may also be conventions or traditions that hold it together.

One of the main problems with communism was a denial of power dynamics, a denial of human nature, and so there were no structures in place to limit power or to have succession for leadership. Because the dogma said 'we have no leaders', which was just lies and hence you got the bloody power struggles and tyranny that dogged this ideological form of society.

Conversely, one of the strengths of democracy and I might say, particularly that which followed the American revolution was the ackowledgement that unless otherwise checked, power would concentrate and tyranny might follow. Hence you have constitutions, legal systems, conventions et al which guide the process of power.

Now I acknowledge that the system to keep power in check is no longer working and needs an overhaul, which I guess it what you are trying to say, Byte. The current system no longer supports limitation of power, and in fact actually in many cases, supports its concentration. What you need is an overhaul of the checks and balances.

Hope this explains my position a little more clearly and sorry to have caused you distress.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 1:18 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Hey, Byte, in no way would I even CONSIDER maligning your intelligence...I was pointing out that I agree with you, most people are decent human beings, but that doesn't preclude the few who get power from doing things to harm all the others--or ignore the well being of all the others--for profit. That's all.

Magons pretty much explained it better than me, just know that I didn't intend to impune your intelligence, I was just trying to clarify what I thought was a misunderstanding.

I'm sorry things are going shitty, I hope you get a chance to get some rest, AND to do something sane and pleasant. You deserve it!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 1:24 PM

You didn't, the anxiety attacks started at about 5 am yesterday, well before you posted. They had no discernable cause, but that happens.

You have explained the misunderstanding, I am content. I apologize if I overreacted.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 1:26 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Hope you feel better soon.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 2:16 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Oh, man, you have my deepest sympathy. When I was 18, I had a panic attack (not the same thing, I know, but similar) on my birthday. I thought someone had dropped acid in my drink (the one psychadellic I would never take was LSD). It got so intense I thought I was going to die. Went away that night, came back the next morning. I had them off and on for six MONTHS...driving to work, working at my job, were incredibly difficult. Didn't know what it was, but eventually my mom had me see a p-doc, who smiled and said "they're panic attacks; don't worry, they'll go away". BIG help--that was in the 60s, or just a bad p-doc; I should think they'd offer some kind of downer or something. It was six months I'll NEVER forget, and I've never had one since, thank gawd!

I hope it all passes soonest and you feel better. May I offer you

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 3:32 PM

Quote:
Posted by Niki:

I actually like Hardware’s (except 6---impossible---and 7; see Mike’s post re 5). Yes, it would result in #5, however. But not holding corporate execs responsible merely means the corporation ups the price of whatever it sells to pay off the fines...in other words, WE pay.

Okay, *trying* to parse my words here, and play nice, and please don't anyone take this the wrong way (especially you, Niki), but this rankles me. Not what you posted, but PART of what you posted - the idea that "they'll just pass it along to the consumers" (not a quote from you; just a generic thing I keep hearing whenever it's suggested that corporations pay their fair share, or liabilities should be lowered, etc.).

OF COURSE they'll pass it along to the consumers. They always do. I'm shipping orders to Canada this week, and prices are up to around $180 a pallet, from $140 each three months ago. That's all down to the price of gas and diesel, and they're passing their higher prices on to me in the form of higher prices. Corporations do that. What bugs me is the cop-out attitude of people using that as an excuse to NOT regulate those corporations, for fear of them charging higher prices.

Okay, environmental regulation will raise prices. And paying out massive fines and settlements and damages will raise prices. At some point, those corporations that keep raping and pillaging will (a) go out of business and make way for better corporations, or (b) get their shit together and quit raping and pillaging the environment, because they'll figure out that it's actually CHEAPER to give a fuck than it is to not give a fuck.

Besides, that old saw about "they'll just pass the higher prices on to the consumer", if you took it to its logical conclusion, would mean that we should never charge corporations ANY taxes (property, corporate, income, tariffs, etc.), they should never pay ANY rent or lease for their stores and warehouses (they'll just pass that cost onto their customers, after all!), they should never have to pay ANY wages or salaries, etc.

So yes, they WOULD pass such costs along to their customers. For a little while. Until someone came along with a better plan and a better (cleaner) way to run a company, at which point Company A would go the way of the dodo and Company B would set up their better, greener mousetrap factory on the former site of Company A's warehouse.

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 5:00 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Niki, violence of itself rarely solves anything, but when one side has free reign and a complete monopoly on its use without consequence - abuse is all but inevitable, the lessons of Blair Mountain are very clear, so long as the Government, whatever form it takes, is wholly on the side of the polluters and exploiters, they're gonna do what they do without regard to adverse effects on the populace.

Remove that protection, and it no longer becomes profitable to do so - hired goons cost money, more money than working it out with the community would, and as it has been noted, corporations operate on profit/loss regardless of morality, so all it'd take would be putting some actions in the "loss" category for them to cease.

Which may, in the short term, provoke some violence, yes - but in the long run prevents it, besides, what can one really call negligent pollution BUT an act of violence ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 6:22 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht

I hope you feel better soon Byte, your weekend is starting so hopefully you can spend some time doing things that settle you and make you happy. Hardware's list is somewhat silly in some ways but I think he has some valid points in that corporations need to not be allowed to get away with the stuff they are getting away with now, whether that's by government regulation or by pissed off lynchmobs remains to be seen. And I agree that people in corporations, and in general in our society today, tend to distance themselves from their actions, aren't willing to take responsability and think that they honestly don't have to take responsability and it causes problems like this, environmental distruction. If people knew they would be held accountable for this stuff they'd think twice about doing it.

I agree that its mostly the corporations to blame for rutting up the earth, at least in our modern times it is. I agree with Anthony and Quicko that if we don't have government to regulate corporations then there really isn't a way to do it, except for the above mentioned lynchmob, but that starts looking like a government once the lynchmob starts organizing and enforcing rules on a regular basis. I agree with Magon's that if there is a power vacuum then someone will fill it, guaranteed. I agree with Niki that it sounds wonderful to live in village based societies, it would be super cool, I'd enjoy it in some ways, but I think that our society is too big, there would have to be a cataclysmic event that drastically reduced our population and caused humanity to start fresh in order to enact such a village based system.

So DT a chara, lynchmobs are the only "non-government" solution I can think of for keeping corporations and other bad folk in line, but, as history has shown, there are some definite flaws with lynchmobs. But anything more organized than that would be considered a "government" whether it was local chieftains or provential nobles or town councils elected by their peers on a small scale, it all can be defined as government.

My own beliefs are a mixture of feeling that humanity is troublesome, selfish and powerseeking and that if it weren't for divine intervention we would have destroyed ourselves a few times over, and that people are given an inherrant drive to work together and have a moral compass built in that prompts us to help each other and form cohesive societies. I view the truth as a mixture of these two beliefs, a concoction made up of this dicotomy. We must believe that we have innate abilities to make the world better so we have something to strive to, to work towards, we need to all do what we can to make this world better and believing that we can is the first step to getting ourselves in gear to make things better in our own communities and in the world. We have to have something to aspire to, whether it happens or not isn't exactly the point in my opinion, we have to try or else we'll all be humped. Most of the time I believe that its actions and not thoughts that really matter, but in this case, the case of humanity doing its best, it starts with believing we can improve things for our own families and communities and then we can work towards making things better for each other.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, April 28, 2011 6:33 PM