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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >A lovely dream. Know of that working anywhere?

Yes.  Most of human history.  Regulation almost always serves only as a 
'guild law' to quell competion.  For example, in some parts of the country 
you need 
a special license to do any type of work on a person's house, even nailing up 
the gutters.  Here in this county there is only an electrical license and for 
the most part other than that, anyone who hangs out their shingle can do any 
type of work for pay they like.  Our houses are not falling down.  The notion 
that if you didn't regulate the building trade all the houses would fall down 
and people would be living in caves is utterly false .... and yet, that is 
the 
very sort of thing that is always suggested.

> 
> >This speaks to the same mindset of various plans that ask that  
> industries regulate themselves. I find it naive at best and shameful  
> in reality. Asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

The main problem in discussing doing away with government control over so 
many aspects of our existence is that we are now so conditioned to view 
government as the solution, that the very though of removing the government 
from the 
situation leaves people with the impression that there is nothing left.  No 
direct control by the government means chaos and anarchy.  This default view 
is 
largely the product of brainwashing and Lynda could tell you the source of it.

Take in the case of pollution.  The Pigeon River rises in NC and flows into 
Tennessee.  Near the border the paper mills take in large amounts of the 
water 
and discharge it back into the river heavily polluted.  Before the EPA, 
before 
the government solution, every land owner and water user downstream from the 
mills had standing in court to petition for redress.  The pollution of such a 
large river would keep an industry in court forever defending every lawsuit 
based on its pollution of every individual property owner and municipality 
downstream.  But with the advent of the EPA, they all lost their standing and 
the 
EPA alone can bring action against them, ostensibly to bring big guns to bear 
on the culprit all at once.  But it has not happened that way.  One agency of 
one branch of the government can be bought off, and so it has been.  Down 
stream the people still call it the "Dead Pigeon River".



To illustrate my first point, people imagine that if the EPA were dissolved, 
it would be free license and carte blanche to pollute at will and they 
imagine 
that’s the way it was before the EPA.  Not so.


 >>  Even with  
> government certification there is myriad medical disaster, people  
> having the wrong organ removed, mixing up patients, hospital  
> infections galore (my daughter's meningeal encephalitis is an  
> example). I will not say that more government regulation will solve  
> all the problems, but if not, what will?


The mistake in reasoning here is to think, 'We've got this system of 
regualtion and bad things still happen, so if we DIDN'T have even that, it 
would be 
much worse."

Overall regualtion is a sure formula for enforced mediocrity.  Sure, the very 
wost might be weeded out, but the very best is also precluded.  An exaple of 
this is raw milk, which in this state (and those surrounding this state) it 
is 
strictly illegal to sell it or give it away.  Even the ploy of selling it as 
pet food has been squashed by requiring the seller to obtain a pet food 
manufacturing permit and then dye the milk blue.  Cooked (pasturized) milk is 
not as 
healthy as raw milk.  Spoiled milk would be bad and dangerous, so the 
regulations say that you cannot use your own judgement as to the source and 
condition 
of the milk, you are barred from choosing the best milk available, you must 
settle for the mediocre.

They key is that the myth of regulation destroys the need for personal 
responsibility and diligence.  We had relatives in the hospital recently.  
One of us 
stayed right by them the whole time and when anyone came into the room, 
including the doctors and nurses, we told them to wash their hands.  They are 
supposed to anyway, and they are supposed to do it in front of you.  That's 
how 
most hospital infections spread.

Before the USDA's organic program, you had scores of different certifying 
agencies, almost all of them private.  You had the choice of putting 
confidence 
and credence in them or not.  Then comes the USDA usurption of the word 
'organic'.  Now it can be called organic if it is fertilized with chemical 
potassium 
nitrate but can be denied the 'organic' label if it has been fertilized with 
manure.  But the point is, your choice to use your own research and 
experience 
is taken away.

--------------------------------------

So the libertarian way is not a chaotic free for all.  If you are not sure 
and if you do not have confidence in a doctor's or hospital's source of 
credentials, then don't use their services.  But you must also be able to 
choose any 
doctor you like, whether the government says they are OK or not.



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