I agree, we should not abolish government regulation all together. I want the government to hold up individual rights as it intended, but not interfere too much with businesses (unless they commit fraud, or other criminal activity- this type of enforcement has historically and is currently lacking in our country right now). Harassing any citizen regardless of race, religion, orientation, etc. isn't right nor legal; this is a criminal matter. Having a public government run bus service that segregates is illegal. However, today in Minnesota if you have a small business (I believe it is less than 25 employees), you are free to hire who you chose and are not subject to equal opportunity employment. Go to your local dry cleaner (White Way and a few other chains are too big to fit into this) and see how many men they hire to work behind the counter. I know several women who say they just wish their company would just tell the men applicants they won't get hired but they don't- if it were known they were sexist their business would be in social market trouble, not legal. Any big organization whether government or corporate will have increased corruption. How do we control it? Trust the government? Trust the profit driven business? I don't have definite answers to non-perfect system we have (perfection will never exist). Take a look at some anti trust issues the government has tackled- Microsoft and DOJ, a waste of money and resources- and patent law? Browse over to Slashdat- http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/08/17/0437242/Why-Software-Patents-Are-a-Joke-mdash-Literally. Government regulation can be good, but it can also be nearly as bad as the slow moving reactions of the free market. I do wish the government would focus less on silly regulations and more on criminal enforcement in the corporate world. I wish government would cut excessive red tape. I also wish I had a definite end all answer, but with every system there will be inherent problems- this is not socially or ethically okay but we CANNOT fix everything by running to the government every time. I see you have chosen the answer that you think best suits everyone else, unfortunately not everyone else agrees with you entirely so it is not a solution. Neither are my thoughts, but at least I admit it and can define what is clearly not working in terms of regulation. On 08/20/2010 01:43 AM, Mike Miller wrote: > On Thu, 19 Aug 2010, Jeremy MountainJohnson wrote: > >> Well, in a free market, the 5% minority would probably start their own >> bus or transit service. And, a few majority folk might even want in on >> that because there is a small market of the minority wanting a better >> service and a small market of the majority who want a bus service that >> doesn't make the minority do stupid things. The free market isn't >> perfect, but most people will take the slow moving iron fist over >> excessive government intervention. > I'm not convinced by your argument that the government should allow > companies to discriminate against people on the basis of race, religion, > etc. It sounds pretty bad -- an ugly world that we have mostly been able > to put to an end. Let's not go back to that. > > >> A more recent example, Minneapolis used to have only a handful of taxis >> companies per city code- until one person challenged and succeeded in >> overturning this regulatory restriction that was intended to protect >> consumers but in modern times was just abused by a monopolistic group of >> companies for their own financial gain. > You can find loads of examples of bad government regulations, no doubt, > but my point is only that they are not *necessarily* bad, which was the > original claim. To find out if a regulation is bad, I'm saying, you have > to at least know what the regulation is. > > >> It goes both ways, free market and government regulation can be >> excessive or lacking at times depending on the issue at hand. Honestly I >> hate both sides almost equally with a slight inclination toward the free >> market. > I don't see it as two sides. We have both together. For example, we have > a free market in owner-sold used cars -- the government does nothing to > control prices -- but the government does have some kinds of regulations > in different times/places like the so-called "lemon laws" to protect > consumers. > > I want markets to set prices for almost everything with the proviso that I > want government to prevent collusion, price fixing and coercive > monopolies. I want to encourage real competition. The real die-hard free > marketeers don't want government even to prevent price fixing. I think > they are wrong, very wrong, and also kinda naive, usually exceedingly > self-assured and lacking in knowledge of economics, history and other > related matters. They think all they need to know is "market good, > government bad," and they can apply that mantra to any situation, size it > up, and tell you the answer. > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list