[Lemmy]

An interesting video.

http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_howard.html

[BartSimpson]

Another RACIST!! libertarian.

[DrCaleb]

Another brilliant TED talk. He sounded a little choked up at the end.

I agree 100%. Not so much in Canada as what he was describing, but I see similar BS all the time. We need to stop focusing on the individual and start seeing the society that the individual is a part of.

Sometime the answer to stupid actions isn't a lawsuit, but playing the STFU card.

[Lemmy]

Just reminded me of the new "distracted driver" laws. We already have "careless" and "dangerous" driving. Do we also need "distracted"? Simpli-fuckin'-fy. Let the judges do their jobs.

[Zipperfish]

Thanks for that Lemmy. Very interesting. Some great quotes--"if you tell a pianist to be conscious of the notes she is playing, she won't be able to play."

[DrCaleb]

Lemmy wrote:

Just reminded me of the new "distracted driver" laws. We already have "careless" and "dangerous" driving. Do we also need "distracted"? Simpli-fuckin'-fy. Let the judges do their jobs.

+1. Stop trying to legislate against stupidity. It does no one any good.

Go to a law library some time, and see the rows upon rows of shelves and ask yourself how any one person is expected to know it all. There must be some law of which the average person is unaware, and is breaking while unaware. If everyone is expected to know all of the law, then why does it take many years of dedicated work to learn, and then one must specialize their knowledge to one area of law. eg: 'tort' law, or 'tax' law.

And yet, 'ignorance of the law is not an excuse'. BS.

[Brenda]

I think most of the laws written are based on common sense anyway. So if we could just remember we are not alone in this world, we wouldnt need all these stupid laws. Then again, I guess common sense and common courtesy are not that common after all...

[andyt]

I think society is way too fragmented for his goals to be achievable. We don't trust each other (often with good reason - ie mistrust of corporations or government) we play identity politics, and there's no sense of natural authority anymore. (Which might be a good thing - question authority.)

[commanderkai]

I'm not sure if there are many Tom Clancy fans, but did anybody read where Jack Ryan becomes president and reforms the tax laws? I think laws should be simplified. Tax laws. Criminal Law. So on so forth.

[Thanos]

Take the profit motive out of suing each other and about 90% of the bullshit lawsuits would disappear overnight.

The greater problem in the US right now is that it's become such an anti-communitarian society. I/me/my/mine has eliminated we/us/ours. There's an entire segment of the political spectrum that's dedicated itself to promoting the blatantly anti-human concept that even thinking of the group's collective welfare over the aggrandizement of the individual is the equivalent to promoting socialistic totalitarianism. When there's an media and political conglomeration, accompanied by a deliberately blind and incredibly stupid mass of the population foolishly lapping up all this ideological nonsense, that are actively trying to invoke (for lack of a better way of describing it) an "anti-society" society, this problem is not going to go away. Aside from the natural attrition of the baby boomers, who remain at the very centre of the "me first" way of thinking, and the gradual reduction of their control of the political system, I have no fucking idea at all as to how this sort of corrosive disintegration of American society (there's me using that bad Communist-inspired word again) can be fought, much less ever reversed.

[Zipperfish]

The issue exists up here as well--not so much the tort issue, but the proliferation of laws that whittle away at our individual freedoms in the name of making us more safe. ("If it saves just one life...")

It's a gradual switch from the idea (in a free country) that everything is allowed unless specifically banned to the idea that everything is banned unless specifically allowed.

Part of it is that it is ridiculously easy for politicans to pass laws. Repealing them is much rarer, so they accumulate to the point where you need a lawyer before paint your house. And who would argue--the politicans want the credit for the laws, the bureaucracy gets bigger, the various enforcement agencies get more resources to deal with them, the special interests get their itches scratched and hte rest of us are left paying the bills and trying to keep track of the regulatory morass.

It's not a partisan issue, as both sides do it.

I think there needs to be a bit of a cultural shift. I think we need to spread the meme that every retgualtion, however small, is another tiny shackle on our freedom. I think we need to spread the meme that a scociety with zero risk is not a realistoic--or even a desired--goal for government.

[Lemmy]

Thanos noted that we've moved away from "WE-US-OURS" to an "I-ME-MY-MINE" society. But why is that? The answer is that government and bureaucracy has gotten too big to manange. On another thread, he was very critical of libertarians. And his description was spot-on for a lot of folks who call themeselves libertarians. This is so much so that those of us who are sensible libertarians just call ourselves "classic liberals", so not to be lumped in with that lot of nuts. I prefer to call Rand Paul and Glenn Beck and that lot 'Randians'. Most of use who champion small government don't want a corporate free-for-all. We recognize that the greatest threat to our freedom is posed by corporations, not governments. Most libertarians recognize the need for regulation in many aspects of our society. Many of us even support public education and healthcare.

But to get back to "WE-US-OURS" we need to accmplish three things: 1. reduce the size and scope of government; 2. conclude that "the corporation", as a form of business ownership", has been a dead-weight loss on the welfare of humanity and needs reform; and 3. simplify the legal system. Maybe #3 could be the first step.

[GreenTiger]

Not in Jamaica.