Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 1824
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@ saintopaque
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Arne]: Prosecuting them (or threatening prosecution) beforehand for unsafe (or unsavoury) behaviour, through speeding tickets or through prosecutions and fines for selling bad product, up front has the salutary effect of more effective prevention than ex post facto liability
Do you really believe that? I don't think that's probably true.
Fine. But you also believe that doctors kill more people than they cure (and I sincerely hope you act on that deluded presumption). I explained one reason why what I said is probably true. You ignored it. Now get lost. Or should I put it plainer?
Cheers,
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Ummmm, Mona....
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Arne]: You agree that selling laetrile to rubes (assuming arguendo that it's snake-oil) is bad, and that it is the gummint's duty to discourage if not prevent it.
Ok, I think I see where we've been talking past each other. I do not think the govt properly prevents (that is, criminalizes) people from buying whatever crap "cures" they choose. But ensuring that truth in labeling goes on, is a proper function. If the laetrile vendor truthfully states that there is no FDA approval for the product, and the loon who thinks that makes laetrile even more likely to be efficacious wants to risk his cancer-ridden ass on it, that is and should be the loon's choice.
Well, if it's just "not proven", why then insist that they put on such a disclaimer? Isn't some high-school Latin old saw that everyone knows ("caveat emptor") enough? Why should you, through dint of gummint labeling requirements enforced through sanction, discourage and suppress the sale of perfectly good -- and legal -- products? How can we legitimately require such? In fact wouldn't it be better to have something like the Good Housekeeping™ Seal of Approval for those that have paid for it? Or like a UL listing?</SARCASM>
But we know that these things don't work, Mona (by assumption above). We know that people will get hurt if they use/rely on them. Then what? Would you ban tort claims too?
Cheers,
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@ Mona
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Arne]: But we know that these things don't work, Mona (by assumption above). We know that people will get hurt if they use/rely on them. Then what? Would you ban tort claims too?
If the proper releases are executed, then the seller should be immune from liability....
You're a lawyer. You've read contracts, releases, and such. Get real, willya?
... But in any event, what you and I agree does not work, is insufficient reason for telling our religious and/or politically misguided neighbor that they MAY NOT choose laetrile [or fill in the blank]. It ain't our bodies Arne, and so not our choice.
Now it's you who's getting me wrong. I don't think we should prevent them from doing what they want. But I think we ought to put friggin' scam artists in jail. See the difference? The people trying to buy such aren't the criminals; they're the victims.
I mean, are you going to compel a competent adult to accept the chemo that every doctor says is reasonably likely to work, but which the adult refuses? If not, why disallow their choice for laetrile?
See above. You're misstating the problem ... and the solution.
Cheers,
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@ Mona
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can only await with baited breath....
ANd just what would you expect to catch with that. I suspect the word you were seeking was "bated".... Just to get pedantic; sorry abut that.
... My great-grandmothers had virtually none of the options I have had, and there is a reason for that beyond feminist politics -- they were working their fingers to the bone maintaining a household. It is not an accident that I am the first women on either side of the family to earn an advanced degree.
Wow. So the great emancipation was to make housework easy enough so that women could do both the housework and hold down an outside job (when they were finally allowed to do so; you do know that women didn't have the temperament and constitution to be lawyers? ... the court said so in the late 1800s, but I guess that was before Hoovers' time) without frazzling completely. With "liberation" like that, who needs slavery, eh?
Cheers,
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Some libertarian "mindset" spouts the platitutes:
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand the collectivist mindset that hates to see free citizens do as they please as long as it does not hurt anyone else....
No, you don't. I really don't care a whole lot about what people do to themselves. People are creative and unique, quite capable of making stoopid decisions (from my POV; ones that perhaps I would never make, or ones that I pretend I'd never make when I think I'm a better and smarter person than I am).
What I do care about is those that go around knowingly preying on the weaknesses and gullibility of others. At the very least, a libertarian ought to insist that, if the gummint won't protect people from others, they ought to give all people enough education (say, minimum college degree?) and training to be able to resist being scammed. But that gets in the way of "freedom" ... you know, the freedom to scam people.
FWIW, I notice all the libertarian-leaners here, the ones that seem to put so much emphasis on the "free market" to intelligently sort things out, have not addressed my "efficiency" concerns WRT dealing with each scam on an individual basis (in court, no less, where the admission price starts at $10K or so just to get in the door), nor the fact that the victims of scams, by their very nature, are many a times the ones least able and the ones with the least resources and ability to do anything about it....
Cheers,
Cheers,