Environmental Regulations

1. You are engaging in smear tactics. Where do I say that the United States is a dictatorship? Nowhere. There are dictatorial elements in American society. Do you doubt this? Ask anyone who's ever had a run-in with the IRS. Regulations not authorized by the Constitution are dictatorial. But while I oppose regulations for that reason, it isn't the main thrust of my argument. My main point is: REGULATIONS GIVE PERMISSION TO POLLUTERS TO POLLUTE THE LANDS OF THEIR NEIGHBORS, and that is criminally wrong. 2. America was never intended to be a "democracy," but a constitutional republic. The founding fathers uses "democracy" as an epithet, similar to how one would use "fascism" today. That's because they knew democracy amounted to "tyranny of the majority," while a constitutional republic limited the government and secured individual rights. Over the past 150 years or so, we have moved further and further away from this model, and environmental regulations -- which allow corporations to pollute the land, water, and air -- are just one example of why democracy is a false god. 3. Who cares what is profitable? Small businesses and self-employed sole proprietors, yes. Major corporations -- the big polluters -- no. Their purpose is to maximize shareholder value. Shareholder value is the present value of discounted future cash flows. Slash and burn is a recipe for a bearish stock -- unless the slashers and burners don't own the land they're slashing and burning. You have sidestepped this argument either because you agree (and thus concede defeat in this debate), or because you don't understand it. Either way, you lose. AND TO BE CLEAR: I don't "trust" corporations to not pollute OTHER people's land -- the government can and should prevent that. I just trust them not to pollute their OWN land, because it makes no economic sense for them to do so. 4. I fully understand external costs. I am for a legal system based on consent. If I and another party engage in a transaction that has a spillover effect that violates your property rights, then that transaction is criminal -- unless we obtain your consent. The government has no right to make your consent for you. 5. Was DDT harmful to people's property? Then it would not be legal under a libertarian property-rights regime. 6. Under a legal system of libertarianism, clean-burning alternatives would have had to have been developed by the time it was discovered that burning fossil fuels created un-containable pollution. If such a regime would be implemented today, then individuals would have to bring suit where they thought their rights had been violated. Juries would decide. (Of course, you're against the REAL democracy of jury justice, and for the elitist dictatorship of government bureaucrats overriding the people's power). The result: Alternative technologies would have to be created. Right now, the very unlibertarian policy of subsidizing and protecting oil companies works to the detriment of alternative-fuel developments. 7. If the Constitution is out of date, as you say it is, then it should either be amended, or abolished altogether. WHAT IS THE "ELASTIC" CLAUSE? There is no such thing. A Constitution is only as good as it is rigid -- that is the entire point of a Constitution, to strictly limit government. Lincoln, one of the worst tyrants to ever ascend to the office of president, violated the Constitution to such an extent that it has effectively ceased being relevant since -- this, I admit. But we still have a Constitution, and it should be obeyed by the government, should it not? By your logic, we should simply abolish the Constitution and have a more open and honest "democratic" dictatorship, and stop pretending that we are a nation of laws. This is the leftist, environmentalist, globalist position, after all, and it is shared by your supposed "rivals," the neocons. Both camps are against the Constitution, for global government, and bicker only over the details. Whether I'm debating a supposed "liberal" or a supposed "conservative," it goes the same way.