From: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: What keeps me from being Lib.
Date: 14 Apr 92 13:28:43 GMT
    <rdippold.702939428@cancun> <1992Apr13.193000.12970@unx.sas.com> 
    <rdippold.703209431@cancun>
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
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In article <rdippold.703209431@cancun>, rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes:
|sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
|>|I like it, except where the cards are kept legally stacked as to make
|>|it impossible.  For example, there are often laws in place to make
|>|sure that using an alternative to government supplied services is
|>|illegal.  Those would have to be removed.
|
|>Can you give some examples?
|
|There are tons of laws involved with building roads, for instance,
|especially here in California.  The state can contract out to a
|private firm to actually build the road, but anyone attempting to
|build a cross-country road is going to have to deal with a morass of
|laws.   Okay, it's not really laws against _using_ the alternatives,
|its laws against creating them in the first place.  I mis"spoke".

Are these laws against building cross-country roads, or is it simply the
case that the government has the power to force the sale of the
necessary land while private companies have to actually negotiate a
profitable sale with each individual seller?  I assume some of the laws
also require certain construction standards--are these a bad thing?

|It's also illegal, for instance, for someone without the government
|mandated permits and affiliations to practice medicine, and thus for
|me to use anyone but them.

This is an oft-repeated fallacy.  Anyone can give medical help.  You
can seek medical help anywhere you like.  No licenses, no AMA
membership, no knowledge whatsoever is legally required for this.
Of course, when these non-doctors botch the job their
patients (or their patients' next of kin) can charge them with
assault, negligent homicide, or sue them, because they had no
qualifications to do the job.  But then, if I hire you to paint my
house and you botch the job, I can sue you.

I understand that by law*, you may not claim to be an MD when practicing
medicine unless you've actually received an MD from an accredited
medical school, you cannot prescribe medicine without the proper DEA
licensing, and you can lose what licensing you have if you prescribe
certain drugs or perform certain procedures without the proper licensing.
These are important distinctions.

Claiming to be a doctor when you're not, or claiming to be a surgeon
when you're a opthamologist, is fraudulent, deserves to be punished,
and is not a case where laws forbid seeking alternatives to government-
supplied services.

I won't argue in favor of governmental restrictions on drugs in general,
but I will say it's a good thing that people find it difficult to buy
any and all antibiotics they want to take whenever they have the least
hint of an infection, or most antibiotics would be useless.


*at least, here in NC.  Most of these laws are state laws, not federal
ones, and so can vary from place to place.
-- 
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |