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To: elmatador who wrote (67029)	10/9/2010 3:43:57 PM
From: energyplay	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217917

I disagree completely, government is a public servant, not a parent. >>> "A government, is not a good government if it does what the people want. People, the ignorant masses, may act against their best interests. " <<< By the way, this is one of the major differences between Protestant and Catholic, the USA and Europe (and even Canada). Their is a duty to protect (which implies limit and control) children, the incompetent, the crippled, and to some limited degree, the morally weak. This is not the matter at hand, unless you want to consider everyone morally weak... There is a duty to reduce or warn of hazards in the environment, such a putting guardrails on bridges, warning signs on cliffs, and light houses near submerged rocks, but that is done to the environment, not to people. But for the majority of adults, the state should not limit what they want. There are three counter arguments - 1) First, people really do know what their best interests are. 2) Second, the 'so what ? ' or sovereign individual argument, that people should be able to run their lives as they see fit, and bear the consequences. If they screw up, that's their problem. There are good arguments against this based on extreme consequences, such as motorcycle accidents and drug addiction. This argument also get used for trivial matters, such a wearing the wrong clothes or eating tasty food or dancing the wrong way. 3) The third argument is based on actual experience - when you have the government capability to regulate X, there will be an interest group that will want to capture the regulation of X and use it for their benefit. Their benefit maybe economic, but it can also be just the exercise of power, of telling people what to do, of being "the authority". As on example, building standards for houses have been written to benefit the plumbers union and in some places, bricklayers, This is done by requiring excessive capacity, strength, and other requirments beyond those reasonable needed for safety. The regulatory capture argument is from Mancur Olson, of course, and in some places goes by the name of Wayo...