Public smoking has been at least a 30 year issue that I can remember before the ban. People complained about the smoke in the hospitals, then bitched because smoking was banned in the hospitals. (The early bans were voluntary, only recently mandated) The protest and moaning was then focused on grocery stores. Polite discourse was insufficient for an amicable resolution, so we got another city ordinance regarding public smoking…followed by more whining from the opposition.

Our city decided 2 summers ago to ban smoking in ALL public places. The bitching has finally quieted.

The issue has become space. National Serv-All (private sanitation company) has thus far had 2, 170 acre dump site proposals rejected by referendum. The article announcing the fast approaching closure of our current landfill, and the difficulties in locating a new site, was barely noticed as evidenced by the editorial silence on the issue.

My personnal issue with the matter is the number of homes I pass on recycling day that do not participate in the program that they pay for, AND bitch about.

We are going to have forced recycling, eminent domain seizure and placement of a landfill, or garbage laying in the streets to bitch about very soon. Each of our landfills can accept garbage for 20 years. How much more time does the “market” need to find a better solution?

malcolm turnbull wanted the doctors’ wives vote.

Then you’ve not been paying attention. Or have not taken the time to read the expansive body of work from Tucker et. al.

The definition of ad hominem is essentially “attacking the man/speaker”, and using that approach to sway the argument, without addressing the actual issues. It’s a commonly-employed logic-flaw, especially in political debates.

Your opportunity to use it more correctly was several comments ago, in response to Jeffrey Tucker’s post: “Oh good, seems like some green nuts linked here.”

Obviously, he offerred no response or rebuttal to any issue, only attempting a slanderous and inaccurate statement about me as a person, expecting that to justify dismissing anything I wrote.

Regarding the one issue you chose to address, my question was about the objection to subsidies. The objection appears to be highly selective. There appears to be no affront taken with the subsidies that keep the roads in your community smooth, or the subsidies that keep the cost of your food and fuel down, or the subsidies that allow your neighborhood to employ better-trained and better-equipped police and fire protection, etc. It would seem that while enjoying the benefits of a certain set of rules, laws, subsidies and protections, certain people feel justified in railing against benefits afforded to others. I don’t know the Latin words for greed and selfishness, but this would be the time to add them if I did.

I was amused by your statement “Pay for your own social agendas without taking from others.” Your choice of wording probably was far more honest than you intended. You could have said “Let me pay for my own social agendas, and don’t provide any assistance to help me.” But instead of presenting it as a personal stance or declaration of your own actions, you chose to dictate how others should behave. Here’s your opportunity to backpedal and say that you meant “We all should pay for our own social agendas…”, but it’s probably too late to cloud the truth about your attitude in your initial claim.

Contrary to your critique in the second paragraph, the information I provided is logically presented. Whether you agree or disagree with my comments is not the definition of logic. By contrast, the original article is more emotive than factual. The essence of my comments is that my preference is for facts and a rational consideration thereof, and I’m not at all confused about that.

We object to subsidies because we are libertarians. Pay for your own social agendas without taking from others.

As far as the lack of one thing or another, your ad hominem responses do not actually provide a logical argument, but rather runs from one. As this is a site first devoted to economics and second to ethics, perhaps you should stop confusing your preferences with fact. Your preferences are unjustifiable objectively.

The actual point I was making with that reference, though, was not to boast about a car, but rather make the point that the obvious insinuation I was a raw-food eating Prius driver, aka “green nut”, wasn’t accurate.

My primary argument is the author’s claim that somehow the government is forcing and ostensibly requiring all these sacrifices. The vast majority of the claims are just plain wrong. Beyond that, the assorted premises that alledgedly support the argument that our “standard of living” is being ripped away from us by the same governments, is ridiculous. There are so many valid complaints and observations, why would someone feel they need to fabricate others?

“Examples that pop readily to mind include recycling (blech on sorting through garbage)”. First, it’s your garbage, so it’s exactly where you put it. There is no requirement for you to put one particular type of discard in with another, then later separate them. There is also no requirement, in most communities, to even separate them. The trash companies (privately-owned, for-profit businesses), in many towns, provide receptacles to allow you to separate the items, but the government doesn’t mandate you to keep plastic or glass out of your other garbage.

“It was all about progress, progress, progress” Really? It wasn’t about jobs, jobs, jobs? Or demand, demand, demand? Only “progress” for the sake of progress?

“tricks for conserving water like reduced water pressure and shower-head water restraints” Another business that knows how much it costs to convert crap-filled water into drinking water. And again, you are not required to use those devices. They do impose restrictions during periods of drought. Conserving water for basic human health should trump washing down your driveway. Personally, I’ve never had a government official knocking on my door, demanding to know how long I shower and verifying I have a low-flow toilet or shower head. And they’ve never attacked my toilet paper, either. During water restriction periods, however, I could be fined for washing my car at home or watering the lawn in the middle of the day. Of course, the middle of the day is the dumbest time to water, anyway, but that’s a different issue.

Why is there so much offense taken with subsidies for solar and wind-sourced energy development? Is the outrage matched by the reaction to the tax breaks and subsidies given to oil companies? And how does that lower my standard of living? My refrigerator is not that particular about whether the electricity came from a hydroelectric dam, windmill, or nuclear plant. I still have cold beer whenever I want.

With regard to the light bulb issue, do you even know what the restrictions amount to? Completely disgregarding how far behind the rest of the world the US is in pushing for higher efficiency, the idea that you must choose candles and relinquish “warm and pretty light in our rooms” lights is absurd, as is the notion that by not allowing people to cling to an old, inefficient technology, they are anti-progressive. Generally, new innovations that offer improvements over existing or older technologies, is, by definition, progress.

I’m not stopping because I’ve run out of material. I’m just getting bored. Virtually every statement is full of holes. When you add the obvious lack of proofreading to the lack of logic and the lack of real facts, the combination does nothing to flatter the author or the message. (“The old statism…economic structures and people make them work were not prepared for it”) (“another victory it its campaign “).

“Examples that pop readily to mind include recycling (blech on sorting through garbage)”. First, it’s your garbage, so it’s exactly where you put it. There is no requirement for you to put one particular type of discard in with another, then later separate them. There is also no requirement, in most communities, to even separate them. The trash companies (privately-owned, for-profit businesses), in many towns, provide receptacles to allow you to separate the items, but the government doesn’t mandate you to keep plastic or glass out of your other garbage.

“It was all about progress, progress, progress” Really? It wasn’t about jobs, jobs, jobs? Or demand, demand, demand? Only “progress” for the sake of progress?

“tricks for conserving water like reduced water pressure and shower-head water restraints” Another business that knows how much it costs to convert crap-filled water into drinking water. And again, you are not required to use those devices. They do impose restrictions during periods of drought. Conserving water for basic human health should trump washing down your driveway. Personally, I’ve never had a government official knocking on my door, demanding to know how long I shower and verifying I have a low-flow toilet or shower head. And they’ve never attacked my toilet paper, either.

Why is there so much offense taken with subsidies for solar and wind-sourced energy development? Is the outrage matched by the reaction to the tax breaks and subsidies given to oil companies. And how does that lower my standard of living? My refrigerator is not that particular about whether the electricity came from a hydroelectric dam, windmill, or nuclear plant. I still have cold beer whenever I want.

With regard to the light bulb issue, do you even know what the restrictions amount to? Completely disgregarding how far behind the rest of the world the US is in pushing for higher efficiency, the idea that you must choose candles and relinquish “warm and pretty light in our rooms” lights is absurd, as is the notion that by not allowing people to cling to an old, inefficient technology, they are anti-progressive. Generally, new innovations that offer improvements over existing or older technologies, is, by definition, progress.

I’m not stopping because I’ve run out of material. I’m just getting bored. Virtually every statement is full of holes. When you add the obvious lack of proofreading to the lack of logic and the lack of real facts, the combination does nothing to flatter the author or the message. (“The old statism…economic structures and people make them work were not prepared for it”) (“another victory it its campaign “).

It’s not some sort of ‘freedom’ or ‘business’ versus ‘conservation’. It’s about how the government pushed agendas to force progress on society. They created tax breaks, did huge land-modification projects like what was carried out by the TVA. Railroad projects. A slew of laws, tax breaks, and all sorts of other manipulations in the hope of pushing economic growth. A whole host of things like this, much of it having very negative and lasting effects on the ecology of the United States.

They did this claiming that if they left things up to the free market then progress would be slow and people would suffer.

Then thirty years later, the same government, is pushing a whole new bunch of laws, taxes, and other manipulations to counteract this damage and blaming much of it on the ‘free market’ and corporations.

They now do this saying that progress is to fast and to wasteful and they need to force us to slow down and get the good old days of the small town communities and keep them from suffering.

I, personally, buy CFLs because they make sense to me. I get tired of changing light bulbs all the time and they are cheaper to operate (although their average life span is greatly over stated. Yes they will not burn out quickly, but the other components in the bulb do not last as long as the lighted part). I don’t care about if it takes a quarter of a second for them to light up or if they contain trace amounts of mercury. I am a informed person and have a pretty good idea of how they are manufactured, how much energy they use, their life span, what is likely to go wrong with them, and probably what is going to happen to them after I dispose of them. Yet I still use a lot of incandescent bulbs for a variety of reasons, mainly because I have light fixtures that the other types cannot fit into.

Most people used to using computers can find all the information they need to make a informed decision. They and I do not need anybody leading us around by the nose. Education is important, control is not.

GE’s plants should be shut down if there was a lack of demand for those types of bulbs.

But they were not.

They were shut down because people ruling you decided they should not be profitable and that you should not be able to use them anymore.

That is what is known as ‘bullshit’.

You didn’t even describe what it was about the article that you didn’t like, so at this point I have no idea what you actually “think” outside your ability to make quips, though you supposedly do think so I imagine you think… something.

If your overall belief is that you shouldn’t waste, then I don’t think you’ll find too many here who believe that we should waste. That’s all you’ve really said thus far. If your belief is that the state should force us not to “waste” at that point I definitely do have disagreements with you.

FYI: The license plate on my V12 BMW doesn’t say greennut.

But I do know that the only water that rinses the soap off me in the shower is that which touches me, not all the rest that goes past me and down the drain. So why would I pay extra, just to waste the product?

So, if knowing that and acting on it saves my money, and that makes makes me a nut or a liberal or a tree hugger, then so be it.

Thank you for the compliment.