[extropy-chat] The Hidden Luddite was Re: peak oil debate

[Damien Sullivan]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 12:58:07PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:

> government that runs enforcement and judiciary of those laws.  I am  
> against a government that attempts to regulate heavily most aspects  
> of our lives and interactions.  There is a world of difference.  It  
> is not a legitimate task of government to regulate business.  It is a  
> legitimate task of government to formulate and enforce laws against  
> business fraud and harm to the people.   See the difference?

What if the regulating gov't ended up smaller than the pure enforcement gov't?
E.g. some clever regulations which were easy to enforce and resulted in little
faurd to police, vs. an expensive effort to hunt down and prosecute fraud or
force after the fact?  The first has a bit more intrusion, but the latter has
more taxes.

Or, perhaps, the taxes might be the same, but the latter gov't was less
effective in its function, since it was using (in this hypothesis) less
effective means.

Would you still oppose the regulation, on principle?

-xx- Damien X-)