Arms control spectrum

[John Dibble]

Provincial Rights, how am I supposed to shoot border jumping Canucks down if I don't have a gun?

Place pictures of George Bush along the border with the caption "Yes, he's still President here" - problem solved.

[John Dibble]

Like 99% of imaginable products, nukes would not exist in a free market. Nor would the internet. Nor would telephones.

Telephones? You'll have to explain that one to me.

The internet I can understand(ARPANET, aka the early internet, was a defense project, the purpose being the availability of a communication's system that could continue working even if one branch along the way of communication was broken, so the 'web' format worked pretty well), though I think that something like the internet could have come along without government, though the demand behind it would be different.

[John Dibble]

Like 99% of imaginable products, nukes would not exist in a free market. Nor would the internet. Nor would telephones.

Telephones? You'll have to explain that one to me.

The internet I can understand(ARPANET, aka the early internet, was a defense project, the purpose being the availability of a communication's system that could continue working even if one branch along the way of communication was broken, so the 'web' format worked pretty well), though I think that something like the internet could have come along without government, though the demand behind it would be different.

The costs of laying the initial telephone (and telegraph before them) lines would have been prohibitive without government grants and monopolies. Of course, governments had good reasons for what they did - defense reasons as well as "progress" ones.
It's the old question: Why aquire a telephone when only three other people in the world have a telephone?

Doesn't mean that it couldn't have eventually been done by private enterprise. And your assertion of 99% of imaginable products is just plain absurd. You might get away with 10%, but don't be ridiculous.

[John Dibble]

99% of imaginable products = 100% (rounded) of products people have imagined but never produced or never mass produced (in most cases, for a very good reason) + a rather smallish percentage of products actually currently in existence.
So that's not actually an extreme claim.

Actually, it's just a plain dumb claim the way you put it. There could be virtually infinite products imaginable, so you would have absolutely no clue nor proof as to whether or not even a majority of such products would require the government to be involved.

[John Dibble]

It's a truism that ahem, some people, like to forget.
Just because something is possible doesn't mean it will be produced in a free market. Quite on the contrary.

Your original statement seemed to imply 'without the government creating a demand for them'. The reverse statement applies quite equally:

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it will be produced by the government. Quite the contrary.

See how pointless the statement really is? You just end up with "Just because something is possible doesn't mean it will be produced". You should have simply said that only a government would create any serious demand for a weapon of mass destruction such as a nuke.

Still, I find that the vast majority of available products are made on the free market and not demanded by the government. Yes, the government creates some new demands, but it is hardly a majority of those demands.

[John Dibble]

It's a truism that ahem, some people, like to forget.
Just because something is possible doesn't mean it will be produced in a free market. Quite on the contrary.

Your original statement seemed to imply 'without the government creating a demand for them'. The reverse statement applies quite equally:

Just because something is possible doesn't mean it will be produced by the government. Quite the contrary.

See how pointless the statement really is?

Except that nobody ever denied that. It's not as if I, or anybody else over here, wanted all markets abolished and all economic decisions taken by government.

I never said you did. All I'm saying is it's silly to make absolutist claims as to what or what wouldn't be successful without government demand. Telephones/telegraphs for instance, may have caught on without government help in laying the poles - the inventor or some entrepreneur could take an idea to the train companies and a number of retail companies that they could use the telegraph in conjunction with catelogues to place long distance orders for products quickly, and all they'd need to do would be invest in making the telegraph polls. That would increase revenue for the trains(more cargo fees taken in) and for the sellers(more goods sold). Now that's just a hypothetical situation where the government didn't get involved but the product worked anyways, and I'm quite sure these companies did get such benefits and used the telegraph lines in such ways to enhance business anyways even though government was responsible for laying the groundwork in the real situation.

Anyways, guess I'm nitpicking a somewhat poor choice of words on your part, but I get your drift - many successful products are created by government demand. With nukes, we can just say it's unlikely to have a free market demand.

[John Dibble]

Ah yeah. Railroads. Another interesting case. They were invented without government intervention. There even was sort of a market without government intervention - for small lines linking close-by cities, also for industrial use (say, hauling coal from a mine to a nearby factory.)
But overland lines...whole different story. The government gave away the land for free for the railroad companies to build these. When that didn't work, they threw in a whole lot more land that the railroad companies were given as a gift on condition they build, that they could then sell. Indeed, that's pretty much the only profit any of the great railroad companies ever saw until their initial track-laying expenses were (damn. Abgeschrieben. What's the English term?) Same thing in Europe, where railroads were often built directly by government from the 1850s and 60s on because private construction wasn't fast enough, and served commercial rather than military needs.
But that's just an aside.

Yeah, railroads had definite free market appeal - faster shipping of goods. I guess the cross country lines just weren't considered cost effective, though.

[John Dibble]

Option 9

Guns are evil

I've never held a real one in my hands and I have no desire to. But here on the East Coast there's no need for them. And we have the lowest crime rate in the nation, so I don't have to worry about "intruders with a gun holding my family hostage" type scenarios that gun-lovers love to use.

That's completely assinine and false logic. Lower crime rates don't mean no crime. I've lived on the east coast all my life, and people I know have been victims of crime even with lower crime rates - my father comes to mind. If he had his gun at the time, he would probably still be alive today. Then I can display the example of Kennesaw, Ga - every homeowner is required to have a handgun, and they have the lowest crime rate in the state(violent crime dropped to 10% of it's original rates when this policy was implemented and has stayed there for over a decade even with a good deal of growth to that area).

Further, you say guns are evil - that's completely idiotic. Guns are inanimate objects, they are no more evil than a teddy bear. Guns, like all tools, are neither good nor evil - it is the user that determines what the gun is used for. People who use guns for evil purposes are what is truly evil, not an inanimate object. I swear sometimes the anti-gun crowd act like guns are beyond control, as if they get up on their own and start shooting people or possess people and make them violent.

[John Dibble]

Would you quit spelling the word asinine 'assinine'?

Gah, I always mess that one up.