More interference with the markets…Why "well-regulated" is an oxymoron.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Those pesky scientists have come out with yet more alarmist rubbish about oversight and regulation and other such nonsense.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/us-nuclear-oversight-too-lax-science-group-212058088.html

Now, obviously these scientist chaps are lobbying for yet more industry oversight and government interference in an industry run by rich folk who because of their wealth and power, by definition, must be responsible. (We shall leave aside the necessary or contingent logic of capitalist ontology for another debate, unless anyone would care to dispute it here with facts.)

Also evidently, these scientist fellows are empire-building. Surely no industry needs oversight greater than that which ordinary high-school-educated folk can understand when discussing these issues over the breakfast table or in a bar after work: I mean to say, it stands to reason, doesn't it? It's not as if there has been a nuclear accident since the 70's, so obviously we are doing something right and the system works perfectly well, despite the fact that these scientists already have the NRC interfering with the normal operation of these power plants.

And just where do such scare-mongering tactics end? Isn't it about time that we revolted against these scientific overlords and their overweening hubris. Apart from choking the development of industry and putting a brake on economic progress, they are indoctrinating our children with a fear of unregulated American economic derring-do. Are they all communists and proponents of big government?

I say we should take these scientists out and horsewhip them for their unAmerican attitudes: for their own good, you understand.

I blame Obama.

You know it makes sense.

(This press release brought to you by Waylon Smithers for Charles Montgomery Burns.)

Comments

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

But now the great masses of the people, downtrodden, oppressed, exhausted, stage their revolution too…They become a pressure group; they [like those they oppose] insist on becoming privileged. They, the masses of the people, imitating the upper classes, cry in their turn for privileges. They demand their right to employment, their right to credit, their right to education, their right to pensions. But at whose expense? That is a question they never stop to ask. They know only that being assured of employment, credit, education, security for their old age, would be very pleasant indeed, and no one would deny it. But is it possible? Alas, no, and at this point, I say, it is no longer detestable, but illogical to the highest degree.

Privileges for the masses! People of the lower classes, think of the vicious circle you are placing yourself in. Privilege implies someone to profit from it and someone to pay for it. We can conceive of a privileged man or privileged class; but we can we conceive of a whole nation of privileged people? Is there another social stratum under you that you can make carry the load?

Will you never understand the weird hocus pocus of which you are the dupes? Will you never understand that the state cannot give you something with one hand without taking that something, and a little more, away from you with the other? Do you not see that, far from there being any possible increase of well-being in this process for you, its end result is bound to be an arbitrary government, more galling, more meddling, more extravagant, more precarious, with heavier taxes, more frequent injustices, more shocking cases of favoritism, less liberty, more lost effort, with interests, labor, and capital all misdirected, greed stimulated, discontent fomented, and individual interest stifled?

The upper classes become alarmed, and not without reason, at this disturbing attitude on the part of the masses. They sense in it the germ of constant revolution, for what government can endure when it has had the misfortune to say: “I have the force, and I shall use it to make everybody live at the expense of everybody else. I take upon myself the responsibility for the happiness of all?”

But is not the consternation these classes feel a just punishment? Have they themselves not set the baneful example of the attitude of mind of which they now complain? Have they not always had their eyes fixed on favors from the state? Have they ever failed to bestow any privilege, great or small, on industry, banking, mining, landed property, the arts, and even their means of relaxation and amusement, like dancing and music – everything, indeed, except on the toil of the people and the work of their hands? Have they not endlessly multiplied public services in order to increase, at the people’s expense, their means of livelihood: and is there today the father of a family among them who is not taking steps to assure his son a government job? Have they ever voluntarily taken a single step to correct the admitted inequities of taxation? Have they not for a long time exploited their electoral privileges? And now they are amazed and distressed that the people follow in the same direction! But when the spirit of mendicancy has prevailed for so long among the rich, how can we expect it not to have penetrated to the less privileged classes?

Economic Harmonies (1850)
Bastiat

(No offense)

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

In any case, I would hope most people -rich or poor- would want to prevent having another Fukushima Daiichi incident

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't care too much about an accident in one of them yankee places if it means my energy bill stays low. Hell, we might get a True Christian president out of it too!

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

And you owe Mr Bastiat royalties and the members here an apology for blatantly plagiarizing his work in this community.

It is obvious that you, like those mad scientists, hate our children.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

But surely the message is in the 'tone'.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

"Why, Look here! A pile of itty-bitty safety barrels*, all nestled together together like a family sitting down to dinner! Now, while it's claimed even the safest nuclear waste disposal procedures seep poison into the environment that never, ever goes away; in REPCONN's case, we say it all depends on where you put them - and Nevada's just the place!

*Nomenclature for "Hazardous Waste Barrels" as per REPCONN glossary specs."

- Fallout New Vegas

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

shopped

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Your pixels are showing.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"...and Nevada's just the place!"

Fuck...no! Leave Vegas and the legal hookers alone!

Pick New Jersey instead. Jersey sucks so bad anyway that they'll never notice.

Seriously, won't somebody think of those poor hookers?

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

One of the toughest jobs I ever had was creating the PR/advertising for the South Texas Nuclear Project, one of the last Nuke plants built in the U.S. It ended up costing over five times the original budget and enriching an army of lawyers over twenty years of litigation.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

This is another of the unforeseen consequences of citizens united.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Oh no!!! It's the attack of the Green Dragon. Help! The damsel of nuclear power is in distress and needs a shight in knining amour to save it from those fire-breathing scientific fundamentalist theocrats.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Someone who understands.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I owe it all to time spent with British humor humour.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Regulations are pointless if nobody enforces them.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

So we obviously need fewer enforcers.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Japan has far more nuclear regulations than the US due to its geographic location known for various climate shenanigans, and yet through corruption they looked the other way one too many times.

To address the problem with more regulations when the current ones aren't being enforced is treating the symptom, not the disease. We need to put more funding into our nuclear industry so it becomes less of an issue of maintaining decades-old systems and more about expanding and upgrading. Safety people would be all over that.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

The article mentions something similar. Damn scientists trying to make ordinary people safe at the expense of noble & responsible job creators.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Don't you understand? Without government intervention these safety regulations wouldn't happened anyway from consumer pressure!

/libertarian

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

"Are they all communists and proponents of big government?"

lol! Commies gave us Chernobyl.

*sits back and waits for both sides of the aisle to try and use this affirmation to support their outdated political ideologies*