Republicans to block EPA on regulating Greenhouse Gases

That's because in politics, Status Quo Is God.

Status quo nothing, if the people involved are just as opposed to fossil fuels as to nuclear, it's up to them to counteract society's hypocrisy.

edited 4th Feb '11 3:03:20 PM by neoYTPism

First off, who do you think makes the regulations companies have to follow, i.e. the common law you say keeps corporations accountable?

Long established precedent. American liability law was not something they wrote up in Congress or the EPA.

Second off, if you actually knew anything about the justice system, you would know that due to the high cost and time associated with legal battles, completely legitimate grievances are often buried by those who are rich enough; i.e. the plaintiffs do not have the time or money to sue them. Often such cases are ignored outright or settled out of court for far less than the damage done.

If you aren't willing to expend any money for your case, chances are your complaint isn't very important in the first case. This is not a defect in the system. Minor inconvenience is not a good reason for litigation. And things that inconvenience a large number of people, but not massively onto any one individual, are the poster child cases for class action suits. And from what I've seen, individuals tend to ask for pretty ludicrous amounts.

Thirdly, seeing how companies still operate in such a way that they consider a certain number of safety infractions/environmental damage as "acceptable" because of the lower cost associated with this decision...they are accountable to nothing but profits, and don't forget it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Everything in life is a trade-off between money and other things you want, whether it be security, fun, or comfort.

Finally, bureaucratic agencies are no more "above the law" than members of congress. They make laws, but they don't get to go around having all their members commit murder with no penalty. You don't get to show police officers your bureaucracy badge and they just hand-wave it and say "oh, that's fine then, move along."

Sovereign immunity, lol.

edited 4th Feb '11 3:16:27 PM by Tsukubus

People have been taught how to think by those who control the mass culture. America is especially vulnerable because of how narrow and pervasive their native cultural elite are. Falsehoods like that only seem "obvious" because of this paternalistic good vs. profit motive-evil narrative that Western cultural elites try to indoctrinate into every child. People don't necessarily take facts into consideration, especially considering that most people understand neither business nor law.

I'm assuming that you think you're the person who doesn't just follow the sheeples and do whatever the "cultural elite" tell you. Look, it's fun to think of yourself as the only sane person in the asylum, but you aren't. You do not have some extra source of clarity and perspective that the rest of us lack.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Everything in life is a trade-off between money and other things you want, whether it be security, fun, or comfort.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with giving you cancer because suppressing your lawsuit is cheaper than removing the carcinogens from their products? You might have a hard time finding people who will buy that definition of morality  ^*

Think of it this way: Say I decide that, based on my preference for not waiting line, to shoot the person in front of me at the grocery store so that I won't have to wait as long. Is there absolutely nothing wrong with that?

If you aren't willing to expend any money for your case, chances are your complaint isn't very important in the first case.

What. The. Fuck. I can't believe you just said that.

Quick primer on how money works. Some people have more of it. Some people have less of it. Reasons you might have less of it might include, for instance, expensive hospital bills for your cancer treatment. If you have less money, then you have less to spend regardless of the legitimacy of your complaint.

^ Hehehe, agreed.

And on the point of believing the EPA is above the law, I'm not sure how you define law but congress makes it. They decide what is legal and what is not. So if they empower the EPA to stop you from producing carcinogenic products or stop you from producing toxic waste, that is the law. It is not "above the law", they get to decide what the law is.

The whole point of law is not just to create an orderly society but to make your quality of life better. Unless you think it is awesome for companies to go right ahead with dumping toxic waste or producing pollutants, then well, that's just odd.

Well, if you shot someone, even without a law expressedly banning shooting people, you'd certainly be liable for any damages incurred by the uh...shooting. And certainly, it'd be a price you'd be unable to pay. But if you shot someone and properly recompensed them, then nothing's wrong.

And honestly, if it is truly cheaper to deal with legal complaints than to remove a certain carcinogen from a product, than the carcinogen should probably not be removed. If they can't squeeze any better damages out of you, than the carcinogen probably isn't worth removing.

If legal fees discourage you, than you really shouldn't bring something up to court. It's probably a frivolous complaint and not worth it for the courts to hear. And I am perfectly aware that my right, ability, and will to sue the shit out of them probably discourages them from contaminating my water.

I'm perfectly fine with say, drinking contaminated water as long I can seek recompense by suing the shit out of the people who contaminated it. And I'm perfectly aware that my ability and will to sue the shit out of them discourages the contamination of my drinking water.

edited 4th Feb '11 5:01:09 PM by Tsukubus

Where do you think poor people should get the money to sue? Or are all complaints by poor people automatically frivolous?

Stop quoting Ayn Rand.

edited 4th Feb '11 6:10:50 PM by storyyeller

I'm trying to figure out where you are getting this word should from, since you are denying every generally agreed-upon bit of ethics (starting with "murder is wrong").

I'm also trying to figure out why you hate poor people so much that you're in favor of them being screwed over at every opportunity.

Still on-topic now, but the derail. I see it. You see it◊ too.

Anyways, that argument against the EPA and environmental agencies in general falls apart when you do the sensible thing and treat the government like another business. Part of the services I pay for in my taxes are environmental protection services, which I pay because i'd like my grandchildren to be able to breathe the air outside without a mask. What is it about other businesses that makes them exempt from my lawsuits when they're interfering with me getting the service (environmental protection) that I'm paying for?

Just because many complaints are frivolous doesn't make the valid ones any less valid.

Money should never be allowed to get in the way of justice. How is this such a complicated principle?

I thought I was pretty clear about this, but just in case, let me say it again:

Litigation is, quite frequently, so expensive/time consuming that even people with perfectly legitimate complaints (i.e. clear, life-altering damage has been done) that they are unable to get compensation. It's happened before and it will happened again, and if you're really, truly interested I can back that up with stories and evidence in another thread.

In conclusion, yes, there is such a thing as frivolous lawsuits, but your assumption that any failed lawsuit is frivolous seems reactionary and unwarranted. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence.

And frankly, I'd rather have more frivolous lawsuits pass than dropped legitimate suits, because the frivolous lawsuits typically don't kill the companies. The dropped legitimate ones frequently do sink the individual.

I'm inclined to believe Tsukubus is trolling, honestly.

Regardless, you should probably just ignore her and get the thread back on-topic.

Fair enough. Once someone has declared that poor people should die of cancer, the discussion is pretty much over on that front.

It still remains WTF we're supposed to think about the actual Republicans in this case, assuming that they don't all think that.

Well, my mother's a Republican (Tea Partier, actually. Not sure if the two are legally distinct yet). And much as I disagree with her on pretty much everything, even she doesn't have anything against poor people with cancer.