No.

Little miss goody fucking two shoes, ey?

Stranger in a Strange Land.

It was good.

You read the edited edition or the original, uncut one?

This thread is literally pointless.

I am only an egg.

1870?

That picture of Elizabeth Taylor. . . Damn.

Up until the age of thirteen I was probably a moderate conservative, simply adopting my grandparents' opinions.

I then developed an interest in politics, specifically the social aspects and things pertaining to liberty. I became a  Marxist-Leninist Communist.

It was from their that I eventually became an Anarchist-communist, and I would drift between there and anarcho-socialism.

Becoming mildly interested in psychology pushed me towards statism, and I eventually rejected anarchism and turned to libertarian socialism.

Flirting with ideas of the human condition and happiness I looked at fascism and authoritarianism, but never developed any level of support.

It wasn't until I actually began studying economics that I turned to capitalism. Since then, I have returned to a relatively anti-statist position and my views have been influenced by reading and listening to the likes of Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes, Paul Krugman, Ludwig von Mises, Ron Paul and Scott Sumner.

I'm usually uncomfortable identifying as a libertarian since I don't hold the deontological, "moral" foundations like Ron Paul, and am of a more consequentialist streak like Milton Friedman. I'd rather identify as a monetarist or a Conservative (although I'll probably end up voting UKIP).

Where the hell did you hear that from? The EPA will work with polluters, which can take time, if they are willing to cooperate in order to avoid a lawsuit. But the EPA doesn't disregard its responsibilities to deal with polluters.
The EPA are the ones who sue polluters, and they do get fined, usually heavily.

Yes, but it ignores the property rights of those being polluted because the EPA permits a certain quantity of pollution for co-operative businesses. Under the common law system, the business would be liable for any pollution caused.

What exactly is Milwaukee vs Chicago? I've never heard of that court case and Google has apparently never heard of it either.

I'm not entirely sure if it did go to court, because it was around that time that the Clean Water Act and the EPA took control of the dumping in Lake Michigan. As I understand it, the EPA ended up using taxpayer money to give to the MMSD in order for them to clean it up - which goes against the idea of polluters being responsible for cleaning up their own mess. However, as you say, there is very little evidence on it so I'll rescind.

However, there are other examples of dumping in Lake Michigan where the party responsible has not been held to account (by, say, Chicago, which has to treat all the water).
http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/chi-pollute_15jul15-story.html
http://www.jsonline.com/news/south-milwaukee-registers-sewage-overflow-into-lake-michigan-tributary-b99311460z1-267179531.html
This would be fine if the taxpayers weren't the one's responsible for the fallout of the dumping.

I'm asking because it seems as if you don't even understand the responibilities of the EPA. I know because I've taken multiple classes where I've learned about environmental issues and the role the federal, state, and local governments play to protect it and the people, as well, I've listened to speakers from the EPA and of course I've done my own independent research for projects and papers. It's something I'm knowledgeable on, which is why I feel I'm prepared to talk about it despite being a technocrat. And generally you seem to be fairly intelligent yourself, but the fact of the matter is that you don't know what you're talking about when you talk about the responsibilities of the EPA.

I'll admit I'm spit-balling a bit when it comes to the EPA, but I'm not arguing with you to win so much as raise my own awareness. It's the fact that I know you're more intelligent than me on the EPA that's keeping me engaged.

You should know why I'm confronting you about your sources. You don't have to brush it off and say we all have to get our information somewhere. The Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act are the two more important pieces of legislation the EPA handles. The only people I could imagine that are insane enough to say that a law that prevents governments and private institutions from dumping pollutants into our water supply is a law that needs to be eliminated might be... well shit, I don't know if even the Tea Party could be that insane. You probably read news articles written by factory owners that are buttmad because they got caught dumping waste in a river.
 I get that the government can succomb to lobbying and be paid off, but that's not a reason to solely target the EPA and eliminate its powers and responsibilities. There are other ways you can go about taking on corruption without destroying government.

Maybe I'm just tired, but it really feels as if you're missing the point. The Federal government doesn't need to disallow things like pollution and dumping, because the polluter should be fully accountable to the people being polluted against. I absolutely despise dumping, but the point is that having the Federal government as the remunerating party is inferior to having the actual victims compensated.

The information the EPA gathers is extensive, and it being a federal administration helps. Still, I believe it couldn't hurt to link a few short articles on what the EPA does.

Overview

Regulations

Enforcement

The only objectionable things with the EPA are it's regulation-making when it becomes burdensome and the enforcement aspect. I'm not saying polluters shouldn't be left alone, I'm saying they should be accountable to those suffering the effects instead of a Federal agency which has different motivations and incentives. Speaking of incentives, it'd be useful to consult economists when the EPA writes its regulations (I'm sure you'll tell me if they already do), because there was an economist - Vernon Henderson - who calculated that the EPA's regulations had managed, through lack of forethought, to increase levels of the pollutant Ozone by around 10%.

And then there was the court case of Sackett v. EPA to challenge the Federal government's claim that landowners needn't be given a pre-enforcement review, and how EPA water standards disproportionately hit rural communities.

I'm all for having an agency which collects data and advises on environmental concerns, but not one which acts as judge and jury.

The IPCC definitely does not agree with letting governments sit back and do nothing. You clearly have no knowledge of the IPCC and the amount of lobbying they do to countries to change the way they do things. You still seem to not understand that what might be economical for one business or one country isn't economical for the rest of the world, and that's exactly why you can't just sit of things and let it all play out pretending that it's all going to be okay.

Did you even read what I said? Carbon taxation isn't the government sitting on its ass, neither is iron fertilisation or nuclear subsidies. Nor did I claim the IPCC was okay with that. I merely made the claim that they support markets in the combating of climate change, detailed in chapter ten of this report: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/final-drafts/

Why do factories pollute when it hurts all the people around it, lowers their property values and increases their medical bills. They pollute because they don't have to pay the expense of dealing with the pollution. Unless the government tells the factory that they can't dump toxic waste in the river and spill out particulate matter into the air, the local economy is going to be massively weaker, all so that one factory doesn't have to pay to control their pollution.

Which is you why tax the fucking pollution, so, y'know, they have to pay for it.

The EPA is what enforces environmental regulations. They're the ones who look at the bottom of rivers for pipes to make sure there aren't any factories dumping into it. They're the ones who make sure that new buildings and bridges comply to a standard that isn't going to damage the area around it. Without the EPA, it wouldn't matter if there's a carbon tax because you wouldn't have anyone to tell the IRS which factories and which corporations are polluting carbon into the atmosphere.

The EPA would be fine as an advisory/academic institution (although such a role could be fulfilled by the likes of other organisations, like Universities or independent research centres), but the problem is the huge role it has. The EPA is big enough to fall to corruption and lobbying, like any government organisation of its size; like the Safe Drinking Water Act, which is simply wasteful and unnecessary.

The EPA should be, in effect, an intelligence agency with no executive power.

get in here

Nope. You're another generic shitposter just like 90% of this community.

Your giant ego constitutes at least half of it.

Democrats and the green party have been trying to get a carbon tax for ages. However you seem to believe that a carbon tax on its own is good enough. Generally speaking, this is an irrelevant conversation because a carbon tax will never get passed because all republicans have to do is start a smear campaign about how the democrats are trying to raise taxes.

Anyway, carbon isn't the only pollution, and you need a legal entity that's going to handle that (not to mention the EPA has dozens of other community and educational roles, which is vitally important considering America's poor reputation with scientific literacy, which means less engineers and less scientists, which means a slower economy).

Back to the carbon tax, businesses are going to decide whether or not to pollute and pay the tax based on whichever option is more economical. Considering the costs to prevent pollution, they're more likely just to pay the tax, just like businesses are more likely to pay the Obamacare business mandate tax than to pay for their healthcare. And if businesses are polluting then that means more human health and environmental problems, which once again means a slower economy.

A carbon tax, provided that the price is right, is good enough for carbon emissions.

As for other issues involving the environment? The market is the best system we have to hand for dealing with it,   and the IPCC agrees.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. You should love to see bloodshed. The fighting in that movie? NOT FUCKING BLOODY AT ALL.

Shit, those 300 movies probably spoiled me.

300 is quite god-tier.

Dude, that's a disaster waiting to happen. There are a lot and I mean a lot of organizations that you probably aren't even aware of that are responsible for the well being of your everyday life. The constitution was meant to be a breathing document, and going to a strict interpretation of it would be absolutely awful and the founding fathers knew this.

Besides if we were to go full strict interpretation (which nobody ever wants to really do because they love it when their favorite areas are liberally interpreted) corporations wouldn't be citizens and only people in a militia would have gun rights.

The Constitution only severely limits Federal power. Paul was quite a big proponent of State's rights.

As for institutions which supposedly help Americans, like the FDA, most of them don't.

It certainly attracts the far-right extremists. (Just think 'Merica, but 'Nglund instead) Same for UKIP who are a slightly lesser-BNP, but still attract nutters, like an MP who got dismissed recently after calling someone a slut on TV (His defence was he was using it in older terms...) and publicly saying Africans should return to "Bongo-Bongo Land".


Need I say anymore about how retarded they are. It's fine to be moderately nationalistic, but the extremists take the piss.

UKIP are fine.

Farage has fired a lot of the people who've messed up.