falcolas

This isn’t a matter of perspectives, it’s a matter of consequences.

Consequences which are already happening. Women are dying from abortion laws. Trans individuals are dying due to anti trans laws. The data is out there proving it.

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I see that we have moved on from Denial to the second D of avoiding accountability: Deflection. I wonder if Attacking will be next in a pivot to DARVO, or Diffusal?

It's not my imagination, it'd Donald Dump's own words:

"I will sign a new executive order instructing every federal agency to cease all programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age. [...] I will ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female and they are assigned at birth."

"I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical-left lunatics. And I think… and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military"

“It’s so bad they should lose their license, and they should take ’60 Minutes’ off the air”

And frankly, I'm glad that I care about things that may affect people other than me. It means I'm probably not a narcissist.

A difference of opinion?

What human rights people are allowed to have is a difference of opinion?? Who gets thrown in jail for being "the enemy within" is a difference of opinion? Which media outlets get closed down for airing Pumpkin Spice Palpatine's dirty laundry is a difference of opinion?

Kindly quit turning down the lights and telling us it's our imagination.

> Monopolies require strong states to exist.

How so? When competition can merely be purchased, why wouldn't the larger company do so? Or if the competitor doesn't want to sell, the larger company can undercut them until they're forced to sell or exit the market. No government required for either tactic, and there are plenty of examples of both occurring in US history. For example, Standard Oil, which was formed when about 40 smaller companies joined forces.

Another place where monopolies take root with no state input is when there's a large barrier to entry, such as with railroads. The cost (and justifying the cost to investors) is too much for most companies to even break ground, let alone complete. For example, Bell System, which owned the copper in the ground and the equipment producer Western Electric.

Now then, of course a state can and do also raise the cost of entry for new competitors - but then we're going to be talking about a regulated market.

Wikipedia and the American Heritage Dictionary expressly disagree:

"In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority."

I don't find it surprising. Leisure time in adults has often been co-opted by "working a hustle" (aka working a second or third job to afford to live). And when they finally do go down, they put on TV or their phones. Of course kids are going to mirror their parents behavior.

I'll even blame videogames to a certain extent. You used to have to read a lot of text to get the story of a videogame, but now it's all voiced. Games like "Sea of Stars" where it's still text based are the minority these days. And they'll probably become even more of a minority with the rise of AI narration.

For those who remember "Reading Rainbow" - it was taken off the air at the time of "no child left behind" because PBS put a emphasis on learning to read, and didn't have the budget to continue Reading Rainbow.

It's sad, but at a time when there are more books than one could ever read in a dozen lifetimes, reading has been set aside. I almost wonder if the pendulum will swing back, and humankind will become oral storytellers once again.

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm pretty glad that we don't have the government interfering with our every contracted act (a sale is such an act).

On the flip side, without the government to enforce a contract one party has broken, there would be no reason to ever fulfill a contract - you'd have to rely on citizen's force, and history has not shown that it's been particularly good to rely on regular citizens.

Personally I'd agree.

But his having different priorities than us doesn't make him a hypocrite.

This isn't regulatory capture, this is deed restrictions. HOAs, water rights, mineral rights et.al. use this same mechanism.

Bozeman MT also has a huge lot being completely unused because it was a former K-Mart. And Bozeman is growing like nuts, I can't imagine there's nobody who wants the space.

Having two opinions on two different forms of land use restriction is not necessarily inconstant. Especially since one is a form of contract law, the other government regulation.

Beyond enforcement, the government has no real part in the former. Except perhaps not disallowing it. But we have rights to specific parts of usage excluded from land sales all the time - water rights being a particularly gnarly one.

In this case since it's deed restrictions as part of the land/building sale it's not the government enforcing these restrictions, it's plain old contract law.

Not at all. The natural end state of an unregulated market is monopolies. As demonstrated again and again throughout US history, with only anti-trust regulation bringing the monopolies to an end.