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ataggart

>We [sic] should just make it flat out illegal to...

>We [sic] should also fine doctors for...

Why is violence an appropriate response to these non-violent issues?

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Most people would consider violence an acceptable response to defending yourself against violence.

If people who abuse antibiotics will lead to us having no good antibiotics, then they will inflict extreme violence on the entire human race.

I think it's an appropriate response to life and death issues, when, on one side of the scale are the potential deaths of millions.

My ex-girlfriend's dad died of an infection, quite possibly a superbug. I was there with her and her mom the second he stopped breathing. Go and be there at the moment of death by infection of someone you know, then tell me how you feel about people who needlessly weaken antibiotics.

If someone is going to put a single bullet in his gun, spin the cylinder, point it at someone and fire then I think I would subsequently be quite justified in restraining them even if the gun didn't happen to go off that time. Likewise if the person was doing something that had a 1 in 60 chance of killing 10 people, and likewise if what they were doing had an tiny chance of killing millions of people.

So if it had been "making it illegal for corporations to spill contaminants in local water supplies", this would also be considered violence, in your eyes?

I, for one, think we should pass laws that prevent people from doing harmful things to society..

That's not violence. They're not being beaten with a crowbar.

It's the threat thereof that persuades compliance. If you try hard enough to do & keep doing something illegal, there is no limit which the state is unwilling to go to in coercing compliance.

Nobody's gonna beat a vet with a rubber hose because they gave a cow antibiotics.

It's your basic (American, right-) libertarian argument against the state doing anything that limits business. I think its application in a case like this nicely encapsulates the flaws in the philosophy, or at least the ability of its adherents to apply it sensibly.

Edit for clarity.

What? How did you make that leap from "nobody's gonna beat a vet with a rubber hose" to assuming I'm a hardcore libertarian? I'm for the reduction of antibiotics through government regulation. I think business should be restricted when it comes to doing harm to society.

With such a leap, I can only logically assume you replied to the wrong comment.

No, I was responding to you with an observation about the comment above yours. There's nothing about your post that indicates adherence to libertarianism.

If it's outlawed (as suggested above), he refuses to pay the fine, persists in doing it, and goes to great lengths to refuse subsequent incarceration, then yes he will face something akin to getting beaten with a rubber hose.

Of course, because if we make feeding antibiotics to livestock illegal, it can only be enforced by lynch mobs.

C'mon. Do you really think every food regulation is being watched by military police who will come and beat you up if you break said regulation?

Probably not: http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-h...

It's no secret that if you defy the authorities they escalate the amount of coercion they use. You just need to follow the progression far enough to get to the violence.

They start with a polite court summons, then send a police officer to your home, and if you don't come quietly they'll physically force you. If you manage to resist that, well now you're resisting arrest so it doesn't even matter what the original summons was for. They'll escalate to tasers, nightsticks, maybe tear gas. You probably need guns on your side to resist past that point, which means the police get their guns out, and they've got more guys and more guns than you. You most likely end up dead, but definitely not resisting anymore. At no point will they say "Gee guys, this is just too much effort, guess we better let him do whatever he wants."

There is implied violence in every government directive. You don't usually see it because almost nobody has the will and the means to push it that far, but it's still there. I think people would do well to remember that when casually calling for things to be made illegal.

That said, I actually agree with the idea of banning antibiotics in agriculture. It's quite important, and a classic market failure/tragedy of the commons situation that you sadly do need government to solve.

Yes, so we're talking about someone who would be committed enough to resisting authority to provoke violence. This is different than saying "if you break a law, it will result in violence" or even the more extreme "instituting a law is a violent act", which is what the original comment in this tree suggested. I realize what you're saying, but I think at this point it's argument just for argument's sake.

Also, in this case, the individual dosing livestock with antibiotics is actually harming society, in which case I think it would be okay to physically detain him/her from doing so, rather than just saying "this is just too much effort, guess we better let him do whatever he wants". In most scenarios though, I don't think this would be necessary.

If I go to an Apple store and decide I can pick up an iPad and get out, because I've been nice to everybody and I deserve it, similar things will happen, starting with "Excuse me sir," verbal arguments, guards, armed guards, and (if I decide to defend my right to my iPad with armed force) eventually a shoot-out match.

So, we could equally say that there is implied violence in every transaction. (Well, yes sometimes the violence is leased from the government, which will happen if I bring my armed thugs to raid an Apple store. And I'd consider that a good use of the government's resource.)

I think it'd funny that the libertarian definition of violence includes everything the government does, but it doesn't include their own 'social contract' stuff. "The right to swing your fist ends at my nose" - this requirement, for example, sounds nice and fluffily individualistic, but what happens if you violate it? You are taken to court, and if you continue to not comply, you go through the usual escalation of things. So using the same standards of proof, "don't hit me" is an act of violence.

The same goes for the requirements for a free market - which involves perfect information on the part of the purchaser. If you withhold information, you've violated the requirements... and if you continue to not comply, the system requires escalation, and libertarianism in particular relies heavily on the courts to fix things post facto, and of course, courts need to be able to enforce their dictates. So not providing perfect information to the market is an act of violence, using these flawed "chain-of-events-that-end-in-foo-are-literally-foo" terms.

The libertarian redefinition of 'violence' really needs to be abandoned.

Nonsense. Jaywalking is illegal, I do it every day, and have done for most of my 40 years on this planet. The state hasn't yet seen fit to bother coercing my legal compliance in this matter. It's hardly going to unlimited lengths to stop this illegal activity.

I didn't say it would go that far, I said there was no limit to how far it might should it choose to. There are plenty of horror stories regarding jaywalking prohibition enforcement. In some places, the state does indeed go to remarkable lengths to stop that activity.

If you're arguing it that way, then giving livestock antibiotics or dumping polluted waste is also violence by your definition: by these actions, they're coercing others to die without their permission.

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