Your Thoughts On Regulation

Environmental and food are a necessity. Businesses will always look for short cut to maximize profit. BP and that recent egg company comes to mind. A regulation that I would like to see down away with is the FCC on speech and conduct over licensed air scape. I don't mind the whole licencing of air scape because there is nothing worse than have to radio stations bleeding over each other. My thing is every time a new show is announced to premier we have the TV Nazis demanding that the FCC censor this show because of various reasons. Take for instance the new CBS show Blimp what my dad says the American family busybodies protested to the FCC to get the show pull off the air. For me we as a nation have so many option for TV and radio viewing and listening that we do not need a governmental agency playing conduct policemen. It's call a remote control, change the channel if the program offends you.

This is quite a strange discussion because Liberals are, historically and by definition champions of freedom and therefore against regulation, whilst Conservative, being authoritarian may champion regulation. So, I presume you are American and therefore using the terms incorrectly. Want to know what a society looks like without regulation? Think Victorian England, the England of Dickens is a good example of a near Capitalist society, devoid of regulation. Miners, paid a pittance, had to buy their tools; to break a tool meant loosing your job. Those out of work, could pay a penny to sleep in a room so full they could only stand and some paid twopence to sleep on a rope suspended across the room. The old, the weak, the sick more often than not ended up in the work-house where they turned a giant wheel by walking to provide power, like a giant hamster wheel. The word of a rich man could put any poor person in jail, innocent or guilty. Justice, medical treatment, clean water, good food, decent housing where the preserve only of the rich. From this hell on earth sprang up those brave heroes, that suffered, where killed or imprisoned, of the British Labour movement. Often, commented Christians they nobly suffered to win those rights enjoyed by workers world wide. This is the start of Socialism which should not be confused with Communism. Thank you God, that those brave Christian men and women of the Labour movement freed us from the dire evils of unregulated Capitalism all the best urban

Most regulations started out to be beneficial. Then you create an agency to oversee the regulations and they create and interpret rules in a way that gives them more control. OHSA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) is one such agency. They were formed to ensure worker safety. I have been involved in remodeling projects. In one case we asked for a ruling on the size of an elevator to handle a wheelchair. Less than 5 years later we had to replace the elevator because you could no longer fit a wheelchair in the elevator. We again contacted OSHA and got the same recommendation as before and we replied that a wheel chair would not fit in and the reply was according to your measurements a wheel chair would fit so we could not get a government grant to help with the cost of a new elevator. In another remodeling project we were told that the doors needed to be a 36 inch door to allow for wheel chairs. The contractor laughed and said a 36 door has an opening of 34.5 inches because of the molding etc. He told us to put in a 42 inch door as that would allow a 36 inch wide wheel chair to easily go through the doorway. When OSHA came to inspect and give a permit to occupy we failed because the mirror in the restroom was not regulation size. We had an 18X12 and we needed one that had one side at least 24 inches. He also noted that we installed a 42 inch door instead of the required 36 inch door but passed us on that. Years later we talked to a general contractor who used to work with OSHA and he told us that many of the regulations came about because people wanted to know the rules and there was no rule covering the question the OSHA office he worked for started to create rules and suggestions. Fox example contractors wanted to know what the regulations were on hand railing on stairways. There were no rules so a committee was formed to come up with a regulation. It was decided that they would spend a few days measuring hand railing to see what the standard size was. They took all the hand railings and averaged the diameter of the railings and that became the standard. An agency is given a task to do and it evolves into the task of saving and creating jobs. The most important function is to preserve the agency. The more rules and regulations the more secure your job.

Perhaps the bigger question is this. Why would you allow an entity that has continually failed on so many levels write the rules and regulations when they can't even work within their own boundaries as set by a centuries-old and well-known document? You do realize the government is the most discriminatory business ever created. Every single rule and regulation they sign into law is completely discriminatory against a group of people. Whether it is small business, large business, banks, the poor, the rich, etc. the regulations are 100% completely discriminatory. Which leads me to this question which of those many regulations can boost that they are completely non-discriminatory? Not the bank regulations, those are only good for big banks. Not the stimulus bill, that was only for certain people. Not the Wall Street regulation, those are set-up so only certain types succeed. Not health care, that completely discriminates against people who already have it by either forcing a plan change, doctor change, or higher rates. It is already discriminating against Medicare patients. So name one regulation that doesn't hurt or didn't hurt a group of individuals by its passage. It is shocking that so many people completely miss the fact that the government is completely deficient in this particular area.

More or Less Regulations....What we really need is to go back Forward to the Republic as it was designed to be. We need a smaller Federal Government and Stronger State Governments which is the way it is supposed to be. But each succeeding administration added to the Federal Bureaucracy and took as much power from the states as possible until the Republic is almost unrecognizable. Not to mention the Constitution is trampled and tattered and torn. We need a responsible Congress in place to start the long hard battle of repairing the damage that has been done. We need responsible State Governments to stand up for their rights and repair the damage within their own States. Then we will begin to be the Proud and Glorious Nation we were meant to be. Shalom~Adoniah

At this juncture, the only thing our government needs to regulate is themselves.

The interesting thing about regulation and the way some conservatives have never seen one they like is that the ones who rail the most against any government regulation and call it "big government" are also the ones that yell the loudest when something happened that could have been prevented with regulation or, in some cases, MORE or BETTER regulations. I'm not in favor of Big Brother either, especially when it comes to personal choices, but I sure don't agree with people like Rand Paul who seems to think businesses should be allowed to "do their own thing" and face no consequences when a mining disaster or oil rig explosions happens since "sometimes accidents just happen". The most conservative person would be having a fit if their child became seriously ill because of something he or she ate, drank or played with that hadn't been properly regulated. Health, safety, environmental and financial are areas where regulation is needed. Nobody will ever convince me that left to their own devices businesses will "do the right thing" even if it affects their bottom line out of the goodness of their hearts! Annie

There are a couple things I believe need more regulation that currently have none at all (I am a conservative). There are other things that should not have any regulation.. such as gay marriage.. why is it anyone's right to tell someone else who they can and cannot marry? How are gay couples hurting you at all? Makes no sense. There are other things.. but for the most part I pay very little attention unless it directly affects me, and most things don't. I just feel that if it's not hurting anyone else, why tell people how to live their lives? Are we not capable of making decisions on our own?

The vast majority of federal regulatory agencies could be done away with tomorrow and nobody would notice (except that their taxes would go down). There are several, though, that actually should be beefed up and be given teeth to enforce their regulations. There should also be laws passed that there can be NO lobbying at the agency level and the agencies can NOT hire people who were involved in the industries that they regulate.

I do believe we need some government regulation, but it should be applied far more sparingly than it presently is. Too much government regulation is an intrusion into our personal freedoms and in many cases, the government is overstepping it's authority. To give one example, the government has authority over navigable waterways, in other words, major bodies of water, which is fine. But there is a push in government to extend that reach to ALL bodies of water. In other words, if I have a private pond on my own private property, the government would suddenly have authority over it and could tell me what I could and couldn't do with it. There is no good reason for this other than the government wanting more and more control over anything and everything it can get. It's absolutely outrageous that the government would have this kind of control over an individual. I'll give you another example of government run amok and over-regulation. This time at the local government level. My local municipality requires an individual to apply for a building permit to build a structure. Now, the idea of this is a sound one. They want to make sure you build something that complies with building codes and is safe structurally, with proper electrical wiring, etc. This is fine for buildings and structures. I wanted to put a sidewalk on my own private property and I asked if I needed a building permit and was told I did. Now bear in mind, what I wanted to do was put in a concrete sidewalk. It's concrete. It's on the ground. It's not going to fall down and hurt anybody. It's already down. So I wanted to see how ridiculous they were going to be so I asked, what if I don't pour my own concrete, but I only use the square flagstones that you buy at the home center. Yep, they said I still needed a permit. Now, this is clearly ridiculous. They require I buy a permit to go to the home center and buy square, precast, concrete squares and place them on the ground. This "regulation" is clearly unneeded and is simply a means to collect fees to support an ever burgeoning government that intrudes unnecessarily into our everyday lives. Now don't get me wrong, I'm in no way advocating that we do away with all government regulation. I'm just saying that we need to limit it whenever possible and when it's absolutely needed, apply it with a healthy dose of common sense.

I wish I could help you with this discusion. I was in business in the eighty's and ninty's and was for all the derugulation we could handle. Was I naive. I made the stupid assumption that most business people actually cared about America, cared about their employee's, and had some self respect. We did not derugulate small business as was promised by President Reagan we derugulated mega corporations. We then turned derugulation into decriminalization. The bottom line is that I cannot name a single honest business or political figure in American that now thinks this was a good idea. Greenspan has even testified in congress how wrong he was about this issue. He spoke last week and said that the single worst thing they did in the ninty's was open up the markets and we would now pay for it in a very long recovery. Warren Buffett called derivatives WMD's in 2006 and he was proven right. I wish we could privatize parts of the government but one look at the massive failure that has caused in our military and we have to run screaming from that idea also. We have corporations that put profits before our military service members safty and security. I fear now is that we will go swing to far to other end o0f this issue but it is unfounded. Insurance swayed the health care plan. No one from Golman Sachs went to jail, one person from Enron went to jail, no one has held the last administration accountable for a trumped up war or an outed CIA operative. Obviously we have not brought back any moral backbone into our system yet so we have a long way to go.

There is nothing wrong with some regulation..we need police, fire, etc. However, the government under this president has taken over a car company and has raised taxes on both the lower and middle classes, as well as burdened our children with trillions in debt! Why in the world would anyone want to give them more power when half of them don't even follow what they preach? I've never understood the liberal mentality that we need the government to babysit us and tell us what to do...they are even considering taking chocolate milk out of school, as though that is our biggest need, I'm a parent, I pack my daughter's lunch, problem solved...we don't need unions anymore, and we don't need the Department of Education...let parents raise their children, and take care of things we can't such as the afore mentioned things...

The full extent of the federal government's reach is limited by the Constitution to national security and the enforcement of rule of law. Regulating trade, commerce, licensing, etc. are clear over reaches. Government can not effectively run anything, due to its immunity from market correctives. I would suggest that those who want to understand the insidious nature behind increasing government regulations read Hayek's "Road to Serfdom". It details the rise of statism in Nazi Germany - providing a frightening look at our future if the current course is maintained.