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Originally Posted by nekokami
Well put-- and I think it relates to the "religious" nature of some of the underlying assumptions Dennis has been pointing out, as well.
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It does indeed. A lot of these things stem from unconscious assumptions picked up by osmosis as a child from the adults around us. They become internalized and matters of reflex.
As an example, I was once involved with a woman who made life interesting. Nothing ever got settled. Any time she got mad at me, it would provoke an hours long tirade of screaming, in which everything I had
ever done to upset her was thrown in my face. Never mind that we had usually argued about it and supposedly settled it previously. I met her parents, and decided that was the sort of relationship her mother had with her father. At an early age, she internalized it as "Oh!
That's how you do it!", and followed the practice with her own boyfriends/husbands when she grew up.
My parents loved me and did their best to raise me. I discovered when I got older and moved away from home that some of what they taught me was wrong, such as my father's casual racism. I didn't blame them for it: they weren't lying, and sincerely believed what they said. They were simply passing along stuff that someone
they trusted had taught
them, and had never been in a position to learn it wasn't true.
Your whole concept of who you are and how you fit into the world stems from such sources, and influences what you feel and believe.
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In the case of including the cost of pollution and/or pollution cleanup in the consumer product, it's true that no competitor wants to go first. This is, in my opinion, one of the good uses of government regulation-- to protect the interests of the producers who want to "do the right thing."
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I concur, and see it as a legitimate function of government
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How do we ever know when a threat is serious enough to warrant regulation? Excellent question-- I believe sometimes such regulation is justified, and sometimes not. Deciding where to draw that line is something it seems to me requires an informed and involved citizenry.
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Yes, and it's one of the main political questions at any time. I see variants of the underlying political issues locally, like protests over proposed new electrical generation facilities. Everyone knows we need them. No one wants one near them...
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Dennis