I think Matt Welch is reading too much into what I wrote on beer deregulation. When I say that regulation in and of itself is pretty meaningless, what I mean is that for better or worse liberals, conservatives, and libertarians often treat regulation or deregulation as some magic bullet. You often hear on the left that we just need to regulate such and such and then all will be fine and good with the world, while libertarians and conservatives too often ignore the possibility that deregulation can also benefit the well-connected at the expense of the little guy.
The reason I say that transparency in government is a more important starting point is that I want to find mechanisms that can make both the regulatory process and our ability to effectively implement deregulations a more transparent, fair, and less easily manipulated process.
Certainly on Matt’s final point I am mostly in agreement:
Regulations so often piss me off because they so often fall disproportionately on the backs of the little guy, while the big guy–even/especially the one whose misconduct precipitated the regulation in the first place–walks off with a well-lobbied exemption. Generally speaking, the fewer activities are illegal, the freer us opposable-thumbs types are.
I’d just point out that this is not always the case. Sometimes what looks like deregulation is just a new batch of regulations written for a new batch of lobbyists. Or new laws can be reinterpreted to benefit industry instead of consumers. Credit cards are a good example of this.
On a final note, I think we can all agree that we need to deregulate Oregon’s lemonade stand industry.
wengler
When it comes to regulation, I think it is much less about writing regulations and much more about enforcing those regulations routinely and fairly, as well as making the punishments appropriate to the size of the organization.
Corner Stone
God Dammit son.
scav
Shandy.
ETA, look, and it can appropriately be a loophole wiki link
Roger Moore
Fixed that for you. If you think it’s a coincidence that the deregulation advocated by libertarians and conservatives benefits the well connected at the expense of the little guy, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.
freelancer
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, it’s not sinking in.
kdaug
Didn’t realize you could actually get a feather to go in your ass-hattery.
Welcome to the snakepit, EDK – stick around and defend yourself.
theturtlemoves
So, I will say that I have to agree Oregon is regulated to the point of idiocy, though. Not being able to pump my own gas and requiring training and a license from the state to pour beer seems a little excessive. Not to sell beer. Pour it. I’ve been here several years and nobody can give me a plausible answer as to why we’re all too delicate to pump our own damn gas.
IM
the freer us opposable-thumbs types are
What does that mean? Is that a new word for randian superheros?
Wasn’t Welch the guy who admitted that he mooched of French health care?
Tom Hilton
If I read him correctly, Welch appears to subscribe to the misconception that Carter deregulated the beer market (at least that’s how I read “deregulated beer production”), when in fact what he ‘deregulated’ was individual behavior (homebrewing, for personal or family consumption, and explicitly not for sale).
@theturtlemoves: Having once tried to drive all night through Oregon (I ended up parking by a gas pump at a station that opened at 6 am), I’m right there with you.
Bob Loblaw
I’m sorry, but how long are we going to have to put up with this guy? He’s posting four times a day and getting into a dialogue with Reason magazine over deregulation. On BJ. This is plainly moronic.
On the plus side, we got some sweet false equivalence out the deal. So we’ll have that to treasure always.
Michael
Deregulation merely gives the assholes an open field to run on. Combine the deregulation with an atmosphere of tort “reform” and an absence of corporate director and officer liability, and ZOMG, hoocoodanode that big business would have been operating as an institutional moral hazard.
Case in point – derivatives based on default swaps. Forty years ago they’d have been legally unenforceable and deemed equivalent to gambles that create a moral hazard, something akin to impermissible insurance contracts protecting against punitive damages. Chickenshit fucking judges who are terrified of being called “liberals” by the oh-so-brilliantly libertarian among us abrogated their responsibility to the society that pays them by enforcing the things.
Corner Stone
@freelancer: I swear to you I honestly think this is DougJ spoofing as E.D.K.
It’s just too damn blatant to be for real.
Chuck Butcher
@theturtlemoves:
Maybe you missed the part about employment. Maybe you also missed the part about spills, safety, and service.
Pouring beer? That has to do with the existence of laws that have to be enforced and the ignorant not screwing their employer thanks to large fines and license revokation. Food handlers are also licensed. Same reasons.
Maybe you don’t know what is actually involved in getting the licenses…
Tom Hilton
@Chuck Butcher:
Seems to me there are better ways to get people working than to mandate a ‘service’ that most consumers don’t want and don’t need. But hey, that’s just me.
Chuck Butcher
@Tom Hilton:
Learning to read a map is a good idea, OR isn’t exactly a small or generally heavily populated place. What makes you think the station would have been open with pump your own? If nobody is there, the place will be closed.
Chuck Butcher
@Tom Hilton:
The only complaints I ever seem to hear are from foreigners or newcomers. I don’t think I really care a hell of a lot about their opinions. So you think maybe your good ideas about sales tax ought to rule here as well? Any other suggestions?
Cain
As an import, I’ve never been a big fan of this. My reasons are that 1) very inefficient, long lines as we wait for the pump folks to get around to you. As a computer scientist, it particularly bugs me. 2) gas pumpers tend to be somewhat lazy 3) if it is going to be full service, I’d like to at least have my windshield cleaned up at the very least. 4) they never pour the gas right.. sometimes spilling the gas (wasting my money), and sometimes they do that extra bit that you don’t really need to do. (I forgot the term)
Ultimately, full service provides jobs. I’ve seen some defenses like old ladies not having to get outside to pump their gas. Which I think is complete bullshit since Oregon is not particularly a cold place, and there are old ladies in michigan that pump their own gas in sub zero temperatures.
cain
Cain
As an import, I’ve never been a big fan of this. My reasons are that 1) very inefficient, long lines as we wait for the pump folks to get around to you. As a computer scientist, it particularly bugs me. 2) gas pumpers tend to be somewhat lazy 3) if it is going to be full service, I’d like to at least have my windshield cleaned up at the very least. 4) they never pour the gas right.. sometimes spilling the gas (wasting my money), and sometimes they do that extra bit that you don’t really need to do. (I forgot the term)
Ultimately, full service provides jobs. I’ve seen some defenses like old ladies not having to get outside to pump their gas. Which I think is complete bullshit since Oregon is not particularly a cold place, and there are old ladies in michigan that pump their own gas in sub zero temperatures.
cain
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher:
Wow, sorry to have sullied your state with my presence. Damn, dude.
shortstop
Write as many posts as you think advisable, but what’s the point of making this declaration and then slapping up three more in the same afternoon?
Cain
@Bob Loblaw:
On the other hand, we have their attention to which we can continue to spank them endlessly. If you read Matt’s article, their little crack of us being an anti-glibertarian site is sweet words to my eyes.
cain
Mary G
I like E.D. Kain, even though I frequently disagree completely with his views. If you don’t like his posts, don’t read them. One of the reasons I come to Balloon Juice so much is that there is a lot less of “he’s a liberal, so he is wrong” or “he’s a conservative, so he is wrong.” Let’s not have our own epistemic closure. It’s working so well for the Republicans.
Chuck Butcher
@theturtlemoves:
How long you been here and how many places have you been? You said you were a newcomer. Those jobs are important in a lot of small towns, been to any? Lived in any?
I didn’t say you were an asshole, I said I didn’t give a rat’s patoot about your opinion. Fuck yourself for all I care. Your experience where ever the fuck you came from is immaterial to Oregon, you will learn that as time passes or you’ll bail. This isn’t just anywhere else and doesn’t aspire to be so.
Tom Hilton
@Chuck Butcher:
There were plenty of towns (some good-sized) along the way; problem was, none of the gas stations there were open. And the reason they weren’t open was because of that moronic law.
The fact that along similarly populated stretches of highway with comparable traffic in other states, I’ve always encountered all-night gas stations. There’s a big difference between hiring one person to cover the mini-mart or cash kiosk all night, and hiring one person plus having to hire another just to pump gasoline.
scav
@shortstop:
Be fair, that is just classic Cole.
Corner Stone
@Cain:
Why would anyone in their right mind do this?
I’m still eye bleaching from reading the Bill Kristol article earlier.
Tom Hilton
@Chuck Butcher:
Yeah: how about less restrictive hours for liquor sales? And also, how about selling liquor in supermarkets?
For starters.
Comrade Luke
UNFOLLOW
Midnight Marauder
You are fucking exasperating when it comes to peddling false equivalencies and right-wing caricatures of liberal positions.
No. You don’t. You hear conservatives, Republicans, and know-nothing pundits say this as though it was a real thing. Do you remember that other simple-minded
dreckthread you posted about regulation, where people wrote comments like this?Why don’t you try reading and responding to those before propagating your plainly bogus “liberal positions.”
Serious question: Do you think we are fucking idiots here? What do you think a larger segment of this commentariat believes, that conservatives and libertarians are unaware that their deregulation fetish is explicitly designed to benefit and enrich the well-connected at the expense of the little guy, or that it’s just some kind of honest mistake from people who always operate in good faith? Because their isn’t an empirical record for us to turn to and examine their actual track record and rhetoric on this issue?
You just keep finding new ways to go from substandard to atrocious. Kudos.
Robert Waldmann
Your view is the neither is regulation always good nor is deregulation always good. The first statement is totally not controversial. You draw a false symmetry between liberals who advocate regulating “this or that” and conservatives and libertarians who advocate deregulating everything.
The reason is that in recent decades, as far as I can recall, advocates of regulation, present arguments for why a particular regulation of this or that (but not both) would be useful.
There just aren’t people who support regulation in general (there used to be such people Colbert (not the comedian) Nehru).
You can’t argue with the liberal position that regulation is, in general, a good thing, because there is no such liberal position. You could argue that liberals were wrong to advocate financial regulation or Cap and trade. However, you don’t.
I think the reason that you avoid examples from recent decades is that you can’t find a liberal who argues for a regulation such that you can counter that argument. Note I do not claim that you can’t find such a regulation. Regulations can exist without liberal advocates. For example, I never ever heard a liberal defend the ICC or the CAB (I wouldn’t necessarily have heard such arguments since I was in my teens at the time, but I definitely didn’t).
I’d say that, if you think the question “should we regulate or not” is not so simple that it has a clear yes or no answer, then you are a liberal. No one answers “yes sure.” The Republican party answers definitely we should not regulate (of course they want to regulate marriage and abortion and, in local government, support minimum lot sizes etc to keep the wrong people out of their suburbs but so, they are hypocrites as well as totally wrong).
You are clearly an intelligent person. You may have managed to convince yourself that you are a libertarian or a conservative. I note John Cole thought so for decades. I predict you will recognise you are on our side some time next year.
JBerardi
Good regulations are good. Bad regulations are bad. Can we be done with this, please?
Corner Stone
@Mary G:
His views are not the problem.
The problem is that he continues to rely on conservative tropes and bullshit catchphrases that have no meaning.
He has yet to make any kind of substantive position on anything that did not include some throw away line that is straight up right wing bullshit.
If E.D. has something to say then I suggest he bring it.
Because I for one keep hoping he will tighten his shit up.
Midnight Marauder
@Mary G:
I would argue that this is a situation more in the vein of “he’s intellectually superfluous and unserious” rather than “he’s a conservative, so he is wrong.”
At least that’s my position on the matter.
shortstop
Well, yeah, but you can get away with that when you’re actually interesting. And he’s never pretended to be reasonable, which is fairly endearing.
At first I thought this said “classic Coke” and was trying to figure out what piece of the BJ lexicon I was ignorant of this time.
El Tiburon
@Corner Stone:
Classic.
@freelancer:
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
John O
E.D., you must be talking about pretty far left here:
I don’t know anyone who thinks regulation is automatically good or evil. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t favor a little oversight of the meat industry, for example.
It’s all about the effectiveness and targeting of the regulations for just about everyone, left or right.
Cain
@Tom Hilton:
Have you seen how fucked up Philadelphia’s liquor laws are? We have some liquor stores open till 8pm or so and some even open on Sundays. (we recently had that)
You kind of learn to live with it by planning ahead. Sure it isn’t like Indiana where after you finished a keg, you head off to the liquor store and get another one because the party is rockin.. (frat parties at Purdue..good times.. good times) but on the other hand, we don’t really have that kind of thing in Oregon.. I wonder why…
cain
Roger Moore
@shortstop:
He’s just following John’s idea of what it means to go Galt and not post anymore today.
shortstop
But exactly. This shit is just fatuous. If said tightening could be effected by his thinking things through a little more before he hits the button (not sure about that but will give him the benefit of the doubt), then banging out six posts in one afternoon is not helping the cause.
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher: Wow. I actually really like Oregon and can see that creating jobs, even minimum wage ones, is a good thing. I just found the gas pumping thing odd and am now actually pretty much used to it. Is the gas thing a pet peeve for you or what? The reaction seemed a little beyond the provocation…
elm
@freelancer: Perhaps he’s not aware that these comment threads exist.
Tom Hilton
@theturtlemoves:
Understatement.
Kat
EDK: …conservatives too often ignore the possibility that deregulation can also benefit the well-connected at the expense of the little guy
They don’t ignore that possibility, EDK, they view it as deregulation’s prime feature. And they greeze people like you up by promising that dereg is gonna make you rich too (right after frogs grow wings). ***What do they spike that koolaid with?***
Bob Loblaw: I’m sorry, but how long are we going to have to put up with this guy?
I checked into BJ this afternoon after being busy for a couple of days, and I literally thought the site had been hacked.
Corner Stone to freelancer: I swear to you I honestly think this is DougJ spoofing as E.D.K. … It’s just too damn blatant to be for real.
Whoever it is, John, DougJ, and Anne all just got a complaint-email from me about him, and the gist was:
So what’s the deal? Do we need to convince you to get checked out by your doc for a possible brain aneurysm or something? Or did Pajamas Media notfiy you that you’d soon be facing a couple of thousand dollars a month in bandwidth charges unless you put a winger on staff?
Christ! We’re already inundated with this crap from every direction. Why would Balloon Juice want to give conservatives yet another point of purchase?
John O
@theturtlemoves:
In IL, we have to have minor aged grocery store checkout person call in a 21 year old to scan a bottle of spirits. Makes me nuts for about 5 seconds, but I hate going to the grocery store in the first place.
I have often commented to the older person moseying over to help out that “it is the stupidest law ever written.”
I like OR too, on balance. But that kind of thing is just ridiculous.
E.D., c’mon, answer your critics.
Corner Stone
@Cain:
You don’t have it bulk delivered?
I safety razor into the last pallet and I hit the refresh button on my standing order.
Chuck Butcher
@theturtlemoves:
I spent a couple months jerking gas on graveyard just off the freeway and dealing with foreigners over the issue. I needed that job for awhile and I had it because of the law and it cost them a couple pennies a gallon … and they got real service. They tended to be offended and offensive about it.
Honestly, I can’t think of any natives or fairly long timers who think it is a bad idea or are in the least peeved by it. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist, just outside my experience.
The State of OR thought that it was only fair to employers that if the State was going to slam them for violations of food and alcohol laws that the employees be required to know the rules – ie licensed. I think the State is correct. Employees can also get hammered for violations, knowing what those are before committing them is a good idea.
Midnight Marauder
@elm:
I am starting to lean that way myself. It’s bad enough you bemoan how you’re “clogging the front page,” without proceeding to follow that up with three more asinine posts about issues you don’t even deign to address further in the comments of the original thread on the matter.
We get it, dude. Good regulation is good, bad regulation is bad.
Now how about a post extolling the virtues of McMegan’s latest screed?
Omnes Omnibus
@John O:
He seems to subscribe to the Matt Yglesias school of responding to critical comments.
Tom Hilton
@Cain: If I lived there planning ahead would make sense, but we were passing through. We entered Oregon sometime after 7 pm on a Saturday night, and were pretty much screwed. In any case, weird restrictions like that (or Philadelphia’s, about which I have heard but which fortunately I have never encountered in person) make no sense to me.
Chuck Butcher
@John O:
I don’t know of any states that let the underaged handle alcohol.
As for the rest of it re:OR – I’ve made the comments.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tom Hilton: You don’t keep an emergency bottle in your trunk? For shame.
Viva BrisVegas
Except that it’s not about deregulating Oregon’s lemonade stand industry, it’s about deregulating the food and drink standards at Oregon fairs. The little girl was selling lemonade at a fair.
When you are buying lemonade from the stand of a little girl outside of her house, that’s your choice and you takes your chances.
When you buy lemonade (or hotdogs) at a stand at a fair you expect that certain minimum health standards are at least required, and occasionally enforced. This kind of thing is often considered to limit mass outbreaks of food poisoning.
That’s the difference. The trouble with libertarian nostrums is that they generally ignore context and assume a universality of principle which almost never exists.
scav
@shortstop: The thought of anyone expecting to find an erudite part of the BJ lexicon in text following the header “scav” is, frankly, worrisome. Go directly for his vulnerable spots (he reminds me of nothing so much as a valiant scratching post at the moment, but I’ve not been following closely) and enjoy yourself — I just find the posting99gazillionpostsaftergoinggalt a tradition as hallowed as the choice of titles.
Chuck Butcher
@Tom Hilton:
Learn to read a map. Some of those dots with names really do deserve the dot status and they don’t run things all night to satisfy the very rare person in need. I’ll repeat, they don’t run all night and you do need someone present to shut the damn pumps off in an emergency. With something like gasoline, a couple minutes with a pump knocked off its base is a very long time. Very, very long.
I was the only employee on during graveyard and I had a lot to do other than pump gas and even with the freeway a hundred feet away I had not many customers. If I hadn’t had real things to do other than pump gas and have a bump beginning and end of shift there was no point in the station being open. None.
Tonal Crow
@Viva BrisVegas:
Well said. A particularly-pointed example of this phenomenon is the common libertarian contention that pollution regulations are unnecessary because people injured by pollution can sue the polluters. Yeah. Point-and-laugh stupid.
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher: Thanks for the measured reply. You were making me nervous, there, man. Thought you might blow an o-ring or something. Yeah, I really don’t even mention the gas thing anymore except to joke about it. Having earned some pretty ridiculously low wages working my way through college elsewhere, I definitely like that Oregon doesn’t have a tipped minimum lower than the regular minimum and people can make eight or nine bucks an hour pumping gas.
But all your Oregon, love it or leave it talk was definitely getting my dander up, because I absolutely love living here and have had enough of that small town “if you ain’t been here for six generations, you ain’t nothin'” shit to last a lifetime. I grew up in western South Dakota so I’ve seen a small town or two in my day. My mom grew up on a farm that her family had homesteaded, 30 miles from the nearest town (population 10). So, I can definitely hold my own in a salt of the earth pissing match… :)
Cain
@Tom Hilton:
Are you referring to alcohol or gas? You can usually find 24 hour gas stations along the high way. You can also pick up beer and wine at any grocery store. But if you’re looking for scotch, you’ll have to hit a pub or something. I admit a scotch craving can come at any time.
cain
Chuck Butcher
Jeeze people. Let’s try a geopolitical comparison to see if you can get a place like OR. I live in OR 2CD. You know how many people it takes to get a CD. 2CD is larger than any state East of the Mississippi – lots of room and not many people. If you don’t instincively get that then where ever you are from is not anything like here so you’d better be ready to adapt or get screwed up. Most of Oregon is like that, not many people and lots of space – look at the CD maps and how big this state is. Places here with a handful of houses get names and even Post Offices.
Chuck Butcher
@Cain:
No. You can’t. So, now I know where you’re not from in OR.
Cain
@Chuck Butcher:
In this case, I don’t think the problem is self service vs full service. This is more of whether you can find a gas station open for 24 hours which is a completely different question altogether. Nobody is going to leave a gas station un-attended anywhere. So if it is open they’ll be someone to pump the gas in Oregon.
If you came on the interstate through Oregon, you should be able to find a gas station open till at least 11:00pm.
cain
Chuck Butcher
@Cain:
The problem is that highways like US26 have a nice bold line and great pavement and go through a lot of space with very little in the line of people and stations mostly close pretty early except in summer, and then 9PM is about as good as it will get.
Maps are your friend and knowing how to read them and a gas gauge is a good idea.
maya
No. You’re missing a segment – Enforcement of regulations is what is needed. You know like that oops in the Gulf.
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher:
Might want to qualify that as most of Oregon outside the Willamette Valley. Having driven through eastern Oregon and Washington a few times, it does remind me of Wyoming, somewhere I’ve been through and lived in a year or so. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. So, I won’t argue with you about scarcity of gas stations. Hell, I’ve driven roads where I didn’t even see another car for 200 miles.
Cain
@Chuck Butcher:
Look, if you’re on an interestate, you’re going to find a 24 hour gas station. If you’re on some dinky state road, you’re not going to find anything until you hit a major city. I’ve gone to eastern oregon many times and I generally fill in Salem since I know that I’ll get in trouble otherwise.
cain
Chuck Butcher
@maya:
He doesn’t miss anything, he’s a “rational conservative” making the same old bullshit points here at BJ and only getting mildly called on it, mostly.
Chuck Butcher
@Cain:
US26 is not a dinky State road. Point of fact. Like I said, I know where you’re not from.
Keith G
E.D., your last point was kinda stupid.
I don’t. If you set up a homemade food/drink sales “spot” in a high traffic, urban area where a highly controlled public event is taking place, one needs to expect to be asked to live up to the health code.
Did you read the original article? Or are you just ….well…daft?
Cain
@Chuck Butcher:
I won’t disagree with you there. That’s always a good idea. My dad used to go on trips and he would even plan where we’d stop for gas.
cain
General Stuck
I think it is just brilliant of senor Cole during our long drought of decent winger trolls, and even longer circular firing squad. Two birds with one front pager.
Juice
And I want to live on my own private island filled with hot nymphomaniacs that are madly in love with me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: Daft. I am going with daft, primarily because I really just love the sound of the word.
Tom Hilton
@Chuck Butcher: As I said (perhaps you should learn to read), any comparable stretch with comparable traffic, with comparably dinky shithole towns, in any other state I’ve driven in, would have had 24-hour gas stations.
Midnight Marauder
@Keith G:
Too generous, you are.
elm
@Keith G:
If it can be made to sound bad in a 10 word tabloid headline, then it must truly be terrible. Presumably this is an example of Kain’s careful consideration and not yet-another knee-jerk call for deregulation for its own sake.
Chuck Butcher
@Cain:
This isn’t just aimed at Cain, people get hurt and die with distressing frequency here because they think they know what OR is and really don’t have a damned clue. This place is damned huge, it has almost every climate, and it has very few people once you get out of the Willamette corridor. Going as little as 50 miles can take you through changing conditions and no damned help to be had.
I have travelled 50 miles on a US highway just after dark on a summer week day and not met an oncoming car. Think about it, that means an approach speed of 120 mph and nothing. If you’re 15 feet off the road wrecked, the chances that car will see you are tiny. Winter changes are really drastic, there are all kinds of large elevation changes and sunlight thaw/freeze conditions. People will die every year because they don’t know any better and the home towns in the Record show them mostly from somewhere completely else.
Chuck Butcher
@Tom Hilton:
Learn to know where you’re going, this ain’t anywhere else. Your point is that you don’t know shit and blame something that has nothing to do with your difficulty for it.
As for shithole towns – fuck your urban paradise.
This ain’t there, to bad for your convenience, but it just plain isn’t. Try it in WA which has pump your own and you’ll look just as stupid.
Yeah, I live out here and travel this part of the world extensively and I do know what the fuck I’m doing … vs you.
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher:
Oh, hell, you’d be worse off in eastern Washington. Unless you somehow managed to stop and get gas and a healthy dose of gamma rays at Hanford, because outside of that, there’s nothing that even remotely resembles civilization between the eastern end of the Columbia Gorge and, say, Spokane. Really nice rest stop that has a church group handing out cookies, but unless they offer a siphon…
Chuck Butcher
@theturtlemoves:
Well everybody knows that the NW is a warm rainy populated place chock full of hippies and other assorted liberals.
There is the Tri-City area outside of just Spokane… yeah, really not much.
Tom Hilton
@Chuck Butcher: Gee, isn’t it strange that people from Oregon have a reputation as enormous gaping assholes? I wonder how that came about.
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher: My corner of it is rainy and populated by hippies and people who seem strangely enamored of giant men who name themselves after waterfowl and attempt to move a ball past other giant men named after aquatic mammals (or slang for female genitalia). East of the Cascades, that’s freaking Mars out there, man.
I was thinking Tri-City when I said the eastern end of the Gorge, although I guess that is actually a few miles north of Pendleton, etc., so not really still the Gorge.
alhutch
theturtlemoves, Tom Hilton & Cain,
As a fellow native Oregonian, I know where Chuck is coming from. I’ve spent a lifetime explaining why you can’t pump your own gas, why there is a “liquor store”, why no sales tax, etc. That’s just how we roll here.
What isn’t appreciated is every newcomer/outsider and their “UR DOIN IT RONG” nonsense.
Example, the gas thing and the sales tax have been brought to public votes many times and been voted down each and every time. It isn’t some strange anomaly, a majority of folks actually like it.
FYI, you can pump your own diesel, as it isn’t a class 1 flammable liquid.
PS – Tom, I hadn’t heard that our rep as giant assholes was so well known. I’m all for whatever keeps more people from moving here.
Chuck Butcher
@Tom Hilton:
Probably from having to deal with complete dumbasses, an odd coincidence, I’d say.
You didn’t know what the hell you were doing and got screwed up, blame something with zero relevance, and get insulted because I won’t go along. Since I live here and know what the hell I’m talking about and you don’t that compounds your irritation. Point of fact, in that shithole town where you got stuck, you could probably have gotten someone to call the owner to rescue you – but that idea is probably foreign to you also.
We also lost a lot of rural gas stations because their tanks were leaking and they couldn’t afford the clean up and replacement costs so they shut down. I’m sure you’d prefer the groundwater was poisoned for your convenience?
A Guest
Indeed, about 4-5M people, rougly 50% in the Upper Willamette valley, roughly 50% spread lightly over the 10th largest state of the union. Oregon is odd beyond these laws, and I love it.
Though the first time I have to get gas whenever I am home I do forget ;)
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
“On a final note, I think we can all agree that we need to deregulate Oregon’s lemonade stand industry.”
No, I think we can all agree that you channel Mickey Kaus too much for any rational person’s tastes. This comment is an example of wingnut faux outrage that, as usual. doesn’t hold up under close examination.
1. Here’s the link to the original story. You get points taken off for not providing a link to the original story, which has all the facts. Instead, you posted a link to a NY Dildo Newsrehash, which omits most of the details.
2. She wasn’t selling lemonade in front of her house– she set up a booth at a monthly street fair– the sort where they block off the street and sell arts and crafts. Anyone selling food or beverages at one of these things should be required to follow the rules.
I don’t know about Oregon, but where I live, vendors are required to pass a test about food safety, so they don’t poison anyone. (The story mentions, for example, that she carried her supplies to the fair in a wheelbarrow. What was that wheelbarrow carrying before that?)
Our laws require vendors to register with the fair officials, supply their names and addresses and list what they’re selling. It’s done so public health officials can figure out what happened if there’s an outbreak of food poisoning– and trace the cause back to the suppliers
3. Before you say “It’s just lemonade”, look up the number of foods that have caused food poisoning. It includes nuts, vegetables, fruits– and even bottled water.
4. Last year, my area had a story very comparable to this, It wasn’t a cute little moppet– but it was actually more heart-rending, because the people being hammered were trying to make ends meet, not supplement their allowances. to buy an Xbox.
Yes, the regulations pose a burden that are tough to meet. And most of the people being shut down probably wouldn’t knowingly do anything to make people sick.
But we’re living in times where one bad meal can destroy someone’s life. So that’s why we have rules– to protect us.
Because, when people get sick from eating bad guacamole, many of them don’t have access to national health care and paid time off and disability insurance, So, for people living from paycheck to paycheck, even a minor illness can quickly become a catastrophic event.
And when that happens, the typical glibertarian saws about regrettable incidents being the cost of freedom ring pretty hollow.
You don’t really seem to have the intellectual equipment to write about complex topics like regulation, friend. Maybe you should just stick to “alternate lifestyle activities” involving goats.
Napoleon
OK, I got no farther then that and its the last post I read from this guy. He is clueless.
Chuck Butcher
@theturtlemoves:
Other than the fact that is is well over half of the State… contains some of the most beautiful places in the country and a climate some would kill for – and shit for jobs. Politically, the place still thinks it is the Republican Revolution, changing slowly and certainly more than our share of the Beckian Limpball Brigade.
Chuck Butcher
@Napoleon:
John wants us to be nice to him – I can’t do it…
Scott
E.D. Take a fucking breath will ya?
I feel as if I’m a passenger on a hijacked airplane and the party peanuts have run out, the a/c is busted and the toilets are overflowing and we’re sitting on the tarmac in Mogadishu — what with the way you’ve taken over this site.
I know John is stuck in West Bumfuck and probably has a hard time connecting to the Interweb with his 2,600 baud dial-up connection but seriously . . . dude! Step away from the keyboard, get a drink, and decompress for a while. Nobody will mind.
General Stuck
The energy of cosmic luv makes our engines go here in the Land of Enchantment.
maus
@Chuck Butcher: I’m all for that, but other states can manage to pump their own gas at all hours of night just fine. If the pump handle and cradle design are both inherently broken, they should be fixed.
John S.
Another whopper by Sir Robin.
Chuck Butcher
@maus:
They have some one present. If that tank gets clobbered the nozzle has nothing to do with it. If the tanks are turned on, that pump will pump whether it is actually still there or not.
We do have Commercial Cardlock stations where you pump your own. You do have to be a Commercial user to do so.
General Stuck
Mr Kain makes the natives restless and perplexed with his special blend of liberal conservatism for lack of a better term. A bussell in the libtard hedgerow
Cain
@alhutch:
My only complaint is the “can’t pump your own gas” which sucks in an urban setting. It probably fine anywhere else but it’s hard to not get irritated watching teens struggle to go from car to car pumping gas. I usually pump gas during the early part of the week since there is no weekend crowd to compete against.
I’ve been in Oregon for 12 years.. and I’m sure I haven’t touched even 1% of what this state has. As Chuck says this state is pretty damn huge.
cain
Cain
@Tom Hilton:
Oregonians are one of the nicest people I have ever met. They have great pride in their state, maybe that makes them assholes, but there you have it.
cain
Chuck Butcher
@Cain:
After 12 years here you’ve probably missed out on the urban mess where you can pump your own, the cars sit there waiting for cashiers unless they’ve credit carded it at the pump. I don’t live real far from the ID border and I’ve seen the messes at their urban stations.
I’ve never seen an attendant demand to pump a bike though they will stand there and watch.
A Guest
I suppose valleys are measures by their rivers and thus upper valley should refer to the upper reaches of the river. I meant “northern” willamette valley.
Chuck Butcher
@A Guest:
That would make more sense… considering the direction of flow and source.
maus
@Chuck Butcher:
I fail to see how the mythical “urban mess” is any different than waiting for someone to pump your gas during rush hour.
I bike/bus to work and back since moving to Seattle from Miami, but I’ve never heard any rationale for not allowing the consumer to pump his/her own gas that made sense, from a safety, environmental, or financial standpoint. It’s quaint and gimmicky, but that’s the limit.
AhabTRuler
@Corner Stone: Yep, my work is done here.
Oh, wait, that was your comment? Well, thanks for saving me the trouble.
Chuck Butcher
Frankly EDK, reading you is too much into what you think. If you wanted to make some kind of philosophical arguments or moralize or some such that would be one thing. But your conservative use of things that don’t apply or aren’t as you present them is tiresome. We could turn FAUX News on and get that crap.
You are either just plain lazy or a liar. Given the “conservative” appellation you choose I’d guess liar.
AhabTRuler
Still,it lacks the panache of the libtard vs. obot flame wars. Once you get past the weak-sauce ‘lefty’ memes and the false equivalency, it is no more than cotton fluff.
Apparently ‘sane’ conservatives are reduced to no more than “hurk, hurk, leftys are dumb.”
ETA: Oh, and jackhole seems to be a drive-by poster who eschews interaction with the peoples who are in his base, killing his doodz.
Chuck Butcher
@maus:
I fail to understand why your lack of experience with this should evoke any response from me beyond – why should I care what your opinion is?
The reasons have been explained, you don’t care for them and you don’t live here to be affected, and so? Why do you care in the least? If you come to OR an attendant will pump your gas and it may cost you a couple cents per gallon and if I go to WA I’ll manage to pump my own and not bitch at you about it.
As for Tom and his horseshit, the little places that do stay open have the same person pump and man the station during those kinds of hours. He has no understanding of what he’s talking about and didn’t like getting stuck so it is our fault he’s an idjit.
E.D. Kain
I’m not sure I can “answer my critics.” As very few of you have actually stated any substantive criticism of what I’ve written, I’m not exactly sure how to respond.
But I have learned that liberals don’t want to read conservative ideas, or be linked to conservative or libertarian publications, or have their views challenged even slightly. And it’s pretty funny to watch. Lots of hot air as far as I can see. Which is fine, because those of you who do offer up substantive critiques do it well. And John Cole is the man. So.
Maybe you could all come over to The League some time. We have lots of liberal commenters there, too, but they aren’t afraid of hearing the other side’s ideas. Which, I’m sad to say, you seem to be. Closed information loop, indeed. It may not be ‘epistemic closure’ but it sure is close.
I knew to expect knives. I just didn’t realize they’d be so dull.
t jasper parnell
One way to think about Carter is not deregulation but re-regulation or updated regulation. As you pointed out in terms of trucking Carter got rid of the once (possible reasonable now crazy sounding) rules regarding routes and stressed new regs regarding safety and etc. Deregulation sound like getting rid of all regs, which cannot possible be a good idea. The same thing is true of TR’s Pure Food and Drugs Act; it put small slaughter houses out of business, which was never his intent, and led to the creation of Hormel and other ginormous yet crappier meat packers, in the sense that a small butcher properly aging local non-feed lot meat provides the consumer with better tasting and safer food. Now, as it happens, one of the big hurdles facing organic beef and other meat farmers is overcoming the expenses associated with Pure Food because it put so many small slaughterers out of business.
My point, to the extent I have one, is that proponents of fewer regulations would win more arguments if they avoided phrases and framing that, rhetorically, throw any number of babies out with all manner of bath water and focused on the advantages gained by the state using regulations to create fairer and safer markets by overcoming the advantage producers have relative to consumers and, as was the case of BP, refusing to disregard negative safety, and possibly health, outcomes because of costs, which really only threaten profits.
Dan
LOL. They took on your ideas that they didn’t like in the comments. They took apart your third sentence about what liberals think about regulations. They discussed the lemonade stand, etc. You just didn’t read. And you still haven’t addressed or sited your claim about how liberals think about regulations. I know many liberals are into the government being transparent so it doesn’t surprise me that they don’t take you to task for that probably because they agree with you.
You said, “When I say that regulation in and of itself is pretty meaningless, what I mean is that for better or worse liberals, conservatives, and libertarians often treat regulation or deregulation as some magic bullet.” This sentence makes no sense. Saying regulation in and of itself is meaningless in no way connects to thinking of it as a magic bullet. seriously, wtf?
theturtlemoves
@Chuck Butcher: Oh, I agree it is beautiful, just really, really desolate in lots of spots. Smith Rock is amazing and the area around Sisters and up and down that side of the Cascades is exactly like the Black Hills I grew up in, only bigger. But it is dry as hell and there’s only about six people out there. Plus, I had some jackoff chase me all over The Dalles because I didn’t see a stop sign and accidentally cut him off. Chased me to a Burgerville with my family in the van. I had just driven all the way from Missoula and wasn’t in the mood to hear somebody critique my driving when I was really hungry and tired, so I told him to fuck off and walked away. Everyone in Bend was nice when I visited there, though.
Chuck Butcher
@E.D. Kain:
You’re assuming your stuff merits scalpels and it isn’t up to that. If you want to see the sharp knives, you gotta quit being such easy meat.
Nice try at a pushback, your problem is you’ve been called out and ignored it so you get no points. Conservative hacks are a dime a dozen and bullshit is their game and it’s been dissected around here for quite awhile and some of us have been at it for a bit longer. You may think you’re young and hip but the games are old hat for a bunch of the old farts around here.
You’re not too bad with the word salad, but you’re still playing a tired tune to people who’ve heard it done better and still laughed.
E.D. Kain
Actually that was uncharitable of me. I apologize. There’s got to be over a thousand comments when you take all my posts combined and I’m going to have to acclimate to that. May take some adjusting so…
To the regulation by political persuasion argument – I know from speaking with many that when it comes to food safety, marijuana legalization, and a number of other issues liberals do beat the regulation drum. Same with healthcare reform, financial reform, etc. They rarely say – you know what, creating a more competitive market for insurance companies or bond appraisers would work better than more government oversight. I would say that liberals/progressives are just more reflexively pro-regulation. And a lot of comments here confirm that – the whole ‘deregulation always benefits the rich’ stuff confirms that as far as I’m concerned. Not all liberals think this but I think generally, among a broad swath of liberal voters, regulation = good, deregulation = bad.
And I’m sorry, shutting down a seven year old girl’s lemonade stand is just wrong. And stupid. The health costs and safety concerns are just blown way out of proportion.
duck-billed placelot
So health and safety regulations are stupid and wrong because it’s a little girl? Because if that wheelbarrow she used came in contact with animal feces and some kid drinks her lemonade, gets roundworm, and then goes blind, it’s fine because she’s seven? If you drop a sandwich in a city street, will you still eat it? What about if a seven year old drops it?
Oh, for feck’s sake, you’ve made it pretty clear that you’re not engaging, with that last little fit. Nice, though, that you claimed we’re all prissy-pants scared of other people’s ideas and then backtracked by saying there are too many comments…which, I guess, you didn’t bother to read before maligning the commentariat?