Of Meat and Myth

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Advocates of the spontaneous order of freedom and free markets are forever stomping out the fires of fallacious reasoning, anti-capitalist bias, and twisted history. It seems that as soon as we put out one fire, opponents of the market manage to ignite ten others.

We spend as much time explaining the workings of the market as we do debunking myths and clichés about it. Statists and interventionists spout an endless stream of put-downs and one-liners that pass as thorough critiques of the market, each one requiring a time-consuming, painstaking response and appeal to reason. We are constantly rewriting prejudiced accounts of history to match what really happened.

Nearly ninety years ago, muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair wrote a book titled The Jungle which wove a tale of greed and abuse that reverberates to this day as a powerful case against laissez faire. Sinclair’s focus of scorn was the meatpacking industry. The objective of his effort was government regulation. The culmination of his work was the passage in 1906 of the famed Meat Inspection Act, enshrined in most history books as a sacred cow (excuse the pun) of the interventionist state.

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

 

[konradv]

Advocates of the spontaneous order of freedom and free markets are forever stomping out the fires of fallacious reasoning, anti-capitalist bias, and twisted history. It seems that as soon as we put out one fire, opponents of the market manage to ignite ten others.

We spend as much time explaining the workings of the market as we do debunking myths and clichés about it. Statists and interventionists spout an endless stream of put-downs and one-liners that pass as thorough critiques of the market, each one requiring a time-consuming, painstaking response and appeal to reason. We are constantly rewriting prejudiced accounts of history to match what really happened.

Nearly ninety years ago, muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair wrote a book titled The Jungle which wove a tale of greed and abuse that reverberates to this day as a powerful case against laissez faire. Sinclair’s focus of scorn was the meatpacking industry. The objective of his effort was government regulation. The culmination of his work was the passage in 1906 of the famed Meat Inspection Act, enshrined in most history books as a sacred cow (excuse the pun) of the interventionist state.

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Libertarian I take it? The problem I see with the philosophy is that like Marxism, it requires a basic change in human nature to work. People won't work as hard, if they don't see relatively immediate results from their labors under Marxism. Libertarianism with the concept of contracts between individuals being paramount, overlooks the fact that unless the two parties are equals, many times the strong will prey on the weak because their "freedom" to do otherwise is merely a construct that does not match reality.

 

[Bfgrn]

Advocates of the spontaneous order of freedom and free markets are forever stomping out the fires of fallacious reasoning, anti-capitalist bias, and twisted history. It seems that as soon as we put out one fire, opponents of the market manage to ignite ten others.

We spend as much time explaining the workings of the market as we do debunking myths and clichés about it. Statists and interventionists spout an endless stream of put-downs and one-liners that pass as thorough critiques of the market, each one requiring a time-consuming, painstaking response and appeal to reason. We are constantly rewriting prejudiced accounts of history to match what really happened.

Nearly ninety years ago, muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair wrote a book titled The Jungle which wove a tale of greed and abuse that reverberates to this day as a powerful case against laissez faire. Sinclair’s focus of scorn was the meatpacking industry. The objective of his effort was government regulation. The culmination of his work was the passage in 1906 of the famed Meat Inspection Act, enshrined in most history books as a sacred cow (excuse the pun) of the interventionist state.

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Hey Kevin, you may want to educate yourself on CAFO's (Confined animal Feeding Operations)

Europe rejects meat from the U.S. and Canada.

Also, the health issues of workers and nearby residents is tragic. The almighty buck too often trumps concern for human beings. You support a flawed philosophy...

 

[Ragnar]

Advocates of the spontaneous order of freedom and free markets are forever stomping out the fires of fallacious reasoning, anti-capitalist bias, and twisted history. It seems that as soon as we put out one fire, opponents of the market manage to ignite ten others.

We spend as much time explaining the workings of the market as we do debunking myths and clichés about it. Statists and interventionists spout an endless stream of put-downs and one-liners that pass as thorough critiques of the market, each one requiring a time-consuming, painstaking response and appeal to reason. We are constantly rewriting prejudiced accounts of history to match what really happened.

Nearly ninety years ago, muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair wrote a book titled The Jungle which wove a tale of greed and abuse that reverberates to this day as a powerful case against laissez faire. Sinclair’s focus of scorn was the meatpacking industry. The objective of his effort was government regulation. The culmination of his work was the passage in 1906 of the famed Meat Inspection Act, enshrined in most history books as a sacred cow (excuse the pun) of the interventionist state.

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Libertarian I take it? The problem I see with the philosophy is that like Marxism, it requires a basic change in human nature to work. People won't work as hard, if they don't see relatively immediate results from their labors under Marxism. Libertarianism with the concept of contracts between individuals being paramount, overlooks the fact that unless the two parties are equals, many times the strong will prey on the weak because their "freedom" to do otherwise is merely a construct that does not match reality.

The weak have much more to gain from the strong than vice versa. That is reality. If a limited government can protect the weak from force or fraud by the strong, freedom is the best answer. Libertarian's are not anarchist after all, as I'm sure you know.

Sounds like a book worth looking into IMHO.

 

[Nosmo King]

Every time I hear someone rail against federal regulations I think "My God! They want to build more Ford Pintos!". Federal regulations are designed to protect the consumer from unscrupulous companies. If your goal was to bilk as much out of the consumer (wealth, health, safety) then I can understand this drive to dilute protective regulations.

A goal to bilk the consumer would, eventually, increase a company's profit margin. But the long term consequences would almost certainly dictate massive losses in the resulting law suits. Until one considers that the same folks who hate regulations are calling the protection of the courts either "frivolous lawsuits" or "judicial activism".

I don't mind paying a few extra dollars for an American made stepladder as I know that ladder is in compliance with federal regulations. Why would I want to risk my neck and the necks of those who borrow that ladder from me just to save a few bucks and buy a Chinese ladder?

And the same goes for any and all consumer products.

 

[konradv]

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Libertarian I take it? The problem I see with the philosophy is that like Marxism, it requires a basic change in human nature to work. People won't work as hard, if they don't see relatively immediate results from their labors under Marxism. Libertarianism with the concept of contracts between individuals being paramount, overlooks the fact that unless the two parties are equals, many times the strong will prey on the weak because their "freedom" to do otherwise is merely a construct that does not match reality.

The weak have much more to gain from the strong than vice versa. That is reality. If a limited government can protect the weak from force or fraud by the strong, freedom is the best answer. Libertarian's are not anarchist after all, as I'm sure you know.

Sounds like a book worth looking into IMHO.

Why would a true libertarian submit to the government interfering with their right to make a contract? You say "fraud". I say "sharp business practice, mind your own business". How would a libertarian government be able to enforce anything when taxes are an anathema? Who's going to pay for the protection you say the weak will get? I'm certainly not going to pay a dime. What are you going to do about it, anyway? Send around "men with guns"?

I'm play acting here. Those aren't my real feelings. It's just an illustration of how, like Marxism, the devil is in the details. They're both "feel good" messages that don't stand up to close scrutiny. A truly libertarian government would inevitably lead to a new feudalism, IMO.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Every time I hear someone rail against federal regulations I think "My God! They want to build more Ford Pintos!". Federal regulations are designed to protect the consumer from unscrupulous companies. If your goal was to bilk as much out of the consumer (wealth, health, safety) then I can understand this drive to dilute protective regulations.

A goal to bilk the consumer would, eventually, increase a company's profit margin. But the long term consequences would almost certainly dictate massive losses in the resulting law suits. Until one considers that the same folks who hate regulations are calling the protection of the courts either "frivolous lawsuits" or "judicial activism".

I don't mind paying a few extra dollars for an American made stepladder as I know that ladder is in compliance with federal regulations. Why would I want to risk my neck and the necks of those who borrow that ladder from me just to save a few bucks and buy a Chinese ladder?

And the same goes for any and all consumer products.

Every time I hear someone expounding in favor of federal regulations I think, "My God, they want to have more raids like this.!"

Guns Drawn in Raid on Raw Food Store in Venice - LAist

I bet that for every horror story like the Pinto you can come up with I can come up with one about how regulations are destroying someone's life and livelihood.

Congressional Ban On Lead In Toys Has Unintended Consequences

The problem with regulations is they cannot cover everything, and are almost always put in place to prevent something that has already happened, and is no longer a problem. Your example of the Pinto is a perfect example. As a result of that mistake cars were redesigned to make them safer because no company in the world will survive by killing its customers. Word gets around pretty quick when that happens, and people buy something else.

Another wonderful result is that cars today are less fuel efficient and heavier than they used to be. I used to own a car that easily got 40+ MPG, and that was not an exception to the cars made back then. Sure there were gas guzzlers, but there were efficient cars also. Today a car made by the same company actually get less MPG than I got back then, because federal regulators decided I needed to be protected from those smaller cars.

You really want to try and argue that regulations are always good? The truth is regulations will never protect us from people who do not care about us, because they just ignore those regulations. All regulations do is protect us from honest mistakes, not dishonest intent. They never will protect us from the latter.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Libertarian I take it? The problem I see with the philosophy is that like Marxism, it requires a basic change in human nature to work. People won't work as hard, if they don't see relatively immediate results from their labors under Marxism. Libertarianism with the concept of contracts between individuals being paramount, overlooks the fact that unless the two parties are equals, many times the strong will prey on the weak because their "freedom" to do otherwise is merely a construct that does not match reality.

The weak have much more to gain from the strong than vice versa. That is reality. If a limited government can protect the weak from force or fraud by the strong, freedom is the best answer. Libertarian's are not anarchist after all, as I'm sure you know.

Sounds like a book worth looking into IMHO.

Why would a true libertarian submit to the government interfering with their right to make a contract? You say "fraud". I say "sharp business practice, mind your own business". How would a libertarian government be able to enforce anything when taxes are an anathema? Who's going to pay for the protection you say the weak will get? I'm certainly not going to pay a dime. What are you going to do about it, anyway? Send around "men with guns"?

I'm play acting here. Those aren't my real feelings. It's just an illustration of how, like Marxism, the devil is in the details. They're both "feel good" messages that don't stand up to close scrutiny. A truly libertarian government would inevitably lead to a new feudalism, IMO.

Why do some people always confuse libertarians and anarchists? Do you do that on purpose, or are you just stupid?

 

[konradv]

The weak have much more to gain from the strong than vice versa. That is reality. If a limited government can protect the weak from force or fraud by the strong, freedom is the best answer. Libertarian's are not anarchist after all, as I'm sure you know.

Sounds like a book worth looking into IMHO.

Why would a true libertarian submit to the government interfering with their right to make a contract? You say "fraud". I say "sharp business practice, mind your own business". How would a libertarian government be able to enforce anything when taxes are an anathema? Who's going to pay for the protection you say the weak will get? I'm certainly not going to pay a dime. What are you going to do about it, anyway? Send around "men with guns"?

I'm play acting here. Those aren't my real feelings. It's just an illustration of how, like Marxism, the devil is in the details. They're both "feel good" messages that don't stand up to close scrutiny. A truly libertarian government would inevitably lead to a new feudalism, IMO.

Why do some people always confuse libertarians and anarchists? Do you do that on purpose, or are you just stupid?

Because that's where it leads. If you have another notion, post it. If you don't, how would anyone know it isn't you that's stupid? I'll ask it, again. Given a truly libertarian government, how would they collect any taxes at all to protect us from the predators?

 

[Nosmo King]

Every time I hear someone rail against federal regulations I think "My God! They want to build more Ford Pintos!". Federal regulations are designed to protect the consumer from unscrupulous companies. If your goal was to bilk as much out of the consumer (wealth, health, safety) then I can understand this drive to dilute protective regulations.

A goal to bilk the consumer would, eventually, increase a company's profit margin. But the long term consequences would almost certainly dictate massive losses in the resulting law suits. Until one considers that the same folks who hate regulations are calling the protection of the courts either "frivolous lawsuits" or "judicial activism".

I don't mind paying a few extra dollars for an American made stepladder as I know that ladder is in compliance with federal regulations. Why would I want to risk my neck and the necks of those who borrow that ladder from me just to save a few bucks and buy a Chinese ladder?

And the same goes for any and all consumer products.

Every time I hear someone expounding in favor of federal regulations I think, "My God, they want to have more raids like this.!"

Guns Drawn in Raid on Raw Food Store in Venice - LAist

I bet that for every horror story like the Pinto you can come up with I can come up with one about how regulations are destroying someone's life and livelihood.

Congressional Ban On Lead In Toys Has Unintended Consequences

The problem with regulations is they cannot cover everything, and are almost always put in place to prevent something that has already happened, and is no longer a problem. Your example of the Pinto is a perfect example. As a result of that mistake cars were redesigned to make them safer because no company in the world will survive by killing its customers. Word gets around pretty quick when that happens, and people buy something else.

Another wonderful result is that cars today are less fuel efficient and heavier than they used to be. I used to own a car that easily got 40+ MPG, and that was not an exception to the cars made back then. Sure there were gas guzzlers, but there were efficient cars also. Today a car made by the same company actually get less MPG than I got back then, because federal regulators decided I needed to be protected from those smaller cars.

You really want to try and argue that regulations are always good? The truth is regulations will never protect us from people who do not care about us, because they just ignore those regulations. All regulations do is protect us from honest mistakes, not dishonest intent. They never will protect us from the latter.

Using your rationalization here, perhaps we should rethink murder statutes because they do not protect us from murder but only serve to dilute the rights of someone wanting to fire a gun.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Why would a true libertarian submit to the government interfering with their right to make a contract? You say "fraud". I say "sharp business practice, mind your own business". How would a libertarian government be able to enforce anything when taxes are an anathema? Who's going to pay for the protection you say the weak will get? I'm certainly not going to pay a dime. What are you going to do about it, anyway? Send around "men with guns"?

I'm play acting here. Those aren't my real feelings. It's just an illustration of how, like Marxism, the devil is in the details. They're both "feel good" messages that don't stand up to close scrutiny. A truly libertarian government would inevitably lead to a new feudalism, IMO.

Why do some people always confuse libertarians and anarchists? Do you do that on purpose, or are you just stupid?

Because that's where it leads. If you have another notion, post it. If you don't, how would anyone know it isn't you that's stupid? I'll ask it, again. Given a truly libertarian government, how would they collect any taxes at all to protect us from the predators?

They managed for years, until the Federalists took over anyway.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Every time I hear someone rail against federal regulations I think "My God! They want to build more Ford Pintos!". Federal regulations are designed to protect the consumer from unscrupulous companies. If your goal was to bilk as much out of the consumer (wealth, health, safety) then I can understand this drive to dilute protective regulations.

A goal to bilk the consumer would, eventually, increase a company's profit margin. But the long term consequences would almost certainly dictate massive losses in the resulting law suits. Until one considers that the same folks who hate regulations are calling the protection of the courts either "frivolous lawsuits" or "judicial activism".

I don't mind paying a few extra dollars for an American made stepladder as I know that ladder is in compliance with federal regulations. Why would I want to risk my neck and the necks of those who borrow that ladder from me just to save a few bucks and buy a Chinese ladder?

And the same goes for any and all consumer products.

Every time I hear someone expounding in favor of federal regulations I think, "My God, they want to have more raids like this.!"

Guns Drawn in Raid on Raw Food Store in Venice - LAist

I bet that for every horror story like the Pinto you can come up with I can come up with one about how regulations are destroying someone's life and livelihood.

Congressional Ban On Lead In Toys Has Unintended Consequences

The problem with regulations is they cannot cover everything, and are almost always put in place to prevent something that has already happened, and is no longer a problem. Your example of the Pinto is a perfect example. As a result of that mistake cars were redesigned to make them safer because no company in the world will survive by killing its customers. Word gets around pretty quick when that happens, and people buy something else.

Another wonderful result is that cars today are less fuel efficient and heavier than they used to be. I used to own a car that easily got 40+ MPG, and that was not an exception to the cars made back then. Sure there were gas guzzlers, but there were efficient cars also. Today a car made by the same company actually get less MPG than I got back then, because federal regulators decided I needed to be protected from those smaller cars.

You really want to try and argue that regulations are always good? The truth is regulations will never protect us from people who do not care about us, because they just ignore those regulations. All regulations do is protect us from honest mistakes, not dishonest intent. They never will protect us from the latter.

Using your rationalization here, perhaps we should rethink murder statutes because they do not protect us from murder but only serve to dilute the rights of someone wanting to fire a gun.

How typical.

The laws against murder do not protect anyone, and are not intendeded to do so, laws are designed to exact justice when people violate another persons rights.

Funny thing is that you actually did not attempt to refute my point about regulations. Is it possible that you realize I am right, and you had to resort to idiocy in an attempt to confuse me?

 

[Bfgrn]

Every time I hear someone expounding in favor of federal regulations I think, "My God, they want to have more raids like this.!"

Guns Drawn in Raid on Raw Food Store in Venice - LAist

I bet that for every horror story like the Pinto you can come up with I can come up with one about how regulations are destroying someone's life and livelihood.

Congressional Ban On Lead In Toys Has Unintended Consequences

The problem with regulations is they cannot cover everything, and are almost always put in place to prevent something that has already happened, and is no longer a problem. Your example of the Pinto is a perfect example. As a result of that mistake cars were redesigned to make them safer because no company in the world will survive by killing its customers. Word gets around pretty quick when that happens, and people buy something else.

Another wonderful result is that cars today are less fuel efficient and heavier than they used to be. I used to own a car that easily got 40+ MPG, and that was not an exception to the cars made back then. Sure there were gas guzzlers, but there were efficient cars also. Today a car made by the same company actually get less MPG than I got back then, because federal regulators decided I needed to be protected from those smaller cars.

You really want to try and argue that regulations are always good? The truth is regulations will never protect us from people who do not care about us, because they just ignore those regulations. All regulations do is protect us from honest mistakes, not dishonest intent. They never will protect us from the latter.

Using your rationalization here, perhaps we should rethink murder statutes because they do not protect us from murder but only serve to dilute the rights of someone wanting to fire a gun.

How typical.

The laws against murder do not protect anyone, and are not intendeded to do so, laws are designed to exact justice when people violate another persons rights.

Funny thing is that you actually did not attempt to refute my point about regulations. Is it possible that you realize I am right, and you had to resort to idiocy in an attempt to confuse me?

Any law or regulation can have some unintended consequences...BUT do you ever consider INTENDED consequences?

Didn't THINK.......so

 

[Cecilie1200]

Advocates of the spontaneous order of freedom and free markets are forever stomping out the fires of fallacious reasoning, anti-capitalist bias, and twisted history. It seems that as soon as we put out one fire, opponents of the market manage to ignite ten others.

We spend as much time explaining the workings of the market as we do debunking myths and clichés about it. Statists and interventionists spout an endless stream of put-downs and one-liners that pass as thorough critiques of the market, each one requiring a time-consuming, painstaking response and appeal to reason. We are constantly rewriting prejudiced accounts of history to match what really happened.

Nearly ninety years ago, muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair wrote a book titled The Jungle which wove a tale of greed and abuse that reverberates to this day as a powerful case against laissez faire. Sinclair’s focus of scorn was the meatpacking industry. The objective of his effort was government regulation. The culmination of his work was the passage in 1906 of the famed Meat Inspection Act, enshrined in most history books as a sacred cow (excuse the pun) of the interventionist state.

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Upton Sinclair. He's the one who lied his ass off defending Sacco and Vanzetti while knowing all along they were guilty, right? Gotta love those leftist heroes.

 

[konradv]

Why do some people always confuse libertarians and anarchists? Do you do that on purpose, or are you just stupid?

Because that's where it leads. If you have another notion, post it. If you don't, how would anyone know it isn't you that's stupid? I'll ask it, again. Given a truly libertarian government, how would they collect any taxes at all to protect us from the predators?

They managed for years, until the Federalists took over anyway.

Revisionist history. We became a federal republic in part because taxes were impossible to collect and the government didn't have the money to do anything, including defense of the nation. Predators in that situation would have a free hand.

 

[konradv]

Advocates of the spontaneous order of freedom and free markets are forever stomping out the fires of fallacious reasoning, anti-capitalist bias, and twisted history. It seems that as soon as we put out one fire, opponents of the market manage to ignite ten others.

We spend as much time explaining the workings of the market as we do debunking myths and clichés about it. Statists and interventionists spout an endless stream of put-downs and one-liners that pass as thorough critiques of the market, each one requiring a time-consuming, painstaking response and appeal to reason. We are constantly rewriting prejudiced accounts of history to match what really happened.

Nearly ninety years ago, muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair wrote a book titled The Jungle which wove a tale of greed and abuse that reverberates to this day as a powerful case against laissez faire. Sinclair’s focus of scorn was the meatpacking industry. The objective of his effort was government regulation. The culmination of his work was the passage in 1906 of the famed Meat Inspection Act, enshrined in most history books as a sacred cow (excuse the pun) of the interventionist state.

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Upton Sinclair. He's the one who lied his ass off defending Sacco and Vanzetti while knowing all along they were guilty, right? Gotta love those leftist heroes.

You got a cite for that? All I could find is this. It doesn't say Sinclair lied about anything. Gotta love thiose right wing liars, they're so EASY to bust!

2005 brought another stunning revelation when a letter written in September 1929 by Upton Sinclair, author of the muckraking classic The Jungle, was discovered. In a letter to his private attorney John Beardsley, Sinclair described a meeting he had with Sacco and Vanzetti defense attorney Fred Moore in a Denver hotel room. Sinclair arranged the meeting with Moore when he uncovered troubling information while researching a novel that condemned the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. "Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the whole truth," Sinclair wrote. What Moore revealed "sent me into a full panic....He told me the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them." (Sinclair pondered the possibility that Moore's drug use and quarrels with other members of the defense committee might have led him to assign guilt to his former clients beyond that indicated by the evidence. But, in the end, he seemed convinced that Moore spoke the truth.) Sinclair asked Beardsley to "stick [his letter] away in a safe, and some time in the far distant future the world may know the real truth in the matter." Sinclair worried that revealing the truth about the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti might "make things harder for the victims" of some future "frame-up" by government officials.

s&vaccount

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Using your rationalization here, perhaps we should rethink murder statutes because they do not protect us from murder but only serve to dilute the rights of someone wanting to fire a gun.

How typical.

The laws against murder do not protect anyone, and are not intendeded to do so, laws are designed to exact justice when people violate another persons rights.

Funny thing is that you actually did not attempt to refute my point about regulations. Is it possible that you realize I am right, and you had to resort to idiocy in an attempt to confuse me?

Any law or regulation can have some unintended consequences...BUT do you ever consider INTENDED consequences?

Didn't THINK.......so

The intended consequence of having honest people not do something they won't do anyway? I considered it, and decided it is overblown as a benefit.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Ideas and Consequences: Of Meat and Myth | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

Upton Sinclair. He's the one who lied his ass off defending Sacco and Vanzetti while knowing all along they were guilty, right? Gotta love those leftist heroes.

You got a cite for that? All I could find is this. It doesn't say Sinclair lied about anything. Gotta love thiose right wing liars, they're so EASY to bust!

2005 brought another stunning revelation when a letter written in September 1929 by Upton Sinclair, author of the muckraking classic The Jungle, was discovered. In a letter to his private attorney John Beardsley, Sinclair described a meeting he had with Sacco and Vanzetti defense attorney Fred Moore in a Denver hotel room. Sinclair arranged the meeting with Moore when he uncovered troubling information while researching a novel that condemned the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. "Alone in a hotel room with Fred, I begged him to tell me the whole truth," Sinclair wrote. What Moore revealed "sent me into a full panic....He told me the men were guilty, and he told me in every detail how he had framed a set of alibis for them." (Sinclair pondered the possibility that Moore's drug use and quarrels with other members of the defense committee might have led him to assign guilt to his former clients beyond that indicated by the evidence. But, in the end, he seemed convinced that Moore spoke the truth.) Sinclair asked Beardsley to "stick [his letter] away in a safe, and some time in the far distant future the world may know the real truth in the matter." Sinclair worried that revealing the truth about the guilt of Sacco and Vanzetti might "make things harder for the victims" of some future "frame-up" by government officials.

s&vaccount

Gotta love those left-wing jackasses. They're so funny when they declare victory before ever giving you a chance to answer them. Next time you want to brag about how "easy" it is to "bust" someone, you might want to wait until you've actually done so, dumbass.

Kinda glossed over the bolded parts in your rush to believe that Sinclair "decided he didn't believe Moore", didntcha?

The truth is, Sacco and Vanzetti WERE guilty. There was no question about it . . . until Stalin decided to use them and their case to further his own ends. Sinclair's "ethical problem" wasn't indecision about whether or not to believe Moore. It was about whether to tell the truth about Sacco and Vanzetti, or to further the socialist cause.

Way to prove yourself wrong without any help, genius.

 

[Nosmo King]

Every time I hear someone expounding in favor of federal regulations I think, "My God, they want to have more raids like this.!"

Guns Drawn in Raid on Raw Food Store in Venice - LAist

I bet that for every horror story like the Pinto you can come up with I can come up with one about how regulations are destroying someone's life and livelihood.

Congressional Ban On Lead In Toys Has Unintended Consequences

The problem with regulations is they cannot cover everything, and are almost always put in place to prevent something that has already happened, and is no longer a problem. Your example of the Pinto is a perfect example. As a result of that mistake cars were redesigned to make them safer because no company in the world will survive by killing its customers. Word gets around pretty quick when that happens, and people buy something else.

Another wonderful result is that cars today are less fuel efficient and heavier than they used to be. I used to own a car that easily got 40+ MPG, and that was not an exception to the cars made back then. Sure there were gas guzzlers, but there were efficient cars also. Today a car made by the same company actually get less MPG than I got back then, because federal regulators decided I needed to be protected from those smaller cars.

You really want to try and argue that regulations are always good? The truth is regulations will never protect us from people who do not care about us, because they just ignore those regulations. All regulations do is protect us from honest mistakes, not dishonest intent. They never will protect us from the latter.

Using your rationalization here, perhaps we should rethink murder statutes because they do not protect us from murder but only serve to dilute the rights of someone wanting to fire a gun.

How typical.

The laws against murder do not protect anyone, and are not intendeded to do so, laws are designed to exact justice when people violate another persons rights.

Funny thing is that you actually did not attempt to refute my point about regulations. Is it possible that you realize I am right, and you had to resort to idiocy in an attempt to confuse me?

No, you seem pretty much confused as it is. Pity the poor car manufacturers. They designed a car which would blow to smithereens if rear ended and, as a result, the cars became LESS fuel efficient? And the CAFE standards mandate that cars become more efficient. And there's no co-relation.

 

[jillian]

This is a nice refutation of Sinclair's The Jungle, which some on this board like to use as evidence against a truly free market.

nice try, i guess. if there was a refutation that was honest, it would have been done 80 years ago.

this is just ... unrealistic and naive.