Freedom, Fascism and Statism - Stefan Molyneux Debates Sam Seder
Stefan Molyneux, host Freedomain Radio, debates Sam Seder of The Majority Report on the role of the State in a civil society, the ethics and sustainability of Social Security, the reasons for ever-increasing healthcare, and the supposed virtue of European governments.
Some notes on the Cuyahoga river myth:
One problem Cleveland faced was that the Cuyahoga was treated as an industrial stream, and state permits inhibited local clean up efforts. Public nuisance actions and enforcement of local pollution ordinances, in particular, were precluded by state regulation, while federal laws protecting commercially navigable waterways went largely unenforced. Thus, insofar as the story of the Cuyahoga is to inform our views of the viability of local efforts and common law environmental protections, it illustrates that sometimes when local institutions and common law remedies failed, they may have been sabotaged or ignored.
In the wake of the June 1969 fire, many city officials pointed fingers at the state of Ohio for creating a legal regime which made it unduly difficult for the city to maintain local river quality. Specifically, officials pointed to the state water pollution permitting system which insulated permitted facilities from public nuisance actions and generally inhibited local efforts to combat pollution.
The state's water pollution control board licensed industrial facilities along the river, providing potential immunity from suit.
Regarding Social Security - it is not being run as planned:
President Franklin Roosevelt specifically argued against Social Security as a welfare system. The plan he described was for social insurance, designed to protect American workers against two specific, identifiable risks--disability and old age. Individuals paid for their own insurance.
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