[mikeash]

> Yes, but now without the coercion that is sine-qua-non to regulations. That means a huge decrease in the initiation of violence among people.

I find it extremely difficult to take anything you say seriously when you make absurd statements like this. Environmental regulation is responsible for so much violence that its lack can cause a "huge decrease" in it?

Reading further, you are apparently using a definition of the word "violence" which is essentially unrelated to how normal people understand the word. What other words are you using your own definitions for? How am I to understand anything you're saying in any of this when apparently any word can mean anything at any time?

[planfaster]

Violence, noun. Tertiary meaning, under the rubric of Law:

The unlawful exercise of physical force or intimidation by the exhibition of such force.

(Emphasis mine.)

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_eng...

Regulation is intimidation by the exhibition of force (the regulatory body's authority is an exhibition of the threat of violence that backs its ability to fine and imprison).

[mikeash]

If you break environmental regulations they'll just seize company assets, which just involves contacting your bank and such. No violence involved at any time, even hypothetically.

[planfaster]

First of all, it is initiation of violence since the government has to threaten the bank in order to seize assets which the company had already contracted with the bank to keep safe and the company has not given the bank any power of attorney to transfer the property or otherwise relinquish it.

That is initiation of violence number one.

Second of all, it is theft since the government is appropriating goods it does not own without permission from the owner which in this case is the company that broke environmental regulations.

That is initiation of violence number two.

Now I must ask you, Mike Ash, after all this conversation and your refutations visibly fizzling out (first your silly "I refuse to look up 'violence' in the dictionary' and presently this 'I can't see the violence in threatening banks and stealing from them' grasping-at-straws move, and after having seen my arguments for what I am defending and after your not being able to offer substantive counter-arguments), are you ready to entertain the thought that we should give fully unregulated (-by the government or any other monopoly on violence) industries and private property law a try?

I am ready and willing to help you learn more as I hope to have demonstrated throughout this discussion where I wasn't disrespectful to you and treated your inquiries fairly. I must say though, that judging from your last replies, it might be that you do not possess the intellectual honesty I thought you did when we first started this discussion, because your last two responses have been intellectually dishonest (not looking up in the dictionary, and not being willing to see the violence in state coercion).