Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Reelin 2166 days ago
The interstate commerce clause made for a fine end run around the spirit of that bit in the end.

If we do ever manage to address the interstate commerce clause, we'll have to account for the fact that our day to day functioning has come to depend on a number of large federal regulatory bodies whose legitimacy is derived from it (ex FDA, FCC, etc).

2 comments

> we'll have to account for the fact that our day to day functioning has come to depend on a number of large federal regulatory bodies whose legitimacy is derived from it (ex FDA, FCC, etc).

The simplest way to deal with that would be to have those bodies continue to exist and publish "suggested" rules, which all the states could then adopt wholesale if they don't want to be bothered to do anything different.

Or a state could do something different, if they wanted to, which is kind of the point.

That doesn't solve interagency problems. What do you do when someone is drugrunning on two sides of a border? Just run two completely independent investigations and hope that California agents aren't worried about Oklahoma agents getting the credit?
This is how the state health and labor departments work right now.

When the CDC recommends action for workplace safety in light of a strain E. Coli found in a crop grown in one state and sold in many, state health departments and state labor departments have full autonomy on how to handle the issue in their respective states.

I don’t really think that a lot of day to day functioning depends on FDA. FDA definitely has a lot to say about a lot of things, and, arguably, without it, some undesirable things would happen more often, but all in all, we would be mostly fine.
I don't have the time or energy to synthesize an exhaustive list of concerning examples on the spot. If the prospect of an under regulated food supply doesn't concern you I would strongly suggest reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. (Or for a lighthearted example, see: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chemical-infused-watermelons-ex...)
Yeah, imagine having to negotiate the EULA of every single grocery item to check for “fitness for consumption” clauses, what a Libertarian dream would that be! Of course the Market will eventually average out the bad players, thanks to the compound effect of billions of Rational Choices... eventually we’ll also be dead as that John Maynard guy once said. Perhaps sooner rather than later in this scenario ;)
There are few rational choices given the lack of current transparency and future information that hasn't happened yet. There is no Market without immediate consequences. Dole Foods often has salad recalls due to ppl getting sick with e coli... Are they really a bad actor? Or just a poor one that can do better? Do you have time to make your own rating of which company, manufacturing plant, farm it was supplied from? What's a credible dinner alternative given your context and available time and guests? A bad actor can last a long time.
Funny how daring americans were flying planes for almost 20 years, no EULA needed, and planes didn't drop out of the skies at all.

If anything, the problem is that when there are no rules, some people (pilots) themselves were reckless and can endanger others. That is something to be solved by criminal courts, though.