As to whether I would “permit” someone to walk around the street naked, if you mean would I have the police throw him in jail, no I wouldn’t. Depending on the situation, I’d probably laugh at him or clothe him or talk to him or find out more about him, or if I’m especially un-neighborly, I’d just ignore him and just walk away. In other words, I’d recognize the possibilities of a better social context and relation in terms that do not reduce to state violence. Unfortunately, visions of community are deracinated and atomized in the minds of many, isolating individuals and families from each other. The State and the Market has done its work well.

If bedbugs are doing damage to a neighbor’s apartment, there doesn’t need to be an additional State legislation regulating levels of cleanliness. Destruction of property is already prohibited.

Again, if your neighbor’s smells bother someone, talk to them, their friends, other neighbors, offer to help them clean, or just get used to it. Incidentally, there is an Indian family living in the apartment upstairs whose strong smells of ethnic cuisine fill the hallway. I choose to overlook it and sometimes it makes me smile to think of them eating. I guess they should be glad you aren’t their neighbor.

But I’m sorry that I appear to be such a fool to you. But I’d rather be a fool than to threaten my neighbors with the Sword because of a smell I don’t like.

Would you permit people to walk around in the street naked, on the ground that it doesn’t really harm anyone to see their bodies paraded au naturel? If not, then on principle you have conceded that there is SOME point at which the impact of individual choices upon others around them justify regulation, law and enforcement. Incidentally, I think designated nude beaches are fine, but the operative word is designated. The rest of us don’t have to share unless we want to.

There is in fact a state-enforced ban on apartment-dwellers keeping their units in sufficiently unsanitary state that it impacts the health, safety, and in some cases the peace and quiet enjoyment of their neighbors. For example, if you bring a piece of furniture into an apartment, which infests your apartment with bedbugs, and they spread through the walls to the apartments of others, in most states, you are liable for all costs of eradication, and possible for damages also. Right on.

Smells would come under similar consideration. IF the smell pungently penetrates another apartment, not only are you infringing on your neighbors’ peace and quiet enjoyment, but you it probably is a symptom of a more significant sanitary problem threatening their health.

Ugly visage is generally off limits. A veteran of the Afghanistan conflict whose face was severely burned and disfigured should be able to walk around in public with complete respect, even if children are occasionally frightened. On the other hand, some parts of the body should be covered, even if Hollywood deems them really pleasing to gaze upon. Somewhere in between is the realm which a constitutional republic entrusts to its elected legislators: beyond the realm of individual right, from which the state is barred, but not within the realm of mandatory legal jurisdiction. We can vote on what is in between.

How about really bad foot odors that can be smelled from across the hall or in a public space? Bad breath?

What if someone is really ugly and disfigured, repulsive even, for a majority of people who would rather smell body odor than have that visage revealed in public space?

Would a ban on those things, in principle, be a legitimate use of State force? They’d first be warned, of course, to clean up their act.

IF hooking up to sewers were optional, I would measure whether to threaten him with arrest and imprisonment based on whether his personal choices infringed on his neighbors in the form of persistent odors or more substantial sanitation problems, illness, etc., and if he refused to clean up his act.

I believe that building and other codes should be flexible enough to allow, e.g., for someone who invests in a reliable, proven alternate technology, such as models of composting toilets which actually hold the waste and generate clean, sterile, odorless fertilizer, which can periodically be scattered around the roses. At heat and humidity found in the Amazon basin, animal waste disappears in half an hour. But in a densely populated area, particularly in a more temperate climate, even many rural areas, sanitation can’t be “everyone roll your own.” The more sparse the population, the more freedom you can exercise without giving your neighbors reason to complain. The more crowded we are, the more regulated we will be. On the other hand, if you are way out in the boonies, a tribe of nomadic raiders could do you in before anyone knew to come help you, much less dial 911. There are trade-offs for every choice.

I agree that anarchy leads to monarchy and dictatorship, which is why I never suggested it. I do suggest a test of “what would we throw a person in jail/punish for” whenever we suggest a government-enforced, taxpayer-financed scheme.

And my contention is simply that what you would throw a friend and neighbor in jail for disagreeing with you says a lot about you. And if you don’t even think about these statecraft issues in terms of how you deal with neighbors you have differences with, then I would suggest that you do in practice view your neighbors more like non-human objects rather than persons.

There are some operations so large that no individual citizen can take care of it for themselves. Urban water systems and sewage systems are two of them. Delivering good quality, skilled, medical care, with a human touch and sound judgment, is not. But organizing risk pools for medical insurance is.

Siarlys, that is true, but why must all non-individualistic enterprises be government enterprises? As soon as you bring in the State and its regulations, policies and laws, you are using the Sword to physically coerce fellow citizens and neighbors to do things they do not believe is best instead of persuading them (for if persuasion is used, voluntary communities would be sufficient). You force your neighbors to obey against their will or be thrown in jail. Why is it so easy for people to do this to their neighbors? Perhaps it is because people do not know their neighbors anymore and see them (and citizens across the country) in practice as mere inhuman statistics/tools/sources of money to achieve material goals.

There is nothing stopping people and scientists from voluntarily forming a non-governmental equivalent of the FDA, for example, that develops a reputation for doing good work and lives on the basis of trust. People listen to the NYTimes, Fox News, Google blog, RA Fox, local financial advisers, Warren Buffett, Wired magazine, Slashdot, etc. as cultural authorities and none of them require the kind of government oversight the FDA represents. Why must our only communities of authority be government entities? The State has a place by virtue of its legitimate wielding of coercive violence, but shouldn’t we limit its jurisdiction on the basis of the nature of its power?

But the private sector and the monopoly un-free market aren’t providing that. They’ve robbed us of it.

Fine. But the government consists in the very same kinds of people as those in the private sector. They’re all just people formed in the same culture. The difference is that those in government are there because they desired the particular power of the State. Why do you think better outcomes will come from the government? People are people. But people without swords are generally less dangerous than those with swords, especially if those with swords believe all that they do really helps your neighbor, even against his will.

I have a very mild thyroid problem. It was diagnosed by a family practitioner, I was referred to a competent endocrinologist. He didn’t get to know me real well, because he is part of a large network (created by the free market, God help us), and he had a large workload, within the framework of a bureaucratized office. But, he was competent, he prescribed an appropriate FDA-approved suppressant, he reduced the dose when my symptoms indicated he should, and I learned enough to monitor myself without further lab tests, office visits, and other costs. Good thing, because I am now uninsured again. Now, what is the terrible problem for treating thyroid problems which afflicts our under-socialized medical system?

On to home repairs. I am competent to do plaster restoration. I do it much better than many amateurish home repairs I have seen. I leave a smooth wall — you can’t tell where the hole was. I would like to supplement my income by offering to do this minor repair, without the hassle of licensing and inspection. I think I probably can get away with that, by mutual consent, whatever the letter of the law may be. Ditto for minor window repairs, like hanging the lead weights when the ropes break, or putting fresh putty on to hold the glass in the frame. However, if it comes to tearing down walls, re-sheetrocking an entire room, or installing a whole new window frame, I would want to know that I way paying a licensed, trained, certified, repairman, who knew what they were doing, could and would, and would be required to, do the job over if they botched it, and had insurance to pay my losses if necessary.

I have a friend in another city, who I once rented from, who had work done on his foundation by an incompetent fool, someone he met at church, a terrible way to pick a building contractor. Now, winter is coming on, the basement is wide open to the elements, the gas is turned off, and the guy says “Oh, I ran out of money, you want me to finish the job, you have to pay more.” Too bad he didn’t get a licensed contractor, with insurance and bonding. He could sue, but a lawyer wants a $10,000 retainer — understandable for the work this case would require, but he doesn’t have it. Exhausted his equity borrowing to get the repair done in the first place!

So, like I’ve said, as have others, including Arben, there is a place for government regulation and standards. Sometimes it really can protect us. The important point is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Leave us some room around the edges.

Now when it comes to the FDA, we have a different margin. Two of them. Protection from snake oil salesmen and their cousins who merely water down otherwise legitimate substances, so the dose is wrong, I’m happy to have protection from. But then, there are the people who take drugs for non-medical reasons. Prohibition has been a failure. We need regulation of prescription drugs, isolation but not prohibition of recreational drug use (I don’t want people shooting up outside an elementary school, but I want it to be cheap for those who insist on using it — so the drug gangs can’t afford automatic weapons anymore), and some room for people with terminal or painful illnesses to try experimental drugs when nothing else is working. True, bureaucrats aren’t good at writing regulations that way. But that is why we need to work for, not putting all regulation out of business.

There are some operations so large that no individual citizen can take care of it for themselves….Delivering good quality, skilled, medical care, with a human touch and sound judgment, is not [one of them]. But organizing risk pools for medical insurance is. And that is where the boundary between what rightfully should be socialized, and what rightfully the government should keep its nose out of, has to be sorted out on medical care.

Thank you for your valiant (but, I fear, probably in vain) attempt to reiterate the point that I made in the original post: actual health care–-the actual doctor or midwife or nurse examining you, healing you, offering you succor and relief–-needs to be and ought to be as local and face-to-face as possible. But can medical insurance be similarly local? Until and unless we have the political capacity to destroy the whole system of employer-based private insurance monopolies, no, it cannot–not, I think, if you care about the kind of justice which Catholic teachings call us to, at least.

Somehow, in all the often panicky back-and-forth over “government control” and whatnot, the real-world, practical limitations of the actual topic under discussion gets lost.

And can doctors really get prosecuted for prescribing a medicine that is not on the FDA list? If a doctor tells you to get some rest and slurp some chicken soup, can they be fined?

There are some operations so large that no individual citizen can take care of it for themselves. Urban water systems and sewage systems are two of them. Delivering good quality, skilled, medical care, with a human touch and sound judgment, is not. But organizing risk pools for medical insurance is. And that is where the boundary between what rightfully should be socialized, and what rightfully the government should keep its nose out of, has to be sorted out on medical care. It is a beautiful vision that we should have local doctors taking care of local families whom they know well, being among the most respected of community leaders. I had such a pediatrician as a child — he even made house calls. We went over to his house for Thanksgiving. But the private sector and the monopoly un-free market aren’t providing that. They’ve robbed us of it. We could get some benefit off of subsidizing medical care, to help doctors afford to start out in markets where they won’t make as much money, but they won’t have such big loans to pay off, and in the long run, the cost of medical care will go down.

My beef is not with government per se. It is with the kind of “experts” who gravitate to government jobs, and think it is their sacred mission to find “the best” policy for everyone on all things, preferably one size fits all, and cram it down our throats. Government can set some broad incentives and policies, and set boundaries around monopolies, but then real live people have to grapple with what works best, for each question, in each local area.

I don’t expect the current health care bill to be really good, but that is because we have so many factions fighting blindly for issues right in front of their nose. It is also because, after a rousing campaign, our president is too afraid of being called a “socialist” to take the kind of bold action that would get us a half-way decent health care bill. I’ve had my years thinking we would be better off if we could just knock over the government we have because it is so dysfunctional, but in a society as complex as ours, we’d have cannibalism within five years, and when it was all over, we would NOT be the greatest power on earth, we’d be a client of the rising powers: Brazil, China, India, perhaps Iran, probably Russia. I wouldn’t call DW a poseur, but Friedman always was, for precisely the reasons John offered. He didn’t have a viable plan for free market meat inspection, or free market sewage disposal.

We are not paying the price for fifty years of government regulation. Government regulation just saved us from another Great Depression. Who says so? My mother – she lived through the last one, and she was a Republican until she say her beloved party running up the national debt by leaps and bounds, while a Democrat actually paid it down a little in between. (Reagan proved deficits don’t matter… yeah, right.) We are paying the price for a philosophy of smaller government, advanced in such a manner that large monopolies run amuck and trample all the rest of us… which is not exactly how we get back to the old Republic.

Arben has a decent idea for a bumper sticker, but if I produce one anytime soon its going to read I SUPPORT PRESIDENT OBAMA AND OUR TROOPS.