🚀 go-pugleaf

coatta@cs.ubc.ca (Terry Coatta) writes:
> > I totally disagree with this.  Why would it be the concern of the general
> > citizenry whether or not a given company provides child-care?  It is an
> > arrangement between the workers and their employer, and is none of the
> > public's business.
> 
> I imagined that you would, which is why I chose it as an example.  However,
> I see it as part of a continuum of issues within which the more usual
> zoning concerns also reside.  What is the purpose of zoning regulations?
> It seems to me that it is to ensure that one's community develops in a manner
> that is acceptable to the community.  The issue of child care is NOT
> simply one between employer and employees because it has wide-ranging effects
> on the nature of the community.  Granted those effects are not as immediate
> as effect of building an industrial enterprise in the midst of a
> residential area, but the principle remains the same:  the community must
> have the power and the means to ensure that it develops in a manner
> acceptable to its citizens.

I don't agree with your angle on this.  The purpose of all laws (including
zoning laws) should be to support human rights.  Human rights are entirely
protective - that is, they protect people from the actions of other people.
Human rights should never be extractive - that is, allow one person to demand
things of another.  This would of course violate the human rights of the
person who is being extracted from (their right to property for example).
Entitlements are somewhere in between.  As a taxpayer/citizen in any given
country, you are entitled to all the benefits of such being given to other
people in that country.  This is because you, like them, have foregone part
of your right to property (cash) when you pay taxes.  The boundaries between
rights, entitlements, and outright extractions have become highly blurred in
our society.

So any law, including zoning laws, should be viewed from the angle of whether
or not they violate someone's rights.  Some cases are obvious, others are
not.  If someone builds a 30 story building covering the lot next to your
house, it seems evident that they have violated your rights in some manner.
Maybe "the right to sunshine", or "the right to not have your property
devalued by having a huge building next to your house".  Something like
that.  Granted it is sketchy, but clearly you have been infringed upon.

Zoning laws are generally supportable along these lines.  Regulating that
companies have child care centers can in no way be supported in this manner.
If they do not have such centers, who will they be infringing upon?  You
would have to use some mighty socialist arguments to make an infringement
case.  Your statement, "The community must have the power and the means to
ensure that it develops in a manner acceptable to its citizens", could be
interpreted as a justification for the brazen promotion of "social" goals.
I think this century has proven what that inevitably leads to.

> > The primary function of government should
> > be to enforce the laws that support human rights. 
> 
> Does this include matters such as environmental protection?

Yes.  Environmental protection is an extension of human rights because,
sooner or later, some human is going to consume that dioxin.

> What is the set of ``official'' human rights? 

There is just one: "Stay the hell out of my way."  More specific versions can
be extrapolated from this.  The general theme, as I stated, is to protect
people from other people.

> > (You might want to throw in say education and health care services -
> > because of the economies of scale available.)  This is not too far from an
> > anarchistic utopia.
> 
> Given that about a third of the federal gov'ts expenditures are directed
> towards health care, I'd say you were putting some distance between
> yourself and utopia.

This presupposes that the government has to spend that amount of cash.  Most
of it is wasted.  And I did say "might".

> > It also gives the Engineers more
> > clout ("None of us will do it, we could all go to jail.") when upper
> > management insists on doing something bad, bad.
> 
> The cynic in me suggests this is not realistic.  Enough money will
> ALWAYS buy you employees who will do your bidding.

If you spend enough money you can always find an assassin, no matter how
dangerous the target.  This doesn't mean that laws against murder should
be discarded.

Ken Buckland
kenb@ee.ubc.ca