Yeah, we're in serious danger of curing every major disease, thus putting medical researchers out of business.

Evidently, the people advocating a government takeover of medical research are sure, it is the big-pharma's sabotage, that prevents cures from becoming widely available...

So you're saying whatever government entity is doing this work is going to run out of diseases and ailments to cure? Doesn't sound too bad to me.

Of course it does not sound bad — whether the entity is governmental or private. My response was to the sentiment, that medical research must run by the government, because, somehow, government's employees are not as worried about losing their jobs, as the private industry ones...

The illogic goes like this:

• There is no money in cure, because, once everyone is healthy, people stop paying.
• Corporations care only about money.
• Corporations aren't looking for cure (worse, if they accidentally find one, they'll sabotage it).
• Therefor, all medical research must be done by the government.

I posit, that this cynical line of thinking is just as attributable to government as corporate managers... At least, corporations have to compete with each other, whereas the government can simply outlaw the competition...

and we can't possibly think in shades of grey or make exceptions where needed.

Ever heard of the Ptolemaic model of the world? It seemed correct, but new and new facts required more and more exceptions until collapsing under their weight. Once you begin talking about "shades of grey" and "exceptions where needed", you admit, your model is junk...

And surely stuff like a bunch of women unionizing will all be an evil bunch

The workers wanting to bargain collectively aren't evil — they are doing, what's best for them. What is evil are the laws, that recognize unions as anything more than a group of people willing to associate with each other... No such laws should exist. A "union" of New York City transit workers should have no more legal recognition, that the community of Slashdot posters.

Moreover, given that unions are organizations set up with the explicit goal of maintaining and raising the price of what their members are selling (their own labor), they should be viewed as monopolies, subject to "trust-busting" laws.

If Staples and Office Depot were prevented from merging with each other for fear, the price of office supplies would go up, why do we allow our supply of healthcare, education, transportation, as well as crime- and fire-fighting to be controlled by the price-fixing monopolies?

Wake me up when you have an argument that actually applies to genetic testing

My argument, for the last time is that we are all employers, and, when considering any employment-regulating law (such as the ban on the use of genetic-testing by employers, implicitly suggested at the top of this thread), we should apply it to ourselves from the other end too: do I want this (or similar) law to control my interactions with all these people I hire: food takeout, gardener, nanny, cab-driver?

For a particular example, I don't want my nanny to have above-average incidence of sickness — even it is not contagious — because, any time she can't show up, I have to skip my work. So if, when interviewing candidates, I can quickly check their health, I'd want to be able to do it. This makes me sympathetic to the other employers wanting healthy employees. Someone of poor health may try to compensate with something else (higher productivity, better education, willingness to accept lower pay, whatever), but any bans on the use of any criteria are just that: Illiberal.

You don't seem to understand this newfangled "burden of proof" concept.

It would've mattered in court. In our argument it is not as important, because it is not, what my point hinges on. The one-hour minimum overtime was just an example of a possible absurd rule.

If you actually support the claim, sure, then it stops being BS.

Are you, actually, denying, that the gross abuses in the Union-contracts exist? More like are simply trying to bog me down with this meaningless nit-picking... Here are some overtime-related examples for you:

• Up until this year, employees of Wall Street Journal had a 5-hour minimum overtime pay. That's gone now, but only in exchange for other concessions.
• If the employee works more than one-half of an extra consecutive shift, the time worked for the entire extra shift shall be paid at time and one-half of pay. Yep, round it up — AFL-CIO are proud of this one, they quote it, even if without the full text.
• Firefighters received overtime pay regardless of whether they worked more than scheduled because their union contract guarantees regularly scheduled overtime (emphasis mine).
• The union contract for Muni operators prevents the SFMTA from hiring part-time drivers, meaning overtime must be paid overtime

The last two, in particular, blow up your entire argument about employees "not caring" for employees, and "forcing" to work overtime... The examples show, how the unions consider the overtime rules as a "benefit".

Of course, you know, my example was valid. BS here is produced by you — at least, the bulls produce it through proper orifices...

This is why medical research should be publicly funded and public property.

Right. Because the selfless, benevolent government officials will be happy about losing their funding (and risk their cushy government jobs), when the cure is found — unlike those evil corporate drones, out to perpetuate our ills for, dare I say it, profit...

Back to the question at hand, the money, obviously, goes to raising awareness. Gee, the easiest question in a week!

I'm not aware of any place which rounds upwards to the nearest hour

You are not aware, therefor it must be BS...

At any rate, I think it was libertarians who were into everything being solved by contract not by regulation

Yes, a contract. A contract with the worker, not their union. Surely, workers are entitled (by freedom of association) to form any groups, etc. But no one — neither the giant automakers nor the nanny-hiring families — must be legally-bound to hire union-only. And any union-won contracts to that effect must be studied with the anti-monopoly bias.

Let's keep it simple this time: are you aware of such a situation where anyone anywhere was sued for changing their pizzeria, or ordering more Italian than Chinese? Or do you think that repeating the same falsehood

It is not any more of a "falsehood" than any other caricature. Individual consumers' tastes in food aren't (yet?) targeted, but the employers' tastes in employees already are. I argue, that these aren't different from each other.

When you call for a food delivery, you are employing the restaurant. If we were to consistently apply the same laws to all employers, we'd have to study such food-ordering habits for signs of bigotry in the same way, personnel-hiring of companies is already studied by Attorney Generals.

for some strange reason the long-running North Korean energy crisis seems to have been solved...

... by all the American stomachs roasted by the mujahedeen in Hell....

Oh, wait, that's from another regime's ministry of information.

Once you accept that she too is a human being, has a family, etc, and isn't there just as some accessory to your wellbeing

I do accept all that, but my train is still late, so I have to ask her to not leave my kid unattended for another 10 minutes...

If she (or her union) claim, she has to leave anyway, or even simply charge me "overtime" (150%, one hour minimum), I'll start looking for a new nanny immediately. And so will you.

Point is, we are all employers...

Fourth, if you'd actually switch a shop because that barber has cancer

Why I actually switch a shop is irrelevant! But, if there anything about my old barber, that's "protected", a reasonably zealous anti-discrimination officer may (nay, must!) get interested anyway — and I'd hate to live in a country, where I'd have to explain all of my, supposedly, free decisions.

"Hello. We've noticed, that over the past 12 months you've ordered pizza 5 times more often than General Tsao's chicken. We suspect, you are a White bigot discriminating against Asians. Please, hand over all of your purchase-records for a closer audit."

This is, what the sufficiently large employers already have to do. Some of them may be bigots, and some may not be — in either case, if I don't want it applied to me, I don't want it applied to anybody.

We may not send the anti-discrimination authorities after you, but don't expect much support or respect there.

You can shove your "support and respect" where the Sun does not shine, but your promise, that you may not send the authorities after me is insufficient. Because tomorrow you "may" change your mind...

I'm sure you could have thought of some form of government control that actually happens.

It does happen everyday. It is just that you are excluded from the rules. And not because you are good (or non-bigoted), but because there are too many of your kind and forcing all of you to comply is politically suicidal...

For a closer-to-home example, consider New York City's laws against landlords discriminating tenants... Discrimination on a large number of parameters is banned. But the owners of two-family houses are exempt... Is it any more acceptable (and less divisive) to be a bigot, if you are a small-scale landlord?

It is not. But such small-scale landlords represent a far larger proportion of voters, and would get really upset, if, suddenly, they are no longer able to reject a tenant on their own whim. But, as long as the illiberal rule, that prevents people from using their property the way they want, applies to somebody else, most people don't care and allow themselves to be swayed by the discrimination poster-boys and -girls...

Hence my point — when considering laws regulating inter-human relationships, imagine yourself in both positions...

At least, if it is Walgreens — or nearly any other company, that does not actively fight unionization of workforce — we can have a (semi-)intelligent discussion...

But if it were Walmart doing this...

Closing Guantanamo?.. Ending no-bids government contracts?

I can see this kind of thing used by companies when they're supposedly testing for drugs, and it'll just so happen that down the line there'll be some "restructuring" in which everyone who is slightly more probable to need sick days down the line is silently let go.

When suggesting — explicitly or otherwise — a law regulating the employer-employee relationship, one must always apply it to themselves both ways (for most people that means, consider yourself an employer too).

Do you want to have to explain, why you switched your pizza-shop — if the dumped establishment was owned by someone with cancer, you may be in trouble... Would you be willing to have to justify going to a new barber-shop? The anti-discrimination authorities may get interested, if your old barber was Black, but the new one is White...

Union-lovers, would you accept your nanny's refusal to stay an extra 10 minutes, when your train is late, because union's rules forbid her from "overworking"?

Back to the matter at hand, it is, of course, horrible, that the health insurance is tied to employment for so many people... The solution is to make it just as private, once again, as most other things — including other kinds of insurance — still are...

If you guessed I was thinking you're a troll you're right

Is this all you can say, after I've demonstrated you 100% wrong on the topic? Not the "oh, wow, I missed that one"? Not the "hey, thanks for the pointer, didn't know..." All you did, was pick on an insignificant figure of speech?

In this case, perhaps, it would've been better for you to say nothing at all...

If it ends up like Vladez oil spill BP won't have to pay anything.

The compensatory damages, that Exxon is on the hook for, exceed half a billion dollars. That's in addition to their spending on the actual clean-up...

The Supreme Court (in a 5-to-3 vote, with your beloved David Souter writing for the majority) did remove the punitive $2.5 billion as "excessive"... But the compensatory $507 million were left standing... Yes, it took much too long. Maybe, if the plaintiffs weren't greedy (greed is only good, when you are making something, that other people want), they would've gotten their compensation 20 years earlier...

while the people pay.

"The people" (including The Children[TM]) also use the oil. Every day... We can't do anything without it.

The government spending billions on roads and bridges would be great.

Why is the government in a better position to do this spending, than a private concern? All our roads now are government-owned, are you seriously claiming, they are a stunning success? Are the Congressmen better prepared to oversee the roads, than the CEO and the board of a road-management company — which has to compete with others for riders — would be? (Don't even start with "natural monopolies" — there are, at least, 3 different roads to drive between New York and Boston right now; there is no reason, why they can't all be sold-off to three different highest bidders.)

Oh, yes, I hear, I hear. The evil capitalists will put profits over people. Right... We can't stand other getting rich, can we? But the current situation is even worse — our highways suck, because the interests of the (unionized) workers are put in front of those of the riding public... And when the union bosses help the politicians get elected, well, that what it takes to keep the country "progressive", does not it?

The government spending billions to lay out a high speed

I grew up in a country, where telecommunications (and everything else) was the government's responsibility. A wait time for a regular land-line telephone (in the 1980ies) was over 10 years... I kid you not...

But, hey, let's ignore the 80 years of central-planning's failure and try again, right? A monopoly controlling everyone's Internet access sounds awful even to you, I'm sure, but, because it is a Government monopoly, it would be staffed by the selfless, benevolent people, who will put their interests last... Sure... Under the wise guidelines set by Congress, they would never attempt to ban any kind traffic, will allow all kinds of information through, never spy on the users, and, if we don't like any aspect of the service, we can just wait 2 years to vote them out. Picking up the phone and calling a competitor is so bourgeois...

The government giving a bunch of tax breaks to people who already have a lot of money

People, who don't have a lot of money, do not pay taxes at all. 47% of Americans don't pay Federal income tax, for example, while the top 1% pays over 40% of the total. If you are going to cut taxes at all, you are bound to benefit "the wealthy"...

Hell, I'd rather we pay down the debt before we give people making over a quarter of a million dollars more tax breaks, they've got money to burn.

The truth comes out... You want to use my taxes to pay for the debts you incurred (or are about to) by spending on all of the above-listed "feel-good" projects for the "poor masses" — the rich pay for themselves, don't they?.. Fairness be damned — whoever has "money to burn" (and you will be deciding, how much money is "enough"), will be forced at gun-point (via the IRS, that is) to pay up. No longer are you content with humbly asking for money to help "the unfortunate" — you are now demanding it, or else...

You aren't, per chance, posting from Athens, are you? Don't you still have a few offices to burn?