Would Government Regulation of Diving Be So Bad?

[H2Andy]

At least 4 have been openly discussed on PBS documentaries and others were alluded to. Go arrest Ernie and Bert

please provide some back up for this claim. i'd like to see what those four sites are.

 

[dweeb]

yes, it's called a personal attack and should not be made

Hardly. It wasn't an attack, it wasn't even part of an argument. Take a pill.

the fact that i am a lawyer bears no relevance to my arguments.

Nor was it offered as relevant. It was alluded to in a humorous sidebar having no bearing on anything. Have our previous disagreements traumatized you beyond the ability to recognize that?

please address my arguments on their merit.

Always have, always will. I'll also joke around with you on occassion.

 

[dweeb]

As a slight tangent, have you considered that the U.S. government might propose to regulate recreational diving more closely for national security's sake, rather than from a personal safety argument?

Darn good point.

 

[dweeb]

OR we agree with it, but see govt. regulation as offering no good and a lot of bad. To dismiss a proposed solution as worthless doesn't always imply an alternative. Maybe someone just thinks we need to keep looking for an answer.
Maybe they think there's NOTHING that can be done to fix the problem. Maybe they think it needs to get a whole lot worse before people will be receptive to what they see as a solution. Maybe they see dive training as causing a lot of deaths eventually, and think that's good for the gene pool.
The possibilities are endless for why someone might acknowledge Andy's definition of the problem and not agree that govt. regulation is the answer.

 

[dweeb]

Your water as weight thread also had something to do with my stirring the pot comment.
Seems to me that thread was a troll. If not perhaps you need to brush up on the section in the certification course on Archimedes Principle.

You cruel MONSTER! Why can't you let Andy heal from that trauma? Some people are SO sadistic.

Besides, you're stealing my act.

 

[dweeb]

lol, i already answered that: only if the situation is pretty darn bad. i see govt. intervention as an option only if
the ONLY alternative is an ever-rising body count.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[Boatlawyer]

True, but I think it'd be fun to try to convince Rehnquist that divers are a suspect classification triggering strict scrutiny!

Me too. I would love to see the "diving gene" identified, so we can argue immutability.

 

[dweeb]

Ah, the fun of being baited on message boards.

It's the spice of life.

I responded half as a joke, at the sheer silliness of your trying to fit people into ideological boxes like 'true liberal' and 'true conservative', when today the labels are all but meaningless.

Not really. There are a few defining principles at the core of each. The problem is most people identify themselves as one or the other on the basis of one or two issues without examining the underlying principles.

For instance, take so-called conservatives who want to legislate morality. If they really believe in the morality they promote, they should trust that, if government is minimalized and people are placed in a true position of complete personal responsibility, the morality they advocate will be self reinforcing without government action.

(when was the last time you ever saw a 'conservative' try to actually CONSERVE anything? hello, clearcutting of forests and drilling in wildlife preserves...)

I don't believe for a minute that you don't understand they seek to conserve ideals, not things.

But I'll bite.

And we'll have lots of fun.

What is your personal definition, pray tell, of 'true liberal'? You say that, by dint of my calling myself a 'liberal', that I should wholeheartedly agree with government intervention in diving, since, obviously, as a liberal, I believe that the government can fix everything.

Like I said, the principles that support government protecting people from lack of healthcare or other economic benefits due to poor life choices (career, education, personal finance) also militate for a similar effort to protect them from poor choices to dive. The interaction between the individual and society is the same. It's no more cruel to say "let the poor go without healthcare" than it is to say "let the stupid get bent."

Explain how an issue like, say, abortion would fit into your little political matrix. Traditionally speaking, most 'true liberals' oppose government restrictions on abortion, believing that the government has no say in a woman's reproductive decisions. Most 'true conservatives' want abortion outlawed. This would seem to conflict with your assertations that liberals always desire increaced government involvement with any issue.

This is pretty simple. The root question is not truly about reproductive freedom. The question is when a human life begins. You answer that ontological question, regarding the nature of the issue, and THEN you apply your principles on how to run a society. Now, you could say there's a coincidental correlation between liberal/conservative and how one answers that root question,
but I'm more inclined to believe that most people don't apply any principle to this issue. As you point out below, principles sadly don't play a strong role in most peoples' political decisions. I think the strongest predictor for one's position is how likely they are to find themselves in a situation where an abortion would be the most attractive option, and that likelihood corrolates strongly with liberal/conservative positions on other social and fiscal issues. In other words, most peoples' position on it is a matter of whose ox is being gored.

Another good example of this is the question of rehabilitation versus retribution in the justice system - if we're talking about an individual case, those principles don't even enter the discussion until we actually determine whether the defendant is guilty.

This is nothing more than a perversion of the original meaning of 'liberal', which was meant to connote a progressive, tolerant mindset open to change and free from the intrusions of dogma.

Except that reproductive freedom is a dogma.
So is human rights. If we're all just convenient arrangements of charged particles, like Carl Sagan held, then human rights is just a silly construct with no objective basis. No, the roots of liberalism lie in Plato's Republic, and the notion of the 'enlightened' guiding the lives of the unenlightened.

All this aside, where have you been, exactly? Political process these days hardly involves 'principles'.)

It SHOULD, for anyone capable of the thoughtful approach you're using.

Several of my positions are not to my personal benefit.

On the now notorious "diving war graves" thread, I defended a philosophy that I don't hold to, because I believe I don't have the right to impose the one I do hold to, and someone had to stand up for the minority. While I'm not inclined to dive war graves, I mocked my own position in defense of the rights of others to believe differently from me and act on those beliefs. People thought I was some sort of corpse burgling ghoul, because I stood up for the rights of those who I might characterize that way. (Andy, since you were there, I'm curious whether you knew.)

Being politically progressive doesn't necessarily mean favouring progressively increacing government controls on every aspect of life.

Actually, it does. It is disingenuous to advocate govt. protecting one group of people from their own bad decisions and not another, unless you hold to some sort of caste system for allowing self determination, which I somehow doubt you do.

I don't need my 'ideological mettle' tested, thank you.

Fine - you made a statement, and I commented on it.
You're free to reject or ignore any or all of it.

I would not personally benefit from the regulation under discussion. It is possible that such regulation would affect me negatively, as I work in the industry, but any effects are likely to be small, as I do not work in the United States.

Well, obviously, for you, the question would be whether you would benefit from and/or advocate regulation in your particular jurisdiction.

What advantages do you think are likely to be culled, however, and by whom, exactly? Lobbyists, I suppose, but that's about it.

Oh, far more than that. On another forum, there was an Egyptian DM vigorously defending regulations there that prohibited any diving without professional supervision. These laws represented a make-work system for him. Clearly, there will be others who can find a way to profit from increased regulation.

There might also be people who might find the industry catering more to their type of diving under various regulatory schemes. Shifts in manufacturing resources could create a better equipment buying market for one subgroup and a worse market for another.

Charter operators could benefit from rules that make it onerous to go diving from one's own boat.

Whenever things change, there's somebody waiting in the wings to make a profit off of it.

 

[Scubaguy62]

Just what we need - yet ANOTHER government department to interfere with our freedoms and to tax us to pay for.

It's painfully obvious we're getting ahead of ourselves here. This is a hypothetical question, and the great majority is treating it as if we have to vote on it next week!

I say throw the idea in the trash. Every one of us has the right to do our own thing. Do it as safely or as risky as you want.

Sounds like the recepie for anarchy, or, at least in the U.S., a ticket for PI lawyers to keep making TV commercials, only this time they'll say, "If you're injured in a diving accident, and you feel you weren't properly trained, call the law firm of Dewey Cheatham & Howe and let us represent your (our) interests."

I prefer safe and conservative, but I'm not about to support a program that will force others to play it that way too

Can you read my signature?? On the other hand, if agencies can't police themselves, then someone has to do it for them, lest we get some president or member of government saying things like "we know he has the weapons," which when translated into diving terms will mean, "we know that diver wasn't trained properly, so now we have to go and force everyone to be trained 'properly'." I'm sorry folks, the F.A.A. has not messed with my certifications ever since they gave them to me, and they will not mess with them, unless I F*** up.

In summary, I'd rather have a government agency monitor (and I do mean monitor, not regulate) training to ensure the recreational divers (as do recreational and private pilots) enjoy safe ascents from every dive, than a government agency telling me something worse.

Just my .02 psi.

 

[H2Andy]

lol, i already answered that: only if the situation is pretty darn bad. i see govt. intervention as an option only if
the ONLY alternative is an ever-rising body count.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

dweeb, you give yourself away! obviously, you are in the
funeral industry!