[Durham INC] [oldnorthdurham] RE: [pac2] HB 554 and SB 683

[Peter Katz]

Illustrative, yes.  Specious, no.

In fact I can't think of a better comparison than to the health department.
When you begin an endeavor such as a restaurant, you create a relationship
between yourself and your customers, just as landlords do with tenants,
where there are possible misalignment of incentives and asymmetries of
information which tend to prevent free-market solutions from being
effective.  Without rehashing previous arguments, whether any of us decides
to become the proprietor of a restaurant, or a landlord, we are ALL
consumers at one time or another.  Thus we decide as a community how we
expect to be treated as consumers and we set the guidelines for those who
choose to seek profits by becoming producers.  We then empower our
governmental agencies to see that these guidelines are fulfilled. 

Accordingly, since these asymmetries and misaligned incentives presumably do
not occur in your kitchen at home (except perhaps in the special case of
people who suffer from multiple personalities;)) the health department does
not come to your house to inspect your kitchen and neither do minimum
housing inspectors.  For these reasons, I would argue that your analogy to
warrantless police searches is actually the one that is "specious".

Still, I thank you for taking such an active and involved interest in this
issue.  Regardless of whether we can eventually agree or not, I think if
more of us dedicate ourselves to thinking these issues through so rigorously
(as you clearly do) then Durham would certainly be a better place. 

Peter Katz


-----Original Message-----
From: oldnorthdurham at yahoogroups.com [mailto:oldnorthdurham at yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Jason Allen
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2011 12:38 PM
To: oldnorthdurham at yahoogroups.com
Cc: Scott Weaver; inc-list at rtpnet.org; Rick Hester; Bob.Atwater at ncleg.net;
Floyd.McKissick at ncleg.net
Subject: Re: [oldnorthdurham] RE: [pac2] HB 554 and SB 683

> Right.  Then perhaps you will agree that we should also restrict the
health department to inspecting restaurants where E. coli is already known
to exist - the health department being an equally "Intrusive government
agency!".

No, Peter.  That's specious.

E. Coli is known to exist in every restaurant in the intestines of every
employee.  Poor hygiene (specifically poor handwashing discipline) and
failure to follow proper food safety practices are the reason for its
"transmission", if you want to call it that.  Because of this and a variety
of other reasons, we the people have empowered government to inspect
restaurants to ensure proper precautions are taken to prevent food-born
illness.

A better analogy, if you need one, is restricting the police from performing
warrantless searches of homes in Old North Durham to determine which might
contain a meth lab, because one house on Monmouth contained a meth lab,
effectively requiring all other property owners in Old North Durham to prove
their innocence.

Because presumption of guilt is not the basis of our legal system, the
better analogy is restricting the police to searching a home only after
establishing probable cause and securing a warrant "particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".  This is
established by Amendment IV.

So, the better analogy leads to a completely different conclusion than the
one you arrived at, above, that we should allow local government to inspect
properties without establishing cause.

I hope you'll consider the point I am trying to make.

Regards,
J. C. Allen



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