Lmao doesn't mean much coming from you
Then why are you here spouting your proud opposition to it?
When you go into business, You're there to make money
And you should be free to accomplish (or not) that goal however you please. Should every mom and pop restaurant be striving to be the next big keiretsu because big business is where the cash lives? And while there's an argument that publicly traded companies actually do have that obligation to cash above all else as a duty to shareholders, privately owned businesses don't. The business is whatever the owners want it to be. They're under no obligation to optimize their profits. If they want to make decisions based on their own personal views at the expense of profit, that's damn well their right.
But hey, I know you aren't going to bother responding to anything I say since you're just here to sling insults since you lack the spine to outright say you don't support personal freedom.
So, you're an anarchocapitalists, then?
I wish. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in "reality" or something, and anarcho-anything is just a recipe for whoever does support government (or a functional equivalent) fucking you over. I'm more of a "government is a necessary evil" right-libertarian. That is, I believe the government should exist, but it should only do so with an extremely limited scope of function. International relations and a justice system, at the bare minimum, with the sole purpose of upholding individual rights.
within 15 minutes I have:
Proving my point about size being a key factor. The town I lived in also had most of that stuff in a couple blocks. It's main street, and a bit off each side. It's enough for the whole town. Only reason more than one grocery store even exists is because there's a Walmart out near the interstate.
It's not just the government that can fuck shit up, corporations are equally capable. Your friendly neighborhood wally world that is at least a half hour drive away did more than it's fair share of killing good jobs in small towns.
I was there when it came in. It really only added jobs and saved the hour drive into another city to buy shit. Casey's was the only thing that ended up closing, and nobody missed it.
But even within your own example, the government almost certainly is interfering through zoning laws or prohibitions on running a business out of your home. Half the reason why my girlfriend's neighborhood has so many shops is because so many people are running shops out of their homes.
I'm not interested in going and looking up civil code, but a lot of businesses were out of people's houses. Well, "a lot" as far as there was "a lot" of anything in that town. Which isn't all that much.
What is practical is what services the most people as comfortably as possible, which as much freedom of choice as possible, and low density car-centric planning doesn't do that.
It does when most people live further out, and there's only enough people to support an extremely limited amount of businesses. In that case, having a centralized area where most commerce goes on is the most comfortable for the most people, since the alternative is having to drive to multiple places instead of just one.
You're the one trying to dismiss dissent as just the result of propaganda, dude.
I'm getting some hostile vibes here, and that's not really the tone I'm going for.
Apologies, I'm not good at tone over text. Hostility wasn't my goal.
One thing that makes me left libertarian is that I believe the government has an absolute right to interfere with gross negligence
I'm of the inverse opinion, largely why I'm not a leftist. I believe the government has no legitimate place inserting itself into people's personal affairs because something bad might happen. I'd rather bear increased risk if it means the government isn't the one telling me how to go about my life.
and until civil lawsuits can unburn houses and bring people back from the dead, I don't see my view changing there.
And I'm fine agreeing to disagree here. Just figured I'd toss in my two cents since you seemed interested in discussion.
Also, as a sidebar and not an argument for regulation, I've owned a few trucks and I think the trend towards mutant minivan truckzillas is about the stupidest thing going on in modern automobiles. But that's just a personal opinion rather than a political position.
Similarly non political, I just think they're cool. The cheaper of the two f-numbered raptors I want to own at some point.
Free markets include the freedom to fail, that's true, but can it truly be said to be a free market when we've rigged it the way we have?
I fully agree that we currently don't have much of a free market at all, but I don't think the solution is to try and counter it with more non-free market policies in the other direction. I want the markets freed, and to let it balance itself out.
Ask yourself, how would life change for you if you couldn't take a car where you needed to go; do you have some other viable alternative?
Depends how loosely you define viable. I full well took a job with no transit options because I would rather drive anyway. Not exactly like you can run too many transit options onto a military base anyway, security and all that crap.
As for Roman roads: Rome didn't have Amazon Prime. Damage to roads increases quadratically according to vehicle weight, and high vehicle speeds also create increased damage, though not to the same extent.
So Amazon can pave the roads then if they're unsatisfied with the quality. Or Walmart. Or whatever logistics company is interested in spending that money. Remember when dominoes went out and did road maintenance? That should be our standard. People who want it do it, and those who don't, don't. Me? I'm perfectly fine with just throwing gravel into potholes whenever they arise, and leaving it at that. We don't really need everything to be all pristine as if it's an f1 track or something. Good enough is just that. Good enough.
Analogically, it's totally reasonable to construct houses by driving nails in with the backs of screwdrivers because a house gets built, the real intent.
Good choice for building? Meh. But "houses built" would certainly be a much better category than "things done with hammers".
Conspiracy or not, it's a shit idea