[cogitator]

But the nanny government will always be there to make sure people don't do the wrong thing?

If you shared an aquifer with a neighbor, wouldn't you want a law that your neighbor couldn't pee in his well? Personal liberties only go so far with shared vital resources.

Let's take a more relevant example. Excess fertilizer use in agriculture can lead to nutrient runoff, causing eutrophication in downstream reservoirs and estuaries. This could impact a large number of people. If the government provides incentives for agriculture to reduce its fertilizer use (by training in proper fertilzer application, alternatives to synthetic fertilizer, crop subsidies for nitrogen-fixers like soybeans), and this benefits the nutrient flux at the downstream sites, then was this an example of "nanny government", or a good plan?

[hedgetrimmer]

"If you shared an aquifer with a neighbor, wouldn't you want a law that your neighbor couldn't pee in his well? "

A law doesn't stop anybody from doing wrong. It only gives a means of punishment if they're caught.

You seem not to understand the basic premis underwhich our republic was meant to operate. You have to trust that people are basically good, and will do the right and moral thing if given the opportunity, the knowledge and the right to decide on their own. Plenty of water systems evolved in this counrty with shared aquifers that have been successful and friendly between neighbors.

You appear to have a bias against agriculture and farmers. Remember our government was NEVER chartered to give tax incentives to people whose behaviour they'd like to change. That is the WORST form of social engineering on the planet. Also, when the government tries to tell people how to farm, don't use those 'synthetic fertilizers', it is verging on Lysenkoism



Under Lysenko's guidance, science was guided not by the most likely theories, backed by appropriately controlled experiments, but by the desired ideology. Science was practiced in the service of the State, or more precisely, in the service of ideology. The results were predictable: the steady deterioration of Soviet biology. Lysenko's methods were not condemned by the Soviet scientific community until 1965, more than a decade after Stalin's death.