Liberal free for all coming to an end

[smc]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

If there's a danger with toxic food the FDA should step in, or at least mandate that the chicken be labeled stating the potential risk. If there's a risk to the population, the government has a responsibility to step in, while weighing the liberties of Americans and states rights.

Thanks again, Tracy, for your thoughtful response. It is a pleasure to continue the dialogue in a rational and productive way.

I'd like to ask you a bit more about your answer to my question regarding food safety, which I used as an example for a more general question about regulation.

Your response references the FDA. In the example I gave, it would be a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that would handle the issue, at least as the federal government is constituted at present. Nevertheless, my question really is about having regulations in advance of a crisis. You responded about the federal government stepping in once a problem or crisis has been revealed. How do you, as a libertarian, feel about the federal government regulating things to prevent such a crisis. In this case, it would clearly be in the form of federal regulations prescribing certain things to protect consumers from toxicity in food. These regulations supersede states' individual regulations; in other words, a state can have a more rigid regulatory regime, but not a more lax one.

I asked a libertarian colleague about this today and he gave me a convoluted answer that I could only understand as an attempt to agree with the need for federal regulation without endorsing federal regulators -- quite a feat of verbal acrobatics. Where do you come down on this issue?