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When your choices impact me then I can see a place for regulation. For example, we taxpayers spent millions of dollars trying to find the sub. I think that gives us the right to require adequate safety checks for underwater subs.

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That's a form of bootstrapping. Deciding "we will rescue you" doesn't grant authority to control your behavior or the risks you take.

Medicare covers all over 65, and Medicaid covers anyone who can't afford. Does the existence of those programs give the government the right to intervene in your personal choices?

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We're talking apples and oranges. Medicare may not give the government the right to intervene in your personal choices but it does give the government the right to regulate providers. We may not say you can't go down to the Titanic in a sub but we can say to the tour company that your sub must meet the following safety standards or else you inform your customers that the sub has not met these standards.

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My point is that a third party's action, and especially after the fact, doesn't bestow the right on that third party to intervene in a voluntary action or association.

As to your last point - that'd make the standards voluntary, no? The only coercion there would be the disclosure, and even there I question the government's authority.

Beyond that, there's jurisdiction, which I didn't cover here. What goes on beyond the US territorial waters isn't for the US to regulate, is it?

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As long as the third party doesn't expect us to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, I can see your point. My last point would not be voluntary. The company would not be allowed to do business or to secure customers in our nation if they did not disclose their lack of conformity to accepted standards. Regarding jurisdiction, if it involves our citizens then I'd think it would strongly support some kind of jurisdiction. Just because someone leaves our shores doesn't mean that we wash our hands of them as long as they are a citizen.

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Can we enforce American safety requirements on a business in Europe, if it caters to Americans?

Leaving our borders is its own decision, with its own risk. At what point do we stop safety-netting people's decisions?

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Our protection of our citizens does not end at our borders. It's not safety-netting if our nation could get involved in rectifying an issue involving our citizens as with the millions of dollars spent searching for that sub. I think we need to be very, very careful in doing this because it could turn into a vast bureaucracy.

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The explosion of the nanny state.

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