USA Today's owners don't believe in government regulation, except when they do. So what is the occasion for so much libertarian angst this time? It's California's new law forcing cell phone makers to incorporate a theft deterrent feature, the so-called "kill switch", that allows you to disable your phone remotely if it goes missing. It turns out that cell phone makers, like auto makers, make a lot of money selling replacements for stolen products and have been fighting this feature.
According to libertarian theology, corporations will do the right thing by us because it's good business. But it turns out that there are a few situations where there's more profit in being evil. Let me revise that to say that there are a gagillion ways to make money by being evil, as five thousand years of human history have shown.
The exceptions consume the rule. Government regulation is always bad except for... Well, just about everything.
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