I wasn't making an argument about whether or not the government has the authority to do this. Of course they do, and of course the people have the right to vote for it, and the companies are bound by it.

I was arguing that the regulation itself is inadvisable, and I don't think the position is particularly absolutist. The government should step in to regulate areas that pose a significant risk to the public, but that the market does a poor job of regulating on its own. Things like food safety and environmental protections are prime examples of this. Taxi driving is not.

The damage causable by a single rogue taxi driver is, at its worst, minimal and not much different from the damage that can be caused by any random malicious citizen. If a rapist or murderer wants to rape and murder, being a taxi driver helps them in so doing marginally at best.

Do you know what does do a pretty good job at regulating taxi drivers? An instant, non-optional review system.

The uber review system is a good protection against a driver who is rude or unprofessional to most of their customer. It does not do anything against a repeat sex offender who will randomly assault a customer every few months. Fingerprinting would. Two different systems for two different purposes.

> It does not do anything against a repeat sex offender who will randomly assault a customer every few months.

This would never happen. The first time they assault a passenger, they'd immediately get kicked off the platform and likely referred to police.

You can commit a crime as an Uber driver, but there's no way you're getting away with it. There's a precise log of who you drove and where.

that does not help the first victim.

Background checks, by definition, also do not help the first victim.

Obviously. But no system is capable of rooting out potential sex offenders.

If I don't think airline passengers should be fingerprinted as a condition of flying, is it because I simply reject regulation on some sort of absolutist libertarian principle? Or are some regulations (don't bring a gun on board) ok, but others (submit to biometric scanning) not?