personal freedom vs. public health/safety - Thank You for Smoking (2006) Discussion

[–] homer34 12 years ago

Amen

we need to ban HFCS, sugar, fatty foods, butter and Ice Cream. I'm tired of paying health care costs for a fat country.

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[–] herbsuperb 11 years ago

we need to ban HFCS, sugar, fatty foods, butter and Ice Cream. I'm tired of paying health care costs for a fat country.

That's not a libertarian thing, that is a liberal, socialist, communist thing. Libertarians believe in a very high degree of personal freedom, but also personal responsiblity. Liberals and socialists are the ones socializing national health care. THAT is what makes YOU pay for a fat country. In a Libertarian world, everybody would pay for their OWN health care, which would provide an enormous incentive to live a healthy lifestyle. People forced to pay for their own health care, would be far more apt to choose NOT to each sugar, NOT to eat HFCS, and NOT to smoke.

Liberals have made choice to 'socialize' everything. Now fat asses and smokers can eat and smoke to their hearts content, and somebody else will largely pay for it.

That's ****ed up.

Freedom is awesome. But without personal responsiblity, which the left has tried so hard to remove from our national consciousness, it will be a disaster. We are seeing that more and more every day as liberal principles take root in America.

I'm not really a libertarian, but I respect their motives. Liberals are ****ing up this country something fierce. Communism doesn't work, deal with it.

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[–] herbsuperb 11 years ago

we need to ban HFCS, sugar, fatty foods, butter and Ice Cream. I'm tired of paying health care costs for a fat country.

That's not a libertarian thing, that is a liberal, socialist, communist thing. Libertarians believe in a very high degree of personal freedom, but also personal responsiblity. Liberals and socialists are the ones socializing national health care. THAT is what makes YOU pay for a fat country. In a Libertarian world, everybody would pay for their OWN health care, which would provide an enormous incentive to live a healthy lifestyle. People forced to pay for their own health care, would be far more apt to choose NOT to each sugar, NOT to eat HFCS, and NOT to smoke.

Liberals have made choice to 'socialize' everything. Now fat asses and smokers can eat and smoke to their hearts content, and somebody else will largely pay for it.

That's ****ed up.

Freedom is awesome. But without personal responsiblity, which the left has tried so hard to remove from our national consciousness, it will be a disaster. We are seeing that more and more every day as liberal principles take root in America.

I'm not really a libertarian, but I respect their motives. Liberals are ****ing up this country something fierce. Communism doesn't work, deal with it. People who are in charge of, and responsible for, their own lives are MUCH BETTER PEOPLE! Nanny state Obama-sheep are the dregs of America, and are causing its decline.

Here is the one part of Obamacare they've gotten right. People who CHOOSE to smoke SHOULD pay much higher premiums. Why should I have to subsidize their CHOICE to continue a filthy, disgusting and 100% non-essential habit that destroyes their health.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/25/obamacare-policies-slam-smo kers-could-backfire/

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[–] MarlboroMoro 12 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=9H4Z1n_GG8I

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[–] Ronny_the_effin_bear 11 years ago

Or Somalia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0

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[–] cyninbend-149-610489 10 years ago

TY. Too funny! LOL

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[–] SparklingNugs 11 years ago

But who will build the roads?

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[–] avortac4 (3746) 3 years ago

Well, it's not really a 'seeing', 'believing' or 'debatable' stuff.

Your human rights are unalienable, and according to Badnarik, are based on ownership. You own your body, so you have the right to do anything you want to it. You don't own the hospital staff, so you don't have right to 'healthcare' (which is pretty abstract a concept anyway).

Rights are very immediate, they're very important, we all have them, and they can't be taken away by anyone or anything, ever.

If you have your own house on your own land, there's no force in the Universe that can lawfully stop you from doing WHATEVER you want there. You can explode your house, you can dig graves in there, you can basically pump poison into the ground if you want (I wish you wouldn't, though). Of course if it seeps into the drinking water, wells or something like that, you could be responsible for murder, so it's not advisable.

The point is, this naturally includes ingesting any kind of smoke or gas you d4mn well please. No one can lawfully stop you from doing that sort of stuff.

You also don't own air, so you don't really have right to good-quality breathing air, which is where it gets kind of interesting.

I think every planet, every government, every corporation and every individual should absolutely respect people's healthy and free air. How are you going to keep yourself healthy if someone else can just freely poison or pollute the air you breathe? I absolutely hate walking near anything where there are bars, like shopping mall-type things, because I am basically forced to breathe in poisonous smoke, whether I want to or not (and who would want to).

There's no law against someone smoking right next to you in a public place. If someone comes to YOUR land to smoke, you have the right to dictate whatever rules you want on your own land. Any visitor would have to stand on their hands, for example, for the duration of the visit. If they can't or won't do it, you can kick them out. Anything you wish.

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[–] avortac4 (3746) 3 years ago

The problem is exactly that people smoke in PUBLIC places, where many non-smokers want to breathe fresh, healthy air, but can't. It feels like a right, but it isn't (it's very frustrating that it isn't, but that's how it goes).

No one can basically outlaw smoking in public places, because it would open such a can of worms, we could never close that can again.

They banned smoking in restaurants in some countries, so now people gather outside the restaurant door to smoke, where people have to walk by. The air was cleaner OUTSIDE before this stupid ban. I would rather the restaurant-goer drunk smokers just gas each other with that poisonous smoke, than all the innocent people that have to go by to buy groceries.

They can't ban smoking outside, because outside is a public place, and restaurants are a privately owned business that have rules to obey - 'outside' can't be controlled by a government.

They can't ban cigarettes themselves, because it would be very costly - people would live longer, and rack up their health expenses. There would be no tax revenue. The cigarette corporations would go bankrupt, and get bailouts.

They can't ban 'behaviour', because that would be dictatorship and a police state, and impossible to enforce anyway, plus, it would trample on the human rights in the most hideous way.

In a free market (which doesn't exist, but let's pretend), you can't really ban someone from buying something stupid that will hurt them. They have to be able to sell knives, for example.

I mean, let the buyer beware is basically the law. Sure, there are 'controlled substances', and they could add cigarettes to that list, but they won't. Also, there would be 'bootleggers' anyway. Tobacco plant can't be patented, so nothing would stop someone from making cigarettes anyway.

So this whole thing is very complicated and problematic on many levels, no matter what is 'done' about things.

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[–] avortac4 (3746) 3 years ago

The old TV show, 'Yes, Prime Minister', actually dared to air a show about this very thing; the Prime Minister wanted to stop people from smoking and wanted to DO something active about it, but little did he realize just HOW many complicated problems would be between his desire and reality. It's a brilliant TV episode that perfectly illuminates this issue, and I urge EVERYONE to watch it, you will thank me for it (and you will probably also laugh a bit, as it's a funny show, although realistic).

I can't remember the name of the episode, but I am sure you'll find it.

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