3 ms·

I think it's dangerous thinking to wish the state and its guns to dictate life

munk-a 7y ago
So here's a fundamental issue I have with this brand of Libretarianism - states have laws, they have laws whether they're prohibitions or allowances. Most humans agree infanticide is bad so that's been illegal for a lot of history. Most of the laws in society aren't just to wag a finger at someone and saw "naughty naughty!" they're there to make sure that people with disproportionate amounts of power don't take advantage of other people. Minimum wages are there to protect workers, not just needlessly increase the bottom lines of companies - contract law exists to prevent private entities with guns from just having whatever they want... We, as a society, have allowed our food supply to get saturated with sugar - fixing that is just as controlling of our lives as allowing it was in the first place. We, as a society, have allowed tobacco smoking to bloom as it has - fixing it is just as controlling of our lives as allowing it was in the first place.
- stOneskull 7y ago
  plenty of people can't stand perfumes. i could die of an asthma attack with that stinking lady getting on the bus i'm on. i get off the bus because i'm not going to try and kim-jong-un others for me.
- Frondo 7y ago
  It's more than that, we in the US are actively subsidizing sugar, making it cheaper and more available for use everywhere. How many processed foods would contain sugar if it raised the price by a few cents per unit cost? If we're going down the market path of "letting people choose," why not let them bear the real cost of sugar proliferation? Hey it's a libertarian site talking about sugar subsidies: https://reason.com/2019/02/27/sugar-subsidies-are-welfare-for-the-rich/ https://reason.com/2019/02/27/sugar-subsidies-are-welfare-fo... For my part, since we're doing market-based stuff for diet, I'd rather end meat, dairy, and sugar subsidies entirely. (I'd actually rather we subsidize vegetables and so on, but I'd be okay with ending all of them.) Let people buy food as it really costs, and then let's see what the national diet looks like.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  This logic is completely backwards. People should generally be given the freedom to make their own choices in life. If the government wants to take your freedom to choose something away, it should have a very strong reason for doing so. I would also suggest that if a government wants to take liberties away from the individual, it should really only be done in situations where the choices of the individual are very likely to harm others (which smoking isn’t, given how regulated it is, the general public is no longer at risk of harm from secondary smoke). If your basis for banning smoking is that it harms smokers, then you have no logical reason to stop at smoking. The leading cause of death in the US is heart disease, if you ban smoking, you should also ban everything that can contribute to an unhealthy diet. The US has 12.4 traffic deaths per 100,000. Given that why would should anybody be permitted to drive for non-essential purposes? Millions of people suffer negative effects from social media and video game addiction, why should they be allowed to consume those products? Less that 5% of US adults get 30 minutes of exercise per day, so why should I be allowed to stream Netflix or YouTube for as long as I like? If you think it’s the governments responsibility to ensure we make healthy choices, then you really can say goodbye to any sense of freedom over your life. Unless you think that should apply to smoking only, in which case you don’t have a rational argument.

So here's a fundamental issue I have with this brand of Libretarianism - states have laws, they have laws whether they're prohibitions or allowances. Most humans agree infanticide is bad so that's been illegal for a lot of history. Most of the laws in society aren't just to wag a finger at someone and saw "naughty naughty!" they're there to make sure that people with disproportionate amounts of power don't take advantage of other people. Minimum wages are there to protect workers, not just needlessly increase the bottom lines of companies - contract law exists to prevent private entities with guns from just having whatever they want... We, as a society, have allowed our food supply to get saturated with sugar - fixing that is just as controlling of our lives as allowing it was in the first place. We, as a society, have allowed tobacco smoking to bloom as it has - fixing it is just as controlling of our lives as allowing it was in the first place.

stOneskull 7y ago
plenty of people can't stand perfumes. i could die of an asthma attack with that stinking lady getting on the bus i'm on. i get off the bus because i'm not going to try and kim-jong-un others for me.
Frondo 7y ago
It's more than that, we in the US are actively subsidizing sugar, making it cheaper and more available for use everywhere. How many processed foods would contain sugar if it raised the price by a few cents per unit cost? If we're going down the market path of "letting people choose," why not let them bear the real cost of sugar proliferation? Hey it's a libertarian site talking about sugar subsidies: https://reason.com/2019/02/27/sugar-subsidies-are-welfare-for-the-rich/ https://reason.com/2019/02/27/sugar-subsidies-are-welfare-fo... For my part, since we're doing market-based stuff for diet, I'd rather end meat, dairy, and sugar subsidies entirely. (I'd actually rather we subsidize vegetables and so on, but I'd be okay with ending all of them.) Let people buy food as it really costs, and then let's see what the national diet looks like.
AmericanChopper 7y ago
This logic is completely backwards. People should generally be given the freedom to make their own choices in life. If the government wants to take your freedom to choose something away, it should have a very strong reason for doing so. I would also suggest that if a government wants to take liberties away from the individual, it should really only be done in situations where the choices of the individual are very likely to harm others (which smoking isn’t, given how regulated it is, the general public is no longer at risk of harm from secondary smoke). If your basis for banning smoking is that it harms smokers, then you have no logical reason to stop at smoking. The leading cause of death in the US is heart disease, if you ban smoking, you should also ban everything that can contribute to an unhealthy diet. The US has 12.4 traffic deaths per 100,000. Given that why would should anybody be permitted to drive for non-essential purposes? Millions of people suffer negative effects from social media and video game addiction, why should they be allowed to consume those products? Less that 5% of US adults get 30 minutes of exercise per day, so why should I be allowed to stream Netflix or YouTube for as long as I like? If you think it’s the governments responsibility to ensure we make healthy choices, then you really can say goodbye to any sense of freedom over your life. Unless you think that should apply to smoking only, in which case you don’t have a rational argument.