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RE: Solutions to Regulatory Problems
Smoking doesn't kill taxpayers though, it kills retirees.
You die from it just as you're moving from the asset column to the liability column, so its impact on the taxpayer is a little more nuanced.
Like they say, "You gotta die of something".
One of my favourite things is watching somebody here in Australia, walking along a footpath outside a pub/tavern/bar, coughing through the cloud of smoke from all the smokers, who've been forced outside by regulations preventing smoking indoors.
I know that a lot of the people who pushed for this rule are also now choking on smoke which would have been contained inside if they'd just minded their own damn business.
Very good point. The gov't can regulate things all they want but, try as they might, they can't eliminate anything. People have things that they enjoy, or in some cases need (medical marijuana) and they will find a way to attain them. It's very frustrating to watch the cycle of gov't interfering, making things worse, then taxing the citizens in order to start or expand an agency in order to combat the problem they created in the first place.
The state is a problem masquerading as it's own solution.
Followed.
Our borders don't provide much resistance either; at least not here in the States. We have a pattern of arming foreign groups, then going to war with the same group we armed just a few years later.
Followed, as well
It's the "coldest of all cold monsters" as Nietzsche said.
Ok I get it but the drawbacks in case of smoking outweight the benefits. Like sure people have the freedom to smoke if they want, but that also implies an individualistic society.
I mean you either have a socialist system, based on hedonism and irresponsibility where the state forces people into behaving.
Or you have an anarchist society where everyone is responsible, educated, and well informed.
Until you get this, some kind of methods have to be used to save people from their own stupidity, especially if their bad choices will end up us consting more taxes....
Don't get me wrong I'd love to see a free society, but until we get there some kind of measures should be taken to address that issue.
I will follow you so that we may continue these discussions in the future. I only have a few blog posts so far, but feel free to examine them. They are over similar issues to what we speak of here, and I really enjoy the interaction with commenters. That's what steemit is all about for me.
Not it actually makes them suffer in agony in the medical system that could like extend their lives by 5-10 years, but then of course massive healthcare costs will occus from the treatments.
But also nobody investigated like the permanent genetical damage that could be passed along from generation to generation.
Then you have kids being exposed to smoker parents.
So the issue is quite clear, smoking is bad, it's undebatable.
The problem is how do you fix it:
There are many things that can be considered "bad" for us; this is a very slippery slope. It is a game the govt plays to influence behavior to their benefit while expanding their control and influence over our lives. Smoking increases testosterone in men so in that aspect it's good. I don't think govt should have the final say on matters of health or morality.
Prohibition has never worked for anything, anywhere, so we can strike that one off the list.
You know I get that the libertarian position is favorable if we live in an individualist society. But actually we live in a pretty socialist society.
So you could say for example that logically speaking everyone owns himself and should be responsible for their own choices in their lives.
However most people won't go along with that, because we live in a hedonistic non-responsible society.
So if you would say like smoker X is smoking and got a lung cancer because of it, he should just die from it because it's none of other people's business to "bail him out".
But in reality society would be outraged by such statements, simply because nobody is responsible.
So we have to put things in perspective and think in this hedonistic world. We could promote personal responsibility, that would be nice to teach kids, and also educate people about the risks/benefits of certain things. Make informed people.
But in the meantime some issues need to be dealt with more immediately. So for example banning public smoking would be one of that.
I am not saying it's good to introduce "bans", what I am saying is that in this context there are no options, until people change their mindsets to be more responsible.