-Caveat Lector-
nurev forwarded:
"The global perspective: a new opium war"
<snip>
While it is the responsibility of each nation to implement
their own tobacco control measures, governmental and
non-governmental organisations in the USA have a very
special responsibility:
The exemplar role - showing that 'It can be done.' The
message from the USA is that smoking rates can be
reduced and that litigation can have a major impact.
Von Mises stated in _Human Action_:
Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs.
But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government
to protect the individual from his own foolishness, no serious
objections can be raised against further encroachments. A good
case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and
nicotine. And why limit the government's benevolent providence to
the protection of the individual's body only?
Nurev opined:
This slippery slope theory is juvenile and stupid. The government
might as well repeal all murder laws. Because if the gov. can tell
you that you are not smart enough to know that you shouldn't kill
anyone, next they'll tell you you can't have sex with children. Or
even yell fire in a crowded theater.
MJ:
What you apparently do not understand is that one's free CHOICE to
utilize opium, morphine or tobacco do NOT violate another's 'right'
to his OWN life. I do realize freedom is a scary concept to many.
Von Mises stated in _Human Action_:
Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more
disastrous than any bodily evils?
Nurev opined:
No. It's not.
MJ:
Really? Look at how many idiots run rampant believing THEY know
better than others ... and desire the legalized use of FORCE
(Government) to enact legislation supporting their delusions.
Do tobacco users desire to limit the freedom of others?
Von Mises stated in _Human Action_:
Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing
bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and
from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies,
surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and
for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.
Nurev opined:
Maybe bad ideologies like Von Mises' and Ayn Rand's, but otherwise
you can't compare what junkies do to reading bad books and seeing
bad plays.
MJ:
What provides *you* with the grand insight as to which ideologies
are *better* than others? Or that such is incomparable with 'junkies'
(whatever that might entail?
Von Mises stated in _Human Action_:
These fears are not merely imaginary specters terrifying secluded
doctrinaires. It is a fact that no paternal government, whether
ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects'
minds, beliefs, and opinions.
If one abolishes man's freedom to determine his own
consumption, one takes all freedoms away.
Nurev opined:
I ask anyone reading this to do so out loud a few times and tell me
that it isn't an absurd and illogical propagandistic trick to play
upon the feeble minded.
MJ:
What exactly do you find so troubling? Do you not believe an individual
is 'intelligent' enough to determine his own vices?
Von Mises stated in _Human Action_:
The naive advocates of government interference with consumption
delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call
the philosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support
the cause of censorship, inquisition, intolerance, and the
persecution of dissenters.
Nurev opined:
A study in Libertarianism at it's most adolescent. And at Ludwig's
age too. How pathetic.
MJ:
Actually it is PURE liberalism -- in it's true state.
Why the fear of freedom and liberty?
Regard$,
--MJ
...when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow
of liberty quits the horizon. -- Thomas Paine
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