[Trinidad]

Lobowolf, on Jan 8 2010, 07:41 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 7 2010, 09:59 PM, said:

I quite agree.  Problem is the non-smokers have science on their side to show that smoking is harmful.

I don't think that's a problem, per se - The rational argument, at least, for smoking in restaurants isn't that secondhand smoke is not harmful; it's that there are countervailing considerations to the safety issue.

Yes and these considerations are: I, drug addict, should be allowed to endanger anybody's health at any place and any time, just because my freedom should be respected.

Just continue this way of reasoning:
I, alcoholic, should be allowed to drive while intoxicated, just because my freedom should be respected.
I, pedophile, should be allowed to have sex with children, just because my freedom should be respected.

In other words: If you want to smoke, that is fine. But do it in such a way that it doesn't bother other people. That means that smoking in restaurants is obviously out of the question.

Rik

[Trinidad]

Lobowolf, on Jan 8 2010, 02:45 AM, said:

mikeh, on Jan 7 2010, 07:31 PM, said:

I support the notion that one should be free to smoke at home, but not in the presence of individuals incapable of informed consent to exposure to second hand smoke.

So, no smoking in homes with children?

In the freedom of their own home any responsible parent would make a simple decision. This decision would be that they wouldn't smoke in the presence of their children. If you want to smoke, you take it outside.

This seems to be fairly normal in The Netherlands. I very rarely enter a home where people smoke inside the house. (For smokers: Non smokers can smell that in a fraction of a second, as soon as they step in.) And when I do, those are invariably households without children. Smoking in front of children is frowned upon.

Rik

[Lobowolf]

Quote

Yes and these considerations are: I, drug addict, should be allowed to endanger anybody's

No; just those who choose to go to restaurants where smoking is permitted.

Quote

health at any place

No; just on private property, which includes commercial property. As you may (or may not) have noticed from my earlier posts, I do not extend the reasoning to public rights-of-way.

Quote

and any time,

No; just during business hours or with permission of the property or business owner. Smoking shouldn't exempt one from trespassing laws.

Quote

just because my freedom should be respected.

Well, yours and that of the business owner. How cavalierly you dismiss your freedom! "Just," indeed!

Quote

Just continue this way of reasoning:
I, alcoholic, should be allowed to drive while intoxicated, just because my freedom should be respected.

No; the risk creation in this point affects the public right of way.

Quote

I, pedophile, should be allowed to have sex with children, just because my freedom should be respected.

No; children are not legally capable of giving informed consent, unlike adults who are free to choose not to eat in any restaurant for any reason.

Quote

In other words: If you want to smoke, that is fine. But do it in such a way that it doesn't bother other people. That means that smoking in restaurants is obviously out of the question.

In other words, if you want to be exclusively around non-smokers, that is fine. But do it in such a way that you don't dictate others' behavior on private property you don't own. That means dining in restaurants that permit smoking, for you, is obviously out of the question.



Thanks for making my point about "mental gymnastics" better than I could. It's amazing how little resemblance your summary bore to my advocated framework.

You don't have the right to dictate the environment at someone else's place of business; you have the right to choose whether or not to patronize that business.

[PassedOut]

Trinidad, on Jan 8 2010, 03:25 AM, said:

In the freedom of their own home any responsible parent would make a simple decision. This decision would be that they wouldn't smoke in the presence of their children. If you want to smoke, you take it outside.

This seems to be fairly normal in The Netherlands. I very rarely enter a home where people smoke inside the house. (For smokers: Non smokers can smell that in a fraction of a second, as soon as they step in.) And when I do, those are invariably households without children. Smoking in front of children is frowned upon.

Rik

That is true in the US now too, although it wasn't 50 years ago. My father quit smoking abruptly when he was 40 years old, but my mother never could quit. She eventually confined her smoking to one particular area of the home, though.

I'm sorry to say that I considered her weak-willed because of that, not realizing at the time how strongly an addiction can take hold of a person. I was never tempted, partly I suppose because the few kids around me who did smoke were buffoons.

My wife smoked from the age of 14 until she was 28 (she had thought that the girls in her school who smoked were cool), but she quit before we got married -- largely because we planned to have children. Now, of course, she is very pleased that she did so, and notices the tobacco smell as quickly as do normal people.

[luke warm]

Lobowolf, on Jan 8 2010, 03:48 AM, said:

Thanks for making my point about "mental gymnastics" better than I could. It's amazing how little resemblance your summary bore to my advocated framework.

qft

[mike777]

Lobowolf, on Jan 8 2010, 01:44 AM, said:

mikeh, on Jan 7 2010, 09:09 PM, said:

Edit: BTW, if you argue that parents should be allowed to smoke in their homes regardless of the harm to the kids, please explain why you are opposed to parents having sex with their kids, in the privacy of their homes.

Edit: If you argue that parents shouldn't be allowed to smoke in their homes, please explain why you believe they should be permitted to have table salt and kitchen knives in houses with children.


I don't actually think that in principle, restrictions on smoking around children would be bad. I think they'd constitute a practical nightmare, though.

I could see the smoking ban in private homes with young children being implemented in tiny baby steps over several decades. My guess is the process has started, as others have stated some of these baby steps are being taken.

I grew up in a household where I was the only nonsmoker.


As for harmful food items, again the nanny state is growing not getting smaller. People want more security, more of a safety net, not less, be it in health care or flying on a plane.

Keep in mind I think it was Helene several years ago who stated it was illegal to go out in public in the Netherlands with your face covered due to security concerns.

[hrothgar]

I often find motorcycle helmet laws a more interesting example that cigarette smoking.

1. Motorcycle helmets are very much a good idea

2. The costs of not wearing helmets are very much internalized. If you get into an accident and you are not wearing a helmet, the cost will largely be born by you rather than society.

Should the government force motorcycle riders to wear helmets.

(For what its worth, I am actually opposed to helmet laws. I consider this an unnecessary intrusion on personal rights. I do, however, think it reasonable that the government requires that individuals with family responsibilities to purchase additional amounts of life insurance if they wish to drive a cycle sans helmet)

[kenrexford]

mikeh, on Jan 7 2010, 07:31 PM, said:

Ken (Rexford, not berg): I do 'get it'...but I am not sure that you do, because of the arguments you raise seem illogical on a deep level.

However, maybe you are one of those people who are thoroughly consistent rather than, as I assume, somewhat naive to your own motivations. Let's see.


Johnny and Billy make crystal meth. They only sell it to people who agree to use it while on the premises of their private club, and they require that users remain on the premises while under the acute intoxicating effects of the drug.

Do you support their right to do so? If not, why not?

Do you support their right to advertise their product and service?

If not, why not?

(clue: 'it's against the law' is not a justification....after all, maybe smoking is against the law)

Johnny is terminally ill and wants to kill himself. He is handicapped, so he needs help...should the law allow someone to help him? If not, why not? Surely the ultimate measure of freedom must be the right to decide whether we continue living?

Johnny loves to torture small animals. He does so only in his back yard....his neighbours are free not to watch or listen...heck, they can choose not to live next door...or maybe they can join in the fun. Should this be against the law? Why?

Johnny wants to sell tainted meat. He wants to advertise it as tasty and cheap. We have a choice of government food inspection or allowing the tort system to eventually catch up with him....too bad he took his profits out of state...or spent them all so that his victims are without recourse (plus, if they have no health care, they are bankrupt even if they survive). Should this be against the law, or should we rely upon the market?

Now, if you answer that the government has no role in regulating ANY of the aforementioned activities or even no role other than in the tainted meat department, I will revise my view of your position. I will revise it from naive to right wing wingnut, but I will review it and I will respect your integrity even as I deplore your approach to the world....as you no doubt deplore my left wing wingnut status

However, if you answer that government CAN legitimately stop any of these activities (possibly beyond the tainted meat one), you have betrayed your (innocent) intellectual dishonesty...you have betrayed that what offends you is NOT deprivation of freedom but deprivation of freedom to do what you, as a selfish individual rather than you as a representative individual, want to do. It won't be a principled objection, only a selfish one.

Just so we are clear: I support the right to end one's life and to help others to do so.....subject to ensuring that the decision is not a momentary impulse and that there are objectively verifiable reasons for concluding that the causal factors cannot be ameliorated. I support the notion that one should be free to smoke at home, but not in the presence of individuals incapable of informed consent to exposure to second hand smoke. However, I oppose the right of cigarette manufacturers to advertise their product....or, indeed, to sell it...tobacco should be available only to those who grow it or members of clubs or collectives...in other words, not for profit.

I support the right to use soft drugs, but not drugs that demonstrably create significant risk that the individual cannot function in society...tho if one is rich enough that one can afford the habit, anything goes that does not harm others...including crystal meth and heroin. So I am a mix of libertarian and left wing wingnut, I suppose

To me the litmus test is: if an activity hurts others, in a reasonably direct way, it can and probably should be regulated by government up to and sometimes including prohibition. But if it hurts noone who has not given informed consent, and has no significant societal costs arising from the effects of the activity on those involved, then....enjoy!

So (almost all) forms of sexual activity between consenting adults, all forms of (non-permanently disabling) recreational intoxicants or mood altering substances, consumed in private....enjoy!

Smoking tobacco in public places does not meet these tests. Oh, it would in a perfect world, but the reality is that most people who work in low-end bars and restuarants don't make much money, and don't have much job mobility. To argue that no-one forces them to work there is facile, and reflective of a very cruel view of the world, imo. Give someone the choice of starving or going homeless now or risking an excruciating but not inevitable death 20 years from now, and most would opt for the paycheque.....

As for the economic impact on businesses of a smoking ban, I have no trouble with the notion that a ban would have a short term impact....but I dispute that it would have a long term impact. People adjust, and once it is 'normal' not to smoke....why, people (including smokers) start going back. Anyway, the cost to the industry of a smoking ban would almost certainly be more than offset by the gain to society as a whole from an overall reduction in smoking related diseases.

I am 100% in favor of drug legalization. All drugs. I would not care if people advertised the product, either.

I am 100% in favor of a person's right, alone or with assistance, to determine the time, manner, and place of his own death, should he so choose.

I am strongly against torture of animals (animal cruelty). Whereas I believe that there is a problem, at times, in distinguishing "animal cruelty" from reasonable animal husbandry that results in incidental pain and suffering, your example is not a difficult example to analyze. If this specific instance is a "freedom issue," then this is an area where I am, willing to sacrifice freedom. I don't see how it could be viewed that way, however.


Tainted meat. There is nothing wrong (IMO) with a regulation that requires notice about bad products. Hence, I don't object, for instance, to warnings on packs of cigarettes and would not object to even a mandatory class before obtaining a license to smoke marijuana or shoot up heroine. A reasonable cost on the exercise of a freedom is plausible.

Since you hinted at it -- I also support wholeheartedly complete freedom in sexual matters, paid or unpaid.

People like you make a common mistake with people like me. You assume that some conclusions reached by me mean that I am an irrational "conservative." Strangely, other people, in other contexts, think that I am an irrational "liberal." (Simple case in point -- anyone who deals with me as a passionate, progressiove criminal defense lawyer.)

However, my experience is that reasoned analysis ends you on the "far right" and "far left" at the same time, depending on the issue. However, those claiming to be on the "right" or "left" end up with illogical arguments that are inconsistent and emotional, situation-specific, often guided by ideology or a book.

When you toss illogical, inconsistent arguments at me, a rationalist, one perhaps with different values, frightening to you perhaps, derived from more pure analysis, and then accuse me of intellectual dishonesty and inconsistency, I laugh.

BTW -- I was the only one to actually fight and win two laws in Cleveland that had resulted in 450 arrests per years of drug trafficking suspects and 450 additional arrests per year of suspected prostitutes. I, therefore, stopped these 900 vice arrests each year, single-handedly. Why? Everyone else was motivated by either ignorance or unknown internal bias. As a freedom man, I saw the problem with these two laws and was willing to takle action. Google the right way, and you will find the article. Hence, I stand where I speak.

[Winstonm]

A consideration about smoking bars and restaurants is that the work staff also has to be comprised of smokers - can you discriminate against non-smokers who want a job and even if you can, how do you compensate in the cost of paying worker's compensation for a smoke-only establishment?

[kenrexford]

Winstonm, on Jan 8 2010, 09:07 AM, said:

A consideration about smoking bars and restaurants is that the work staff also has to be comprised of smokers - can you discriminate against non-smokers who want a job and even if you can, how do you compensate in the cost of paying worker's compensation for a smoke-only establishment?

This is a fallacy.

Can you create a good, clean environment for coal miners who want a job but don't like the dust?

Can you create a job for the person who wants to be a Navy Seal but doesn't like getting shot at?

Can you create a job for a person who wants to work on an oil rig but doesn't want to get dirty and wants to have a safe time at it?

No.

There are many jobs out there. A person shouldn't have a right to work at a cigar club and then demand that patrons don't smoke cigars. A smoking-allowed bar is the same thing.

Get a different job.

[mike777]

kenrexford, on Jan 8 2010, 09:00 AM, said:

mikeh, on Jan 7 2010, 07:31 PM, said:

Ken (Rexford, not berg): I do 'get it'...but I am not sure that you do, because of the arguments you raise seem illogical on a deep level.

However, maybe you are one of those people who are thoroughly consistent rather than, as I assume, somewhat naive to your own motivations. Let's see.


Johnny and Billy make crystal meth. They only sell it to people who agree to use it while on the premises of their private club, and they require that users remain on the premises while under the acute intoxicating effects of the drug.

Do you support their right to do so? If not, why not?

Do you support their right to advertise their product and service?

If not, why not?

(clue: 'it's against the law' is not a justification....after all, maybe smoking is against the law)

Johnny is terminally ill and wants to kill himself. He is handicapped, so he needs help...should the law allow someone to help him? If not, why not? Surely the ultimate measure of freedom must be the right to decide whether we continue living?

Johnny loves to torture small animals. He does so only in his back yard....his neighbours are free not to watch or listen...heck, they can choose not to live next door...or maybe they can join in the fun. Should this be against the law? Why?

Johnny wants to sell tainted meat. He wants to advertise it as tasty and cheap. We have a choice of government food inspection or allowing the tort system to eventually catch up with him....too bad he took his profits out of state...or spent them all so that his victims are without recourse (plus, if they have no health care, they are bankrupt even if they survive). Should this be against the law, or should we rely upon the market?

Now, if you answer that the government has no role in regulating ANY of the aforementioned activities or even no role other than in the tainted meat department, I will revise my view of your position. I will revise it from naive to right wing wingnut, but I will review it and I will respect your integrity even as I deplore your approach to the world....as you no doubt deplore my left wing wingnut status

However, if you answer that government CAN legitimately stop any of these activities (possibly beyond the tainted meat one), you have betrayed your (innocent) intellectual dishonesty...you have betrayed that what offends you is NOT deprivation of freedom but deprivation of freedom to do what you, as a selfish individual rather than you as a representative individual, want to do. It won't be a principled objection, only a selfish one.

Just so we are clear: I support the right to end one's life and to help others to do so.....subject to ensuring that the decision is not a momentary impulse and that there are objectively verifiable reasons for concluding that the causal factors cannot be ameliorated. I support the notion that one should be free to smoke at home, but not in the presence of individuals incapable of informed consent to exposure to second hand smoke. However, I oppose the right of cigarette manufacturers to advertise their product....or, indeed, to sell it...tobacco should be available only to those who grow it or members of clubs or collectives...in other words, not for profit.

I support the right to use soft drugs, but not drugs that demonstrably create significant risk that the individual cannot function in society...tho if one is rich enough that one can afford the habit, anything goes that does not harm others...including crystal meth and heroin. So I am a mix of libertarian and left wing wingnut, I suppose

To me the litmus test is: if an activity hurts others, in a reasonably direct way, it can and probably should be regulated by government up to and sometimes including prohibition. But if it hurts noone who has not given informed consent, and has no significant societal costs arising from the effects of the activity on those involved, then....enjoy!

So (almost all) forms of sexual activity between consenting adults, all forms of (non-permanently disabling) recreational intoxicants or mood altering substances, consumed in private....enjoy!

Smoking tobacco in public places does not meet these tests. Oh, it would in a perfect world, but the reality is that most people who work in low-end bars and restuarants don't make much money, and don't have much job mobility. To argue that no-one forces them to work there is facile, and reflective of a very cruel view of the world, imo. Give someone the choice of starving or going homeless now or risking an excruciating but not inevitable death 20 years from now, and most would opt for the paycheque.....

As for the economic impact on businesses of a smoking ban, I have no trouble with the notion that a ban would have a short term impact....but I dispute that it would have a long term impact. People adjust, and once it is 'normal' not to smoke....why, people (including smokers) start going back. Anyway, the cost to the industry of a smoking ban would almost certainly be more than offset by the gain to society as a whole from an overall reduction in smoking related diseases.

I am 100% in favor of drug legalization. All drugs. I would not care if people advertised the product, either.

I am 100% in favor of a person's right, alone or with assistance, to determine the time, manner, and place of his own death, should he so choose.

I am strongly against torture of animals (animal cruelty). Whereas I believe that there is a problem, at times, in distinguishing "animal cruelty" from reasonable animal husbandry that results in incidental pain and suffering, your example is not a difficult example to analyze. If this specific instance is a "freedom issue," then this is an area where I am, willing to sacrifice freedom. I don't see how it could be viewed that way, however.


Tainted meat. There is nothing wrong (IMO) with a regulation that requires notice about bad products. Hence, I don't object, for instance, to warnings on packs of cigarettes and would not object to even a mandatory class before obtaining a license to smoke marijuana or shoot up heroine. A reasonable cost on the exercise of a freedom is plausible.

Since you hinted at it -- I also support wholeheartedly complete freedom in sexual matters, paid or unpaid.

People like you make a common mistake with people like me. You assume that some conclusions reached by me mean that I am an irrational "conservative." Strangely, other people, in other contexts, think that I am an irrational "liberal." (Simple case in point -- anyone who deals with me as a passionate, progressiove criminal defense lawyer.)

However, my experience is that reasoned analysis ends you on the "far right" and "far left" at the same time, depending on the issue. However, those claiming to be on the "right" or "left" end up with illogical arguments that are inconsistent and emotional, situation-specific, often guided by ideology or a book.

When you toss illogical, inconsistent arguments at me, a rationalist, one perhaps with different values, frightening to you perhaps, derived from more pure analysis, and then accuse me of intellectual dishonesty and inconsistency, I laugh.

BTW -- I was the only one to actually fight and win two laws in Cleveland that had resulted in 450 arrests per years of drug trafficking suspects and 450 additional arrests per year of suspected prostitutes. I, therefore, stopped these 900 vice arrests each year, single-handedly. Why? Everyone else was motivated by either ignorance or unknown internal bias. As a freedom man, I saw the problem with these two laws and was willing to takle action. Google the right way, and you will find the article. Hence, I stand where I speak.

My concern over all of this is that I have to paid for it all.


I have to pay for the drug abuse or STD health care, shelter, food, hospitals, police etc. I have to pay for your children's support, food shelter, health care etc.... I have to pay and support your life style.

Just to take one small example, have all the sex and drugs you want but when you get sick or want food or shelter or have kids I have to support them the next 21 years.

Why do I have to pay for it? Because these are universal basic rights and if you cannot pay for it someone else, me does.

So basic rights are not free, they cost and cost alot! Again I just wonder how countries such as Canada Uk , Sweden etc do it all.....

Here in the USA we have huge medicare/medicaid problems, huge problems with our VA....homeless, hungry people, kids with poor education and we need lots and lots more money....


Yet we see poster after poster tell us how great health care is in so many other countries....

[kenrexford]

Costs? Options exist:

1. Don't pay for it. The fact that we as a society CHOOSE to pay for it is not a necessary conclusion. We simply do.

That said, if you do feel compelled to pay for it:

2. Tax it. Like a tolll on a road. If you want to drive down this road, you pay a toll. That covers the cost of the road. Literal, or figurative.

If 2 is inconsistent logically (1 is consistent), so what? Thetre is nothing wrong with being inconsistent logically because of emotional or values concerns, so long as you are honest enough to admit it.

Where it irritates me is to be logically inconsistent but to argue your point as if it derives from logic. That's spin.

[mike777]

Ken, yes society has said they are going to pay for it, they also said they are going to regulate it, legally and with social pressure. They also said if you do not pay for it...you go to jail....so be it...

More security or a greater social safety net comes at a cost, the cost is less freedom or economic growth.


As someone said, freedom is just a word for nothing left to lose. Otherwise there are costs to freedom.


But to say for example, free unlimited sex is without cost is just a lie. Once you agree there is a cost, it is just a matter of who and how it is paid for.

[kenberg]

Free unlimited sex? What will these socialists come up with next?

[kenrexford]

mike777, on Jan 8 2010, 10:04 AM, said:

Ken, yes society has said they are going to pay for it, they also said they are going to regulate it, legally and with social pressure. They also said if you do not pay for it...you go to jail....so be it...

More security or a greater social safety net comes at a cost, the cost is less freedom or economic growth.


As someone said, freedom is just a word for nothing left to lose. Otherwise there are costs to freedom.


But to say for example, free unlimited sex is without cost is just a lie. Once you agree there is a cost, it is just a matter of who and how it is paid for.

So, admit that and then argue fairly. This is a balancing of interests. My core point was that many of us value freedom to do certain vice-related activities more than the cost incurred by doing this. When you force costs down by removing freedom, this makes those of us who have a different values assessment mad as hell.

[jdonn]

kenrexford, on Jan 8 2010, 12:04 PM, said:

So, admit that and then argue fairly. This is a balancing of interests. My core point was that many of us value freedom to do certain vice-related activities more than the cost incurred by doing this. When you force costs down by removing freedom, this makes those of us who have a different values assessment mad as hell.

It makes other people mad when you impose your cost on them in the form of a social cost.

[Lobowolf]

It's unfortunate that loss of autonomy can't be translated to a dollar figure. Perhaps the gist of the argument boils down in large part to what that figure would be.

[kenrexford]

jdonn, on Jan 8 2010, 12:14 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Jan 8 2010, 12:04 PM, said:

So, admit that and then argue fairly.  This is a balancing of interests.  My core point was that many of us value freedom to do certain vice-related activities more than the cost incurred by doing this.  When you force costs down by removing freedom, this makes those of us who have a different values assessment mad as hell.

It makes other people mad when you impose your cost on them in the form of a social cost.

That's a very fair point.

Therein lies why this topic is so heated. People who tend to like more government solutions to societal problems run up against the dollar problem. One partial solution to the dollar problem is to enforce certain societal rules that restrict costly exercise of freedom.

People who tend to dislike governmental solutions tend to dislike the restriction of costly exercise of freedom, expecting personal responsibility for these costs.

Similarly, those who like the government solution find a need for regulation necessary to restrict the abuse of the governmental solution but dislike that necessity because of the effect of limitation of access to the governmental solution.

Those, on the other hand, who dislike the governmental solution point to the abuse by those who take advantage of the solution and view the solution as a reason to disregard the costs that would otherwise be carried by themselves.

My one point, though, that I think to be accurate. I am outraged by the infringement upon my rights as an individual, whereas at the core you are outraged at my infringement upon the societal good as you have defined it, which works an indirect infringement on you because you are tied to the societal course in pursuit of the good.

There you have it. The fight of the individual versus the collective. Neither is "wrong," but we each know where we each land, at least with respect to most of the issues being discussed in this discussion.

No sense really debating this. We end up at different results because we start with different values assessments. Can't persuade each other. Can at least recognize that the arguments that toss nonsense at the question don't serve any purpose other than self-gratification in the ability to spin nonsense that sounds good.

[mikeh]

No-one has ever argued that affording basic rights to everyone in a society is free of cost. BTW, one side issue is that most societies in history and to this day have different ideas of 'rights' than we do...'rights' are a luxury that become 'basic' only when the society can both afford them and wants them.

One of the ways in which many people (but not all, and, apparently certainly not a majority of US residents) judge the degree of civilization of a society is how it handles the less fortunate.

The US is built on the assumption that what a civilized society ought to do is to afford equality of opportunity....given that equality of opportunity is afforded, the success or failure of an individual is entirely within that individual's power, and hence the individual who fails has no moral claim on those who have succeeded.

I can see this as a plausible philosophical approach. I personally find it repellent, but I can see its attraction.

The main problem is that the US does NOT afford its citizens with equal opportunity.

Not country does, and I am not arguing against anyone who says, with considerable merit, that the US comes closer than most if not all western democracies. Closest, when it is still a long way away, doesn't cut it, imo. My own opinion is that human nature simply won't allow any large society to function in that fashion, and to pretend otherwise is the same error, on one view, as was committed by communists. They, too, based their philosophies on an idealistic and unreal view of human nature.

For every Obama or Clinton, there are, I suspect, many hundreds if not thousands who were born unexceptional...not equipped with the combination of drive, intelligence and physical build/appearance that would enable the child to become the successful man or woman despite a relatively impoverished background.

Say Obama's mother had drunk during her pregnancy with him....fetal alchold syndrome would have doomed him to a life of misery, probably including frequent incarceration: the potential that was present on conception would have been destroyed before he was born.

Take two otherwise identical children, one born in poverty and one born to Bill Gates. The US society does not even pretend to offer those children equal opportunity.... so even if the poor child were somehow inherently a little smarter, a little more hard-working, and a little better looking, who do you think will be more likely to succeed or fail?

I think part of the reason why the self-sufficiency, personal responsiblity meme is so powerful in the US (it exists in other societies as well, of course) is that the US has a Constitution that its citizens actually read, and it contains the enlightment statement that it is evident that 'all men' are created equal.

Saying it doesn't make it so, but when you think it to be true, it cannot but influence you to accept the erroneous view that individuals bear responsibility for their situations.

it is ironic, and has been pointed out by many, that the framers of this utopian view didn't actually believe it....since some owned negroes, born into slavery, and negros were counted in a census as a fraction of a white man, and women remained chattels for generations.

In the US, the current and historical approach is that the poor deserve their predicament. How much of this remains influenced by racism is one question (and I am NOT attacking the US in this regard: we have similar issues in Canada, primarily with aboriginal problems and similar socio-economic factors do more to explain the ancient Protestant-Catholic dispute in Northern Ireland than do purely religious arguments), but regardless of this, the reality appears to be that societal attitudes towards the cost of affording rights may be dependent on the prevailing attitude towards personal responsibility.

In Canada, we perceive, rightly or wrongly (and I don't think that those concepts necessarily apply) that we owe each other more than most US citizens feel they owe to their fellow citizens, but we don't go as far in that belief as do most Western and Northern European countries.

The US sees encouraging mega-wealth and mega armed forces as worth more than 40,000,000 of its citizens in terms of access to health care. Canadians and most Europeans have different value systems.

To many Americans (and a lot of Canadians) our system is too soft. To many Canadians (and a lot of Americans) the US system appears too harsh.

I know where I stand, and where many of the posters here stand. I would leave any society in which lobowolf or rexford set the rules, and I am sure they'd leave any in which I did.

[jdonn]

Ken it's a basic ecomonic concept. The problem with maximizing individual rights over societal rights is that (in almost every case in the real world) the net gain is grossly exceeded by the net loss.

Say we live in Ken-land which has 2,001 people, including you. If your smoking in some instance gives you +1,000 units of enjoyment, but gives 2,000 people -1 units of enjoyment, then that is a net loss for everyone of 1,000 units of enjoyment.

Now maybe if it was just one case in the entire world, it would be worth it for a few thousand people to have an almost unnoticeable drop in enjoyment in order to let yours go up significantly. But let's say everyone has some habit that has the same impact as your smoking on themselves and everyone else. That means everyone has +1,000 but -2,001 units of enjoyment for a net of -1,001. Naturally you will fight hard to defend your +1,000 activity. But if the government can prevent all the above activities then your total enjoyment goes up by just over 1,000.

Of course these things can't be accurately measured in the real world. And also of course there are a thousand and one reasons this doesn't perfectly model the actual smoking situation. But the point is that without government doing it society can't work effectively for its own benefit, because each individual member is only looking out for himself. That is why I don't really have a problem with actions such as banning smoking in most places outside peoples' homes.

This is also why so many people are against government intervention. It's so easy to focus on "they took away my smoking rights!" and to never even notice all the +1 cases that individually are almost nothing but combine to far exceed what you have lost.