“The Government Loves You And Wants You To Stop Smoking”
Bullsqueeze.
Even democrats know this is BULLSquirt..
The "government" wants you to SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN!...
Don't believe it? Go to a town hall meeting some day when the politicians are threatening to put tolls on the roads. Their complaint is almost always that since people are driving less and using more efficient cars the revenue from the gas tax is down. It's the same principle at work.
The Government Loves You And Wants You To Stop Smoking,unless your last name is Obama.
Smoking 1 cigarette on average costs a smoker about 10 minutes of life expectancy. Thus, entirely ignoring discounting (which would make this lost life expectancy even smaller, since it may occur decades in the future), a smoker essentially gives up 1 minute of life expectancy for every minute spent smoking (assuming a typical cigarette lasts about 10 minutes).
As a rough approximation, this means that a rational smoker values 1 minute of smoking as at least as valuable as 2 minutes of non-smoking. That is, in order to smoke, they give up 1 present minute of non-smoking along with sacrificing another future minute of non-smoking. In keeping with Mark Twain’s view, it does not strike me at all implausible that most smokers get that amount of pleasure out of smoking, i.e., that their habit is a rational act as opposed to an “addiction.” It’s not unlike a mountain climber who recognizes that his sport increases his odds of death but believes the pleasure of the sport outweighs such risks.
As a practical matters, the evidence suggests that smokers OVERESTIMATE the mortality risks associated with their habit. Thus, societal paternalism regarding smoking cannot be justified on grounds of smoker ignorance. It is purely a case of the “We’re right, you’re wrong” attitude that seems pervasive among progressives.
If society can paternalistically trump individual choices about how to weigh the benefits and costs of an activity, then it’s hard to see where one could theoretically draw the line. Society could just as easily decide that ANY risky activity was the “wrong” choice and take actions (carrots or sticks) to “steer” us to the right behavior.
Such a society by definition is not a free society. It’s certainly not one the Founders ever envisioned. My guess is they would have been most reluctant to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring about a society of that ilk.