Posted on 07/22/2002 4:33:03 AM PDT by Wolfie
Welfare is welfare. If you opt for "leisure" over work at the expense of other citizens, you are freeloading. The citizen who does take care of his health and who works productively for as long as possible ends up carrying the citizen who doesn't.
Later in the article the author says smokers die early and cost society less in terms of social security and health care, therefore the net cost to society is "probably" zip. I'd like to see the actual figures.
Mnay gay activists play the same game, arguing that "consensual" adult homosexual promiscuity is cost-free to the taxpayer because AIDS sufferers die young and never collect social security. That is, they make that argument when they aren't arguing the opposite, i.e., that there is no proof that the active homosexual lifestyle leads to a shortening of the lifespan of active homosexuals. The billions upon billions of taxpayer monies paid for disease research are conveniently ignored.
Ours is not a libertarian society where the costs of destructive personal behavior are borne solely by the person who engages in that behavior. The healthy, the frugal, the ambitious and hard-working, the self-disciplined, the child-bearing (within a traditional family) tend to carry the smoker, the doper, the addict, the childless, the destructively self-indulgent.
Only fools and people deep in denial will argue that smoking, alcohol abuse, drug use, sexual promiscuity and other such behaviors are harmless past-times that impose no external costs on other citizens. Facing up to the fact that these behaviors do impose costs on others should be the first necessary step toward finding workable and equitable solutions to a whole range of problems including the so-called War on Drugs.
I'll step out now to allow the destructively self-indulgent to continue their self-pity fest and to launch their denial-fueled and inevitable attacks on me for pointing out the obvious.
"There’s a big difference [between] the cost to society and what society is getting back in tax," a CDC official said. "We believe society is bearing a burden for the individual behavioral choices of the smokers."
The burden the government heaps on individuals and society is a thousand times more destructive.
"We believe society is bearing a thousand time bigger burden for the individual behavioral choices of the smokers politicians and bureaucrats."
The healthy, the frugal, the ambitious and hard-working, the self-disciplined, the child-bearing (within a traditional family) tend to carry the smoker, the doper, the addict, the childless, the destructively self-indulgent.
The healthy, the frugal, the ambitious and hard-working, the self-disciplined, the child-bearing (within a traditional family) tend to vote for the lesser of two evils that begets evil. They're the ones that support massively hypocritical politicians and bureaucrats that point fingers at a few bad apples that cooked the books while the politicians and bureaucrats are the undisputed all time champions of cooking the books.
Well get back to work you lazy freeloader! There are smokers, dopers, addicts, childless, and destructively self-indulgent people out there counting on noble you to carry them and your wasting time posting your drivel here.
The solution then, Comrade, is to limit society's outlays for behavior deemed "destructively self-indulgent", not to attempt to force individuals to comply with society's post hoc demands. For example, the state lawsuits against the tobacco companies that resulted in that ridiculous settlement back in 1998 proceeded on the theory that the tobacco companies had caused the states to incur huge amounts in medicare and medicaid costs for smoking-related illnesses. States and the federal government enacted this medical welfare system with full knowledge that smoking correlates with certain illnesses and decreased life expectancy. Instead of the states doing the intelligent thing, like refusing to pay for these alleged smoking-related illnesses, the states claimed that because they had chosen to pay for the medical costs of those illnesses, the tobacco companies were somehow responsible.
The problem arises not from smokers attempting to live their lives as they see fit, it's from voters and pols deciding to absorb the costs of smoking. This isn't a libertarian problem. Libertarians would just let smokers choose to maximize their individual utility and liberty, without involving the state in any way. It is only when the state - through the offices of busybodies and petty tyrants who want to foist their own view about how people should live - chooses to interfere in this process that you have any costs to society.
I believe you're correct, so everyone needs to start brewing their own. This way only sales tax is paid.
No doubt that is true in some ways. Do you really want to make it the basis of how decisions about good government are made? That way lies socialism (by which I mean, broadly, decreased control over your own life and property and increased government control over them). It has already gotten us the tobacco settlement, seat belt laws, helmet laws, and many other nanny state accoutrements. That's only the tip of the iceberg.
Finished with work at age 65 with a nice IRA to retire on? Well, your decision to stop working takes food out of the mouths of all those poor people collecting SSD. Get back to work. What, did you think your life decisions had no effect on anyone else? What did you think this was, a libertarian society?
Many more statements of this sort are possible, and, eventually, the lefties would get around to making them all. Do you see why this sort of thinking doesn't fly if you value freedom?
Not anymore, the new drug cocktails gives Aids sufferers another 15-20 of somewhat healthy life, their drugs are paid by the taxpayer...... Oh, and the cost is over $20.000 pr year pr case.
Kevin used to reply to responses, guess he has just become another hit and run poster, therefore he is not to be taken serious.
;-)
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