Posts by Sacha
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
the freedom to choose to smoke, which has a big rebel factor in it
again, you're ignoring addiction.
more rebellious to choose tofu -
OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
that was a killer live
assuredly
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As an aside, I'd like to thank Mr Grigg for my current soundtrack (#6, oh yeah)
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
Tell me something that I haven't engaged with, and I'll happily engage with it.
I don't believe you have engaged with the impact of addiction on choice - but I've already recognised you may need better information to do that with. And I don't have any to point you at right now, sorry.
snap
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
My argument is not economic. It's moral.
Applying limited public health and social resources to treat smokers (or drinkers, for instance) means those resources are not available for other people. There seem to be moral implications..
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
The main thing about boats, unlike smoking, is that you can easily kill other people with them.
Fatal second-hand smoke effects exist.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to BenWilson,
If there was a clear rationale for why such interference doesn't extend to forcing citizens to eat well and exercise, then let's hear it.
Because both those activities are not addictive. As I say, you really do not seem to understand what that means. In the nicest possible way, I recommend some reading before any further talking about it.
If determined to take a 'rational' economic approach, one could fairly argue that people can do whatever they like *provided* the consequential costs of their actions were fairly covered. For both smokers and drinkers, that would mean paying for *all* of the health and social system impacts, if you want to claim total freedom. There are currently huge opportunity costs in there for everyone else.
However, arguments soon revert to stereotype when moral dimensions are introduced. Like the one about welfare 'dependency'.
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Hard News: Te Qaeda and the God Squad, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Echelon is probably sufficient to spy on locals, and our privacy act is trumped by security agencies. I recall mention of the NSA installing their gear into the US ISPs within days after 9/11.
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Hard News: Complaint and culture, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
arming them with information so as to be able to make good choices for themselves and their individual circumstance
Regarded as way too hard. By guess who..
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Hard News: Te Qaeda and the God Squad, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Might force some attention on policy areas that either big party wants to avoid.