Yeah, Lloyd (once again) is rather unhappy that many people don’t agree
They cry “freedom” for them to smoke, drink, drive really fast and fry the planet. Everyone else, get out of the way…Everywhere it seems that the definition of “freedom” is changing; it is now the freedom for white men to smoke and drink and speed and burn the whole planet in the process. For women and minorities, for young people worried about their future, it is another story.
He isn’t even happy with government officials offering a more benign sense of freedom:
The government believes that people have to take responsibility for their own life, but the government has to make sure that everyone can make healthy and informed choices.
I’m not even sure I agree with that last part – I think that Civil Society, if it was restored to it’s wholeness before the start of the Progressive Era, would be quite able to handle that on its own. The point, however, is that Lloyd is unhappy that Govt isn’t enforcing “healthy” living – we all should be forced to. Let’s set the stage with this DISQUS comment:
NO ONE has the right to harm others. If you smoke in a restaurant, you harm others. (No question – as if the stink wasn’t bad enough, there is genuine physical harm. It may be small, but it is cumulative.) Even in countries with government-managed health care, the physical harm is paid for by tax paying citizens. Increased medical costs for all sorts of cancers due to environmental pollution, drug and alcohol addiction (and of course we all realize addiction severely compromises choice, right?), car accident victims, etc. are paid by ALL citizens. If healthcare is provided by private insurers, these things raise EVERYONE’S rates. Of course this says nothing of the loss of loved ones, which can neverbe made right.
And notice that the Collective should always be prioritized above the Individual – the exact opposite of what our Founders fought for. I pointed out the obvious:
Then go somewhere else and eat. I find it highly amusing that you are all about inconveniencing them while you want no inconvenience for yourself. You seem to have no problem in making smokers second-class citizens just as long as you aren’t one.
No one forces you to go to a restaurant that allows smoking – and neither should you force them to stop. Let that person who does go judge the risk for themselves and for a lot of folks, they’re willing to live with the consequences. Why are you so bound to infantilize them or say YOUR choice outranks theirs?
And of course I expected that the argument of Govt healthcare would be your arguments once I started reading it. It’s like the anvil and hammer. Start providing “free Healthcare” (and here in the States it was EMTALA) to be “compassionate” and as costs start to rise (who isn’t going to take advantage of “free”?), the hammer of said Cost to Taxpayers is used to crush Individual choice and Freedom.
Using “Free” to take away Freedom – WE have to pay so WE now can tell you how to live your life because EVERYTHING can be linked to the healthcare we give you (even as we complain about its price). Such a gig!
While a bit off the above topic, Lloyd closes with this on climate change:
It’s also why Greta Thunberg, the strike for climate action, and the Extinction Rebellion are so inspiring and important. At least someone is trying to buck this trend.
Sorry, I have no intentions of letting some perpetually depressing looking snot-nosed Swedish Eco-Joan-of-Arc teenager that has hardly begun to live her life how to tell me how to finish living mine nor some “movement” that is a continuation of more than 50 years of failed predictions that we’re all supposed to be dead now. And I’ll close with this:
That’s the problem, Vind – while a few folks here HAVE made that individual choice (and I applaud them for living the talk), many more wish to force THEIR outlooks onto the rest of us because they NEED government to tell them what to do as well.
It’s like that group of “Progressive” millionaires that call themselves the Patriotic Millionaires – they actively are advocating for higher taxes on folks like them. However, when it is pointed out that the IRS will happily take MORE of their money, that they can voluntarily pay more than what they owe, they refuse. Unless Government raises their taxes, they won’t pay – they want the Collective to pay more.
But they want everyone else to pay the higher taxes they want on themselves. Hypocrites.
A complete and pithy summary of the Collective mindset:
- We want something or something done
- We want you to do that something because we believe it is good for [you |the planet | Government | us]
- We need government to force you to do it – and then we’ll do it to
- But not until Government tells us to.
There is no allowance to do otherwise.
