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It's acceptable due to the extremely loose way in which that Amendment is often interpreted, in all parts. It actually happens a lot with many parts of the Constitution of the United States. One would think the language bulletproof, until people start getting very creative with their interpretations. I am in no way saying that I agree with it, but such is life in a country of people who can't mind their own damned business. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Topsy
ban fat food and cigarettes... problem solved.... OHNO WAIT WE NEED THESE TO CONTROL THE SHEEPLE
Banning them would be a bigger form of control...unless you and I have very different ideas of what 'control' means. ;)
Well there is open transparent control by banning them, and there is control by keeping people satisfied with eating ****, smoking **** and watching **** unable to do any productive **** such as become intelligent or angry enough to get their **** worthless lives out the gutter.
You have a very good point, except in one area. It has been proven time and again that smokers are more productive when setting their minds to something than non-smokers. They just die faster. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Imp
:-)
I guess it depends if smoking is taking up half of your income or not. Here in the UK your looking at ?6 a pack of cigarettes of which the money could obviously be put to better use among the less wealthy smokers.
That does'nt suprise me, however if one were to do the same test with a non-smoker and a smoker who had not recently had a cigarette i would excpect different results. This only proves for the reliance of cigarettes. Obviously if you always can afford to have cigarettes on hand then this may not be a problem and you may infact be able to focus more than non smokers.Quote:
It has been proven time and again that smokers are more productive when setting their minds to something than non-smokers
Last year I was at a talk on "corporate paternalism" and the guy was talking about all these corporations that were putting in policies like "if you smoke x amount, your health insurance premiums will go up y amount. If you're body fat index is x amount, your health insurance premiums will go down y amounts, ect" and the best part by far was when he got to high intellectual value added industries(like certain segments of the tech industry) and all the managent realized that based on the effect of cigarettes they should be incentivizing smoking for the sake of productivity, as it would earn far more money for the corp. than would be saved from disencentivizing smoking for the sake of the corporate health insurance.
edit: as a note, i think it would be much fairer if they banned it all outright, since then it would have to pass muster amongst those who are both affected and have political/economic/social capital, and not only those who are affected and lack such means to do anything about it.
Actually, it is. If you're fat, you are more likely to be sick and unemployed and a burden to your country.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ordray
This very reasoning is why I hate public assistance programs, such as Medicare/caid, welfare, food stamps, etc. They take the most basic of needs, and hold them over people's heads in order to twist them into what others feel they should be. That is why I believe there should be 'opt out' options that protect you from all such garbage, as I explained earlier. If there were a way for me to avoid paying any and all taxes on cigarettes and various other things that are harmful for me, provided I signed away my rights to all public assistance, even signing off that doctors may ignore the Hippocratic oath in my case, I would be all over it.Quote:
Originally Posted by stoffi
The fact that I pay into these programs, but will never use them (let's just say I have a VERY strong bias against medical treatment and public assistance), yet they are still allowed to be used as justification to try to twist my arm via my wallet...yeah it pisses me off a bit.
in a perfect world cigarettes would be illegal anyway let's be honest... or people just wouldn't smoke them.... one or the other
In a perfect world, people wouldn't piss me off to the point where I feel like I want to choke them either. However, that happens on a daily basis in my line of work. I'll be perfectly honest: if I couldn't smoke at work, I'd probably be in prison within a year. Spend a little time working on roadways and you will lose all faith in humanity's reasoning powers and judgment calls, much as I have.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Imp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TranscendentalismQuote:
Originally Posted by Gallowmere
You live on someone's land, so you have to pay. To claim that you are not using your country's services is utter garbage. You drive on roads, you are protected by the police and the law if someone does anything wrong to you. If not for the law, your neighbour might want your house and could just go over and shoot you. Social-Darwinism. What would you do then, other than dying? You need laws!
Also, remember that people never choose to get sick or poor. It's random chance. What would you do if you didn't want to pay taxes for medical care and you suddenly got sick? You would die! Oh wait, that last one isn't medieval, it's today's USA!
The point is that you never know when you need the government. Few plan to have any need for governent aid, but accident might strike you and then it's good to have society.
Today, as before, you are part of a society, whether you're smart enough to realise it or not.
And why would you be that egoistical? You have 40 million poor people living in your country as a result of US politics. If those people, and others, could afford to buy goods, your economy would prosper and there would be more jobs for everyone. Too bad a lot of you can't see beyond your own nose.
The government has controlled your life ever since 1 man met another man. There will always be a need for rules and society structure when there's more than 2 people present. Rules and society structure costs money. And then Bismarck invented the modern Social Welfare State to prevent riots in the 19th century, except the US chose to stay there.
I'm not a Christian but I know most Americans are. Do you know the 10 commandments? Love your neighbour or something is one commandment. Can you see the hypocricy when you don't want to pay your taxes? You're a poor Christian if you believe in that stuff. Anyways, many of the commandments are good living rules anyways.
We live in a society, deal with it. I don't want to pay for others being too fat to work and always sick, so they should be un-fattened. Singapore has made a new law on this btw, everyone is checked once a year and if you're too fat, you have to work it off, by law. :)
And these problems are not my own. I like how you ignored my statement amount the medical field. I will not go. I would actually already have a Hard DNR order if doctors weren't too pigheaded to sign one for me at my age. I LOATHE the medical community. What part of that are you not willing to accept? I know this is not how most people feel, and that's fine, but forcing me to pay for them to use a service that I will never benefit from is what bothers me. Saying that I always have the option to use it is a weightless statement, because I know that I won't. You should probably try that argument on someone that isn't a Nihilist. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by stoffi
Unlike the vast majority of the population, I have avoided all such trivial things as starting a family, having anyone relying on me, etc. Such allows me to be as selfish as I want with no real detriment to anyone else.
Technological efficiency has made many jobs and positions obsolete. We learned to perform the same functions with less people now. It's called market adaptation. We could probably have a good 30% of the world's population die tomorrow, and depending on how those deaths were distributed, things would keep moving without a hitch.Quote:
Originally Posted by stoffi
If you couldn't tell by now, I am anything but a Christian. I'll spare my thoughts on religion in general, to avoid offending anyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by stoffi
You shouldn't have to, but they should be allowed to be as fat and grotesque as they want to be. Remove the assistance programs, and we are both happy. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by stoffi
You never know which services you can have use of. ;) Public library for example? Roads, you're protected from me coming over to kill you for your shirt, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gallowmere
Anyways, good thing you don't live in a non-US western country, you would go bananas. ;) Free medical care, a working welfare system in case you lose your job, 6 weeks vacation a year.... It's a nightmare over here! :p ------> Norway