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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

You mixed two different things. If a person wants to shoot heroin -- or in this case eat bad food. They should be allowed to. It only affects them.

Murder takes away someone else's right.

But on the other hand, the government shouldn't be subsidizing heroin or food.

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No it doesn't, it affects their parents, their children, their friends, their pets, their colleagues, the companies they work in, their clients, and everyone else actually. You don't live in a vacuum, you live in a interconnected system where everyone has an effect on everyone, direct or indirect.

Liberty is extremely important, but we should always remember we're not alone. This belief that everyone should be 100% free and have the right to be whatever he wants with his life is, if not the only reason, part of the reasons why we're in this mess today.

And all of those people that it affects -- besides their children -- have the right to disassociate themselves from the person. Society already has ways to remove children from bad situations.

Talk about defending a strong idea without giving it much thought. Yes, you may disassociate yourself with someone who does drugs - but do you want to? What if it is someone you care deeply about? Shouldn't we try to shield people from doing things that may affect them negatively in the first place?

Shouldn't we try to shield people from doing things that may affect them negatively in the first place

How has that worked out? The War on Drugs has been an abysmal failure, as was Prohibition, making gambling illegal, etc. Can you name one time that the government has ever successfully "shielded" anyone from something negative?

Seatbelts ?

I think that's more education and changing societal norms than anything else. What are the chances that you actually get caught without your seatbelt?

Why would traffic laws deter someone from not wearing their seatbelt but not deter someone from speeding?

If you look at the traffic laws that work well - stopping at a traffic light, not driving on the wrong side of the road, etc. compared to ones that don't like speeding, using your traffic signal, crossing the gourd, you'll notice that most people decide on what laws to obey based on the risk of injury to themselves or someone else.

Environmental regulations/policies that stopped rivers from burning in OH?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River

That's prohibition against one person/company from doing something that hurts someone else. I never said that people should be able to do something that infringes on other people's right.

How far does the control go? I've heard this argument a lot and that crucial piece is always missing. In your eyes is the US at a good freedom/control ratio or would you like to see more control over our diets (or drugs) being imposed?

*Edited to include (or drugs)

Quite a few of these negative effects are the result of prohibition and criminalisation though. Prohibition plays right into the hands of organised crime because it keeps prices up.

Let's not forget the victims of the war on drugs. In Mexico alone that war has claimed hundereds of thousands of lives in the past 10 years while at the same time deaths from drug overdose have gone up dramatically in the US.

Something is very wrong with the response to this problem.

What people are permitted to read and what people are permitted to say on the internet and especially what is broadcast by media obviously have even larger effects, so should be regulated first, before the dietary police are unleashed.

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