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I forget the exact wording, but the seat belt law are a good example of it. Laws are passed to protect the populace from self harm so that society doesn't suffer from it. It probably doesn't apply here because home distillation is very niche. However, if a bunch of people show up in emergency rooms and it drives up health care costs then expect a quick reversal in policy.
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There's a whole ball of wax here that boils down to whether a society would rather be individualistic or collectivist.

Its a chicken and egg problem as well, the way we regulate and manage health care and health insurance (at least in the US) allows for costs to pretty easily bleed out to the rest of society. That implies that we must then be collectivist in other policies, though that is counter to many of the original goals of our country and the question is whether we changed those goals or inadvertantly built a system that requires changing gials after the fact.

We have a similar problem with immigration laws. Our immigration laws today are completely counter to what they once were, and counter to what is still written on the Statue of Liberty. We have immigration laws now that are necessary because of the welfare programs we implemented, even if we wanted to live up to the older ideals we couldn't without abandoning those welfare programs entirely.

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Right, and I, as someone living in France and paying a hefty part of my income to fund public healthcare, understand that the state would want to limit people doing stupid shit costing the society a fortune in fixing them (though, of course, this just creates a debate on where to draw the line).

But isn't the point of non-socialized healthcare, like in the US, that you pay for care out of pocket? Or maybe via your insurance, which will probably increase your premium if you repeatedly engage in stupid actions that need expensive fixing?

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Society still has paid at least for your education, depends on your working power to at least fund your dependents, and at least on some degree of reasonableness from you not to raise everyone's insurance premiums.

There's a line to draw somewhere, but even the most ra-ra-individualist heavily depends on society, and has/should have obligations in turn.

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Either pay for my health care or get your nose out of it. If my healthcare is going to be my own private matter, then it should be just that. How insulting.
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Insurance, alcohol, and other lobbies pay for our laws in the US.
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Individual heath insurance premiums aren’t linked to your behavior or health or activities (apart from smoking). Most of that was made illegal by the insurance reforms in the “ObamaCare” bill.

If many people started doing stupid things though then yes it would raise premiums for all.

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Dumb people doing dumb stuff incur a cost for all of us, whether it's through taxpayer-funded healthcare or higher premiums for private insurance.
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Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental. As a true French person who does want the government paying for "stupid shit" you need to call for the end of wine making and its consumption.

But I guess that might be the debate line of which you spoke.

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"Let's be honest here: there is no benefit to alcohol (for example wine) and is only detrimental." - That is a pretty extreme statement and easily falsifiable.

There are many studies a quick google away that show a much more nuanced take ie [0] and [1]. But the strongest evidence is our most successful societies and civilizations have been intentionally drinking alcohol for ~10000 years [2]. If it was only detrimental then I'm pretty sure it would have worked its way out by now. I acknowledge there are negative issues.

[0]: https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-skinny-cocktails [1]: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-drinks/drin... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages

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You must be fun at parties? Some forms of alcohol are tasty and all of them loosen inhibitions, which is beneficial for both recreation and procreation.

Obviously there are downsides too, but booze is popular for very good reasons.

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You don't need alcohol to be silly or talk to people. Various religions reject alcohol completly and yet manage just fine.
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> Or maybe via your insurance, which will probably increase your premium if you repeatedly engage in stupid actions that need expensive fixing?

US insurers can only discriminate by age and smoking status.

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Seat belt laws are an interesting example though because they only apply when driving on public roads. You can drive your car with no seat belt on a private track all day if you want to.
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Agree completely, though sadly we are a very long way from this. In a lot of places it is literally illegal and prison-time just for growing certain naturally-occurring plants for purely personal use. I don't see how this ruling helps with that at all though
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