Exactly.
This reminds me too much of the abortion debate.
Person A when not pregnant: Abortion is wrong.
Person A while pregnant: Abortion is my right.
Person A after being pregnant: Abortion is wrong.
You can substitute any number of factors in for pregnant and abortion such as
poor and bailouts
sick and UHC
free parking and the free parking rule
hungry and eating meat.
The real challenge in life is to be able to stop making choices based on your “own benefit in the moment,” which to me is a very adolescent thing to do. It tends to lead to the type of reasoning where, “I’m healthy and employed so I don’t need UHC. Ergo, UHC is a bad policy choice.”
Take a step back and consider what sort of choices you’d make in a variety of scenarios.
You said yourself, “it was a policy that I found beneficial at one point.” So during that time it was a good policy. What you’re saying is that at time = t -1 you didn’t need the bailout, so it was a bad policy. Then you needed the bailout so it became a good policy. At time = t + 1 you didn’t need the bailout so it went back to being a bad policy.
Do you not see the hypocrisy of what you’re saying?
If it’s wrong/unhealthy to eat meat, that statement needs to stay true whether you’re hungry or not. Such that if there is a point where you either die of starvation or eat meat, I would expect a vegetarian to follow through with their beliefs and die.
Otherwise you’re left with the opinion of “eating meat is wrong, unless you’re hungry and there’s nothing else in the fridge.”