Terr, you need water to live. Does that mean you should drink 20 gallons of it a day?
The flaw you have in your thinking is, that is something is good then you should overdo it. You need 2000 calories a day to survive, so why not eat 1 million calories a day?
That’s not an intelligent or logical line of reasoning. We do best within a range. Not too much or too little.
The trouble is you think freedom is good. So do I. But you are arguing for so much freedom that it’ll start killing people.
Your society was tried. It’s the law of the jungle. We gave it up because we’re better off now. Before vaccines, before the FDA, before the EPA, things were worse than they are now. You think we don’t need those things because you can’t see the damage they’re holding at bay.
It’s like if you live in a forest. And you have watch towers that shoot at bears before they get to where the people live. After a while you’ve noticed that there are never any bears around. So you assume we no longer need the watch towers.
But your perception is wrong, because those towers are shooting every day. They’re keeping us safe and making out lives better. And if a bear slips by one of the towers, it’s a failure. But it doesn’t mean the system is worthless. And it doesn’t mean you should get rid of the towers entirely.
“Overdo” is in the eye of the beholder. I think you’re “overdoing” it right now.
As I showed you with the incorrect use of antibiotics by not completing the course of treatment, it’s already killing people. And you’re not willing to limit the freedom even though it is killing people.
No, I’m not willing to imprison people who are sick because, it’s impractical and it’s a silly idea.
You aren’t winning anyone over to your side because your arguments are nonsense. I’m not saying you’re stupid, but you’re so ideological that you seem to be unable to support your contentions with anything but assertions.
We’re telling you that the most practical solution appears to be a reasonable balance between individual freedoms and public welfare. Who decides what that reasonable balance is? We do, in an evolving and progressing manner through our ability to vote. This is the system that we have now.
Your solution is to get rid of the present government, and then make the same determinations to balance your own individual freedoms with those you would have to give up to join some other group of people for protection through collective strength, while competing against other people who would also band together for strength.
Ultimately one imagines that your solution would generate either a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or alternatively some resulting process of the competition among large collectives of people that might yield a unifying body of individuals. These individuals would sacrifice some degree of individual freedom in order to achieve the benefits of collective strength. Probably through some kind of representative democracy in which the people try their best to balance individual freedoms with collective strength.
Even if it will save tens of thousands of lives annually? Then (again, according to the logic shown by the anti-libertarians in this thread) you would be responsible for those deaths.
You don’t seem to be winning anyone over to your side either. Note - I’m not saying you’re stupid, but you seem to be unable to support your contentions with anything but assertions.
Curious that no other Board libertarians (small or big “L”) have chimed in to defend or elaborate on Terr’s arguments. Almost makes me think he doesn’t represent the mainstream of even L(l)-ibertarian thought.
Seriously? Even if the general concensus thought that was a fantastic, constitutional idea, we don’t have infinite man-power to police such things. And since, with proper use, antibiotics are overall a good thing, we employ a system somewhere in the middle of your two extremes. It’s really not a hard concept.
Also, “overdoing” is certainly not in the eye of the beholder when it comes to absolutes, or known margins.
Sadly, I have the 21st century world to act as my cite.
We have less illness, less poverty, less war, less prejudice, less illiteracy, less misery than when things were done closer to how you want. If you’d trade the America of the 19th century for the America of the 21st, you’re probably a rich white male in good health.
Sure. But I thought in a democracy minority’s rights are supposed to be protected? Or is that another “reasonable” balance decided by a vote? That seems to be a tautology, wouldn’t you say?
Wrong. My solution is get rid of the present system and build a system where the false so-called “rights” that require someone to give you handouts are eliminated and only the basic “rights” that exist on their own without requiring someone’s work to give them to you are supported.
If the present threat is a serious bacterial infection, using antibiotics the way the US does today saves tens of thousands of lives. Anything short of that, will increase the risk of resistant strains, and is therefore the less desirable implementation of these class of drugs. Anything more than that, and you’re draining the country of reasonable resources and, yes, freedoms that is unreasonable considering stated risks.
Not forcing people to finish taking the full course of treatment with antibiotics creates antibiotic-resistant strands that according to people here kill tens of thousands of people (and with anti-TB drugs, some people here claim that millions will die). So - by not forcing people to finish those treatments (and thus limiting their freedom) you’re killing from tens of thousands to millions of people.
You shouldn’t take a pulse with your thumb because it has enough of its own pulse as to often cause an incorrect reading. You are supposed to use a different finger.
Hey, maybe this actually explains it!! **Terr **is taking the pulse of American thinking using his thumb!
No. The fact that you ask makes me conclude that you do not know what “tautology” means. In a democracy the rights of the individual are weighed against public welfare. I think the issue of the rights of individuals as members of minority groups is a great example of a way in which the government has become less authoritarian as it has progressed. Initial restrictions of individual rights based on group membership (e.g. women, minority racial group membership) have become more respected rather than less. Currently we are in the last throes of undue restriction of rights based on sexual orientation. Our society, and our government(s), are moving towards further expansion of recognized individual liberties. This is all as a function of representative democracy.
Isn’t it fantastic? As a champion of individual liberties, aren’t you thrilled that we are moving in a progressive direction?
I’ve come to realize that you have no real idea what any sort of solution would be, largely because you’ve no idea what any sort of real problem exists. I don’t know why this is, but your disjointed lurching style of debate is evidence for my belief.