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Kasz216 on 12 August 2009
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Rath said:
Kasz216 said:
Rath said:
A) Muslims != smokers. Sorry but they really are not the same thing.

B) Sick days are not personal costs. They are huge costs to the economy of the country.

C) I think that taxing cigarettes decreases the number of users (especially the number of people starting the habit) and has the happy side effect of putting a lot of money into the health system. Plus, smoking and alcohol both have negative effects outside of the person consuming them - smoking through second hand smoke and alcohol through drunkeness along with the monetary cost to society at large of both. Hence I believe taxation of both (despite the fact that I enjoy alcohol) to be fair.

A) Both are choices people make and something that should be up to them.

B) That in my opinion is facist thinking.  Someone losing sick time due to the effects of smoking is no different then someone "losing" time because they decide to not go into work in a day.  The government has no "right" to any time I don't go to work, no matter the reason.  Penalizing me for not working is at best light facism.  I mean why not tax people more who go on vacation?

C) Yeah that's... social engineering.  Which is wrong.  Your telling people "You arent responsible enough to stop smoking and drinking.  So we the government are going to stop you... or make you damn well feel it anyway! 

This is immoral.  If someone wants to do something unhealthy they should have every right to do it.

We should treat adults... like adults.

A) One is a cultural and religious choice with profound spiritual effects on a persons life. One is a way to slowly kill yourself, also in the case of addiction I'm not sure if 'choice' is the right word.

B) The government isn't forcing you to go into work though. Thats the thing. The government is trying to force you to give up an activity that makes you too sick to work, after that the decision whether to go in or not is up to you.

C) You make the baseless assertion that social engineering is automatically wrong. I guess I'm just an immoral bastard because I support taxation on addictive substances that are harmful to both individuals and society.

A) Sure it is... people know this stuff is addictive when they do it.  If they really are addicted price isn't going to stop people. 

B) No, the government is penalizing me because i'm not going to work.  So it would be like penalizing me if i took vacation time.  Afterall vacation time does mean i have less money for retirement and emergencies.     The government is trying to force me to quite something I don't want to quit and is extracting a far greater cost then is reasonable to cover healthcare costs related to said choice.  (Or even healthcare savings!)

C) I wouldn't say immoral.  I'd say misguided.  I do find that belief pretty immoral though, and it's not baseless.  The government is using it's power to influence people in some way it has no right to influence people by forcing people with an addiction to pay more money when they already have less disposable income since they feel the need to have a product.

It's reasonless penalization because the government doesn't like what your doing.  It's no different then penalizing people for making any choice be it religion, eating certain food... etc.