My point is I'm not Pro-authortarian unlike you apparently.

The point is that

A) People should be free to make their choices outside of extreme direct negative actions such as murder and theft.

B) People's time is primarity property of the people who use that time.

C) Lots of unacceptable things are everywhere.., rape, racism, people who eat grapes before they weigh them to pay for them.  Letting something slide because it's everywhere is stupid.

If most adults are idiots... well so what then? People have the right to be stupid if they want to be.  People should be allowed to make their own mistakes.

If someone wants to take a bunch of drugs and become a burnout... that's there choice.

If someone wants to eat nothing but burgerking and have a heart attack at 30.  That's there choice.

If someone wants to smoke and get lung cancer.  That's there choice.

People shouldn't be treated as children and slaves.

Afterall the government is run by these same people.  What makes you think the government isn't full of idiots.  What's the point of having the blind leading the blind?  Other then making it so those who aren't blind are forced to follow along?

What makes a collectives desicion making better then the individual?  Nothing.

I don't think they should be allowed to act stupid if its to the detriment of others or if it is detrimental to society. It is down to the leaders of each country to help navigate society into not destroying itself, whilst balancing that with the rights of individuals to be free. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it when they abuse their power and try to control what we think, but in certain circumstances, its necessary for the good of the society in question.

Take your original example/complaint about the taxing of smoker and drinkers in the UK. Both cause a host of problems later on in life that firstly cost the goverment/NHS money for treatment. Thinking from a purely financial perspective it makes sense to have a high tax on these products. If we look a little more at smoking we also see that smokers cause others who don't smoke to suffer similar consequences due to second-hand smoke, so there is now a smoking ban in all public places in the UK. This is done to protect those that make the choice not to smoke. Morally the tax also helps to fund the healthcare of smokers and alcoholics to help save there lives. With drink, the money likely also goes to police to help them police drink related violence. People are still able to choose to smoke or drink, but the extra taxes and the smoking ban enables the goverment to heal and protect both those who smoke/drink and those who don't but may suffer the effects from those around them. I see this as a lesser evil than "social engineering" and when put into context morally sound.

Its also worth noting that goverments have less control in the modern Western world, and the power has seemingly shifted to the supposedly "free" media. If anything, the media of Western countries are the ones who are the true social engineers.

A. No you didn't Kasz,are you suggesting that Muslims are a direct cost to the government? Are you suggesting that I believe we should tax muslims. Of course I don't, muslims do not equal smokers. You take things out of context to make people look bad, you pick a small thing out and make it big to make them seem evil and sick. You've done it many times and that's exactly what this is.

B. Er, sick days are a BIG cost... Did you know that sick days cost the UK an estimated £10Bn per annum? £10Bn is not the kind of money you can just throw away.

C. Yes it's fair, they pay for their own healthcare withy the taxes they supply, just like everyone else who pays taxes for healthcare. When you think about it it's no different from taxing car users for using the roads. And this 'immoral social conditioning' arguement, any normal person would see that it is not an immoral tax. It's just tax like we tax anything else.

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.

Just as a question, why is it fair to expect people to pay for their own healthcare costs through higher taxes on a choice they make but it isn't fair to expect people to pay for their own healthcare costs from a private company?

@Happy. Because one guarantees everybody gets a reasonable standard of healthcare, the other does not. That is the entire aim of socialised healthcare.

With my personal experience with the Canadian medical system I would argue that a government run healthcare system guarantees almost no one a reasonable standard of healthcare, while the American style of healthcare guarantees the vast majority of people a reasonable standard of healthcare.

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.

Sicko.  Though you should know that even Michael Moore admits he makes "Entertainement documenteries".

In otherwords... biased ones to make people feel good about themselves.

Another good example is Ben Stein's "Expelled".

It's just propganda to make people feel smug.