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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (9798)	3/26/2001 8:23:49 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I agree with you in theory, but how do we get back from the brink we're on? How do we pass laws that say "if you wear a motorcycle helmet and drive safely and still get injured, you are entitled to have society pay for your lifetime care, but if you don't, and you don't have your own insurance or resources to pay for care, you are put out on the street to die and tough luck." Until we get there, or somewhere similar, we're stuck with societal costs of individal decisions. And if society is paying the bill, society has a right, IMO, to regulate the risks people take.

To: TimF who wrote (9798)	3/26/2001 8:28:19 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

We are all connected. If you are part of society, when you harm yourself you harm me. We are more than individuals- we are a collective as well. If my neighbor drives his motorcycle without a helmet and has a brain trauma that renders him incapable of working he will either a) collect disability, or welfare, or assistance of some sort to support himself OR b) he will starve. I prefer to live in a world where those who are indigent and needy need not starve or beg so I approve of a certain amount of state welfare. Because I (and a majority of other people) approve of this, we want some control over how people live so that we do not have huge numbers of people drawing on these services. Things could be otherwise- but the majority of people want order more than they want freedom. Freedom tends to be rather nasty when applied liberally. Freedom isn't so great when you are free to starve or beg or be sick without the hope of care, or be ignorant without the hope of education, or the freedom to be worked to death in unsafe conditions.