Quote:
Originally Posted by Cimarron29414
I would bet that you believe that a person has a right to take their own life...an unalienable right. Wouldn't sin taxes infringe on someone's right to kill themselves? Is the government regulating the manner by which people can do it? I know it's a stretch. This is all in good fun, anyway.
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Yes, a stretch....
Quote:
Originally Posted by filtherton
Is the government taxing jumping off a bridge?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cimarron29414
There isn't a smoker in this country who doesn't know what they are doing to themselves - at what point does it convert over to them willfully killing themselves? At what point, in the name of conserving those resources, does the healthcare system simply let them do it? (Assuming, we agree that an individual has a right to take their own life.)
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Again, I will say that this isn't stopping anyone from doing anything. It's a tax that helps offset the costs of certain behaviours. While they might package it up as "taxing smoking out of existence" or somesuch, I think such packaging is merely playing politics. I think otherwise that it is good public policy to raise funds from harmful activities to help pay for the negative consequences of such activities.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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