Zero Powers wrote:
>
> >From: Chuck Kuecker <ckuecker@mcs.net>
> >
> >At 03:50 PM 5/4/00 -0700, Zero wrote:
> >
> >>Surveillance has *nothing* to do with freedom. You are free now to do
> >>anything that is legal. You would have that exact same freedom in a
> >>completely transparent society. Your only loss of freedom would be the
> >>freedom to commit a crime and get away with it. If you have a problem
> >>with giving that up, I think that says more about you than it says about
> >>society.
> >
> >The problem is the definition of "crime". When any action that has no harm
> >to another person is labeled a "crime", then surveillance becomes
> >tyrannical. We can look forward (for example) to smokers being fined by
> >mail, and as was stated earlier, a final breakdown of the "innocent until
> >proven guilty" principle.
>
> Its not that I don't believe there are such things as victimless crimes
> (sodomy between consenting adults comes to mind), but when you think about
> the ultimate effect of many so-called victimless crimes, you begin to see
> that society itself is the victim many times.
Such arguments are utter BS that only look at one side of the argument,
much like the current claims of health care costs from gun crimes, when
Prof. John Lotts study proves that gun ownership reduces gun crimes,
therefore reducing gun crime related health care costs.
>
> For instance, taking your example of smoking. No one is harmed by the fact
> that you smoke cigarettes, right? Well, even putting aside the obvious
> problem of second hand smoke, what happens when you come down with
> emphysema? On the off hand chance that you have sufficient private
> insurance (or money) to cover your own medical care, then the only victims
> (besides your own stupid self) are those who care about you and suffer
> seeing you suffering to death.
its been proven quite well by the Veterans Administration studying the
health care costs of smoking and nonsmoking veterans over their adult
lives in service and retired that smoking REDUCES total medical
expenditures.
>
> In the more likely scenario where some form of public insurance is needed to
> supplement your medical care, the victims of your "victimless" crime are (1)
> you, (2) those who care about you, and (3) taxpayers like me who are paying
> for your expensive medical care.
How does my family financially suffer from my death? The only group that
pays is the life insurance industry, and if they haven't satisfactorily
accounted for my smoking, then they deserve to take the loss. My family
deserves NO money from me, get it? Where does it say I am obligated to
let them inherit anything? Where does it say they have to contribute to
my health care costs when they didn't make any contributions to
attempting to help me stop smoking?
For the record, I don't smoke.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:10:34 MDT