A right to eat oneself to death?

LobsterMobster wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:

Are we at the "lifeboat" now Lobster?

Don't turn this around on me. He's the one who implied that athletes are productive while the woman is not. I'd like to know how he came to this conclusion if it's anything more than, "society tells us athletes are good and fatties are bad."

I don't think that they are even comparable, and it is strange to try and draw comparisons IMO. If you can walk to the bathroom without sweating you are more productive than this woman.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Shoal, I'd still like to know what makes the athlete legitimate and the crazy food lady, not. You still haven't told me how an athlete is "productive."

Maybe productive isn't the right word. Employee is better. There are plenty of hazardous jobs, whether they be asbestos sprayer, NFL athlete, or Soldier. We have a responsibility (along with the employer, primarily) to take care of workers who were hurt by hazardous work. She is not an employee - this means she is not paying taxes, social security, or medicare - esscentially, a non-productive member of society. Granted, she should be paying taxes on her "watch me eat" income, but I doubt it. Even if she is, she's still self employed, which puts more of the burden on her, as the employer, to provide her own care. It's part of the risk assumed when being an entrepreneur.

Society is much more forgiving to provide care for productive members (i.e. employees) of society who were injured by their work than non-productive members doing stupid stuff just to be famous.

As for this idea that we should "have compassion" on this woman, the truly compassionate thing would be to intervene and stop her from continuing along a path that would ultimately burden her, her husband, and her child with a life of dysfunction.

Paleocon wrote:

As for this idea that we should "have compassion" on this woman, the truly compassionate thing would be to intervene and stop her from continuing along a path that would ultimately burden her, her husband, and her child with a life of dysfunction.

You seem to be confusing compassion for compulsion and freedom for obedience.

I'll agree with you that eating yourself to death is a waste of a life. I'll agree that this particular course of action is personally distasteful.

On the other hand, I don't think the "She has the freedom to do exactly as Paleocon thinks she should best live her life" line of reasoning works. Fascist authoritarianism in pursuit of noble goals is still fascist authoritarianism. The whole concept of a free society means that a persons ability to choose a path for themselves is more important that the path that they choose. Freedom to choose means the freedom to do dumb-ass things. The freedom to agree with the "right" opnion is no freedom at all.

At the end of the day, we can try to convince, but must refrain from compelling.

Oso wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

As for this idea that we should "have compassion" on this woman, the truly compassionate thing would be to intervene and stop her from continuing along a path that would ultimately burden her, her husband, and her child with a life of dysfunction.

You seem to be confusing compassion for compulsion and freedom for obedience.

I'll agree with you that eating yourself to death is a waste of a life. I'll agree that this particular course of action is personally distasteful.

On the other hand, I don't think the "She has the freedom to do exactly as Paleocon thinks she should best live her life" line of reasoning works. Fascist authoritarianism in pursuit of noble goals is still fascist authoritarianism. The whole concept of a free society means that a persons ability to choose a path for themselves is more important that the path that they choose. Freedom to choose means the freedom to do dumb-ass things. The freedom to agree with the "right" opnion is no freedom at all.

At the end of the day, we can try to convince, but must refrain from compelling.

That's a pretty classic reductio ad absurdum example.

Actually I'm thinking that the only difference between this woman and the athlete is that she is self-employed and the athlete is not. And the size of their audience (no pun intended). They both provide entertainment at a physical cost, willingly. I think it is incorrect and somewhat insulting to compare a professional athlete to someone who actually does something productive like asbestos removal.

Paleocon wrote:

As for this idea that we should "have compassion" on this woman, the truly compassionate thing would be to intervene and stop her from continuing along a path that would ultimately burden her, her husband, and her child with a life of dysfunction.

Here's an idea for compassion. How about letting her decide what makes her happy?

What you consider dysfunctional may well be this woman's perfect life, even with the early death and illnesses related to morbid obesity. Her husband might be thinking that he's living a charmed life.

The kid? I'm sure we all feel the most sympathy for him/her (I forget which), but unless they're abusing him, it's not our place to dictate.

Jonman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

As for this idea that we should "have compassion" on this woman, the truly compassionate thing would be to intervene.

Here's an idea for compassion. How about letting her decide what makes her happy?

Ahh, the truly incomprehensible question. Do people have the right to destroy themselves and the people around them in pursuit of what their brain damaged minds consider happiness? And I'm not using brain damaged in an ethereal, sarcastic, or figurative manner; the woman has an eating disorder, which is a disease of the brain. Her brain is damaged.

I do tend to side with Jonman on the equation, although there's no end to examples and hypotheticals where this point of view ends up badly (abused women/children who want to stay with their abusers, smokers, drug users, etc); regardless of what psychological or neurological things happened to a person to equate self destructive behavior with happiness, I think it's their call to pursue those interests.

And the second they call on my tax dollars to assist them in anything other than recovering from their brain damage, they should be denied.

MaxShrek wrote:
Gravey wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Are not some of us entertained by the woman as well?

Man, if I wasn't at work right now I would find a picture of the morbidly obese lady and add the caption "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED". So just imagine that image here.

MaxShrek delivers

Yikes.

Seth wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

As for this idea that we should "have compassion" on this woman, the truly compassionate thing would be to intervene.

Here's an idea for compassion. How about letting her decide what makes her happy?

Ahh, the truly incomprehensible question. Do people have the right to destroy themselves and the people around them in pursuit of what their brain damaged minds consider happiness? And I'm not using brain damaged in an ethereal, sarcastic, or figurative manner; the woman has an eating disorder, which is a disease of the brain. Her brain is damaged.

I do tend to side with Jonman on the equation, although there's no end to examples and hypotheticals where this point of view ends up badly (abused women/children who want to stay with their abusers, smokers, drug users, etc); regardless of what psychological or neurological things happened to a person to equate self destructive behavior with happiness, I think it's their call to pursue those interests.

And the second they call on my tax dollars to assist them in anything other than recovering from their brain damage, they should be denied.

I'm going to make a wild assumption here, and say that all of us have self-destructive things that we engage in, to some extent. My liver's probably not in great shape, but you know what? I like whiskey, so sod it, I'm drinking whiskey. Sure, I'm overweight, but the bean casserole I cooked last night was so good I had seconds. Paleocon may be able to kill me with one thumb, but his knees are probably going to be shot by the time he retires.

Whiskey and beans make me happy. Kicking folk in the face makes Paleo happy. We might both be doing ourselves a disservice in the grand scheme of things, and we might end up being a burden on the taxpayer as a result. Are we dispicable human beings too?

Paleocon wrote:

That's a pretty classic reductio ad absurdum example.

Really? Your argument is "intervene and stop her". My argument is that intervening and stopping her is denying her freedom.

There are two respectable positions here. One states that the most import thing is that people choose wisely. The other position hold that the most important thing is that people choose freely.

Your suggested that the compassionate answer is to intervene and stop this woman. This would lead to, in my opinion, a wiser choice for this woman. However, I think that the freedom of a choice is more important than the wisdom of a choice.

This is based on the observation that we cannot compel people to be good. We cannot compel people to be wise. I do understand the desire to improve society by enforcing better ideas, it just doesn't work. A big reason that I support progressive politics is that I believe that experts can make better decisions than the average person. When it comes to how we should govern our country, I trust education and experience over so-called "common sense" or folk wisdom. I believe that an economist trained in an Ivy League school will make better decisions for our economy than Joe the Plumber.

So I understand that this woman is making terrible decisions. However, there is something fundamental about humans choosing their own fate. People have to be free to make bad decisions. If we "intervene and stop her" we aren't helping her. She has to help herself. There is no other way.

Jonman wrote:

I'm going to make a wild assumption here, and say that all of us have self-destructive things that we engage in, to some extent.

The extremity of this woman's behavior says to me that she's not just engaging in self-destructive things, but is seriously mentally ill, the eating is an expression of that. Asking if she has the right to this behavior is like asking if someone with OCD has the right to be OCD--it's fundamentally silly, she's not exercising a right because she has no choice, but following a behavior she has no actual control over. In this case, which burden do we taxpayers assume--her physical medical bills, or her mental medical bills?

The discussion, however, has taken many interesting facets, so continue. I just thought it was important to note that this sounds like a full blown eating disorder, a serious mental illness, so notions like "freedom", "choice", and "right" don't follow their usual definitions.

Jonman wrote:

I'm going to make a wild assumption here, and say that all of us have self-destructive things that we engage in, to some extent. My liver's probably not in great shape, but you know what? I like whiskey, so sod it, I'm drinking whiskey. Sure, I'm overweight, but the bean casserole I cooked last night was so good I had seconds. Paleocon may be able to kill me with one thumb, but his knees are probably going to be shot by the time he retires.

Whiskey and beans make me happy. Kicking folk in the face makes Paleo happy. We might both be doing ourselves a disservice in the grand scheme of things, and we might end up being a burden on the taxpayer as a result. Are we dispicable human beings too?

There's a term when someone makes a perfectly logical statement (everyone has self destructive tendencies) and follows it to a wholly unrelated, false, and pretty darned offensive conclusion (we are despicable humans). Whatever that term is, I appreciate your example of it!

edit: found it.

Seth wrote:
Jonman wrote:

I'm going to make a wild assumption here, and say that all of us have self-destructive things that we engage in, to some extent. My liver's probably not in great shape, but you know what? I like whiskey, so sod it, I'm drinking whiskey. Sure, I'm overweight, but the bean casserole I cooked last night was so good I had seconds. Paleocon may be able to kill me with one thumb, but his knees are probably going to be shot by the time he retires.

Whiskey and beans make me happy. Kicking folk in the face makes Paleo happy. We might both be doing ourselves a disservice in the grand scheme of things, and we might end up being a burden on the taxpayer as a result. Are we dispicable human beings too?

There's a term when someone makes a perfectly logical statement (everyone has self destructive tendencies) and follows it to a wholly unrelated, false, and pretty darned offensive conclusion (we are despicable humans). Whatever that term is, I appreciate your example of it!

edit: found it.

Fair point. That'll teach me to rush the last sentence.

Oso wrote:

So I understand that this woman is making terrible decisions. However, there is something fundamental about humans choosing their own fate. People have to be free to make bad decisions. If we "intervene and stop her" we aren't helping her. She has to help herself. There is no other way.

Correct me or ignore me if I'm getting this wrong, but how would intervention in this case be different from intervention in the case of alcohol abuse, if this is a mental disorder? Or smoking, or any other drug addiction, if it isn't a mental disorder? Or, and I might be getting really wrong here, refusing to wear a seatbelt? That's unwise (well I would call it incredibly stupid), but it's an individual's choice—if it wasn't legislated. Is that fascist?

After all, this is all about protecting the health and well-being of our citizens. Where along this continuum from seatbelt laws to 1000-pound goals does freedom begin or end?

Oso wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

That's a pretty classic reductio ad absurdum example.

Really? Your argument is "intervene and stop her". My argument is that intervening and stopping her is denying her freedom.

There are two respectable positions here. One states that the most import thing is that people choose wisely. The other position hold that the most important thing is that people choose freely.

Your suggested that the compassionate answer is to intervene and stop this woman. This would lead to, in my opinion, a wiser choice for this woman. However, I think that the freedom of a choice is more important than the wisdom of a choice.

This is based on the observation that we cannot compel people to be good. We cannot compel people to be wise. I do understand the desire to improve society by enforcing better ideas, it just doesn't work. A big reason that I support progressive politics is that I believe that experts can make better decisions than the average person. When it comes to how we should govern our country, I trust education and experience over so-called "common sense" or folk wisdom. I believe that an economist trained in an Ivy League school will make better decisions for our economy than Joe the Plumber.

So I understand that this woman is making terrible decisions. However, there is something fundamental about humans choosing their own fate. People have to be free to make bad decisions. If we "intervene and stop her" we aren't helping her. She has to help herself. There is no other way.

First, I made the point that the "compassionate" thing to do (seeing as you first brought up the issue of compassion) was to intervene on her behalf for her benefit and the benefit of the child. Like I said, you brought up the issue of compassion (in your hypothetical involving the professional athlete). You can't just simply move the goalposts now and make it an issue about freedom as an ultimate good.

Furthermore, my point on the reductio ad absurdum was your insistence that intervening to stop a woman from eating herself to death was tantamount to "authoritarian fascism" (your words. not mine.). Now you might be one of those rare folks who thinks that seat belt laws are morally equivalent to shipping folks off by the trainload to gas chambers, but I'd hope you aren't. Likewise, there is no moral equivalence to "restricting her freedom" to eat herself to death (and make her idiocy a collective burden) and "authoritarian fascism".

I may be conflating terms and you and Paleo are probably right in correcting me. Not all exercises of authority are fascist.

Where I'm coming from is what I've learned as an athlete who had excellent coaches and later in life as a teacher.

My college track coach (who has moved on to WAAAAY better things since starting out at our little Division III school) got me to see that an athlete who merely follows instructions won't really get it. An athlete has to "buy in" to a training plan. If they are working hard only because some coach is making them, they won't meet their potential. The athlete has to understand the coach's plan and motivate him/her self to do the work. Work we choose is different than work we are forced to do. Unless the motivation to succeed comes from within, it is empty.

Now, 20 years later, I'm teaching college students. I could give them the information they'll need, and then they would spit it back at me because they know I'm the one writing the grades. Knowing the right answers doesn't mean they'll have the skills they will need outside the classroom. So instead of telling them they are wrong, I try to design assignments that will show them what they are trying won't work. I teach research courses and most students think that their Google skills are great and that they don't need to use old-fashioned resources. So my job is to present them with situations where their current skill sets aren't good enough and equip them with enough knowledge that they can choose and evaluate better tools and solutions for the problem in front of them. If I have learned anything from teaching it is that when a student figures out, on their own, that their thinking is flawed and chooses to fix it themselves, they have learned something solid. If a student just takes my word on something, no matter how right I am, they haven't really learned anything useful.

So in this situation, what I'm saying is that no one but this woman can "fix" her choice to die morbidly obese from a self-inflicted lifestyle. She's like a drunk or a junkie, even if the court orders her into treatment, she isn't going to get better until she chooses to get better. Al Anon and Narc Anon work, but only for those who choose to make it work. Same for this woman. Ain't nobody going to stop her from doing what she wants to.

If we are asking practical questions, like should the state pay for her insulin, or should she be placed on a donor list for an organ ahead of people who have made healthier choices, I'm confident that we can say she is suffering from a lifestyle and not from a disease. Part of having the freedom of choice is accepting the outcomes of those decisions. If the question is, does she have the right to eat herself to death, my answer is yes.

Jonman I want to explore your point, though, because like I said before I agree with you (I think people should be able to pursue self destructive tendencies). As anyone who reads regularly knows, I'm a smoker and a scotch (and, recently, bourbon!) drinker. So I certainly consider myself a person with self destructive tendencies.

I think my point was that I don't think someone should expect the collective whole to finance the fallout from those behaviors -- i.e., I don't think public taxes should be spent on my (hypothetical) lung transplant. Nor do I think they should be spent on helping this giantess of a woman, either through tax funded scooters or surgeries.

On page 1 I compared her to an early 20th century circus freak; she is making a living by charging people to gawk at her, much like a bearded woman or strongman might in a bygone era. If her income is such that it affords her the insurance to cover any obesity related issues that befall her, I have absolutely zero problem with her self destructive tendencies. The article seems to hint that she's at least a passable parent, so i'll withold the natural but think of the children!!!! reaction.

It's if/when her self inflicted problems begin to require support from public funds that I get uneasy; and this is the same problem I have with national health care in general.

I think it's also important to note that I actually consider Palecon's point of view more compassionate; he's advocating rules intended to address why a person is doing bad stuff in an attempt to better them. I'm just advocating a more self-governed approach, in which (regardless of what causes people to do stupid stuff) they be given the freedom to make those choices -- as long as they pay the consequences. And even if they were never informed what those consequences might be.

Oso wrote:

I do understand the desire to improve society by enforcing better ideas, it just doesn't work.

A big reason that I support progressive politics is that I believe that experts can make better decisions than the average person. When it comes to how we should govern our country, I trust education and experience over so-called "common sense" or folk wisdom. I believe that an economist trained in an Ivy League school will make better decisions for our economy than Joe the Plumber.

I'm really interested as to how you put these two positions together. Isn't progressive politics the attempt to improve society by enforcing better ideas?

To be clear, I'm not sure where my position is regarding letting her eat herself to death. I am not demanding that the government stop her from doing so. My point in bringing up the compassion argument was that Oso used that very word in a counter example to illustrate why we should be compassionate to her by allowing her to die through her actions and neglect. I felt that point needed addressing.

I tend to fall pretty heavily in the camp of self governance myself. I drink, I participate in a sport that is not devoid of physical risk, I drive an automobile capable of going twice the legal speed limit, I own guns that others would characterize as "man killers", and I still manage to live a healthy and legal lifestyle without the intervention of the government. I even use my seat belt and pay my taxes voluntarily.

All that said, what I find objectionable is the idea that we should celebrate deviance as "freedom". The absence of government corrective action should not be confused with collective acceptance. Sure, this moron should be "allowed" to kill herself with food, but to enshrine this as some sort of basic freedom and demand that we accept it as anything other than reprehensible deviance is asking a lot. A lot I'm unwilling to give.

Shoal07 wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Shoal, I'd still like to know what makes the athlete legitimate and the crazy food lady, not. You still haven't told me how an athlete is "productive."

Maybe productive isn't the right word. Employee is better. There are plenty of hazardous jobs, whether they be asbestos sprayer, NFL athlete, or Soldier. We have a responsibility (along with the employer, primarily) to take care of workers who were hurt by hazardous work. She is not an employee - this means she is not paying taxes, social security, or medicare - esscentially, a non-productive member of society. Granted, she should be paying taxes on her "watch me eat" income, but I doubt it. Even if she is, she's still self employed, which puts more of the burden on her, as the employer, to provide her own care. It's part of the risk assumed when being an entrepreneur.

Society is much more forgiving to provide care for productive members (i.e. employees) of society who were injured by their work than non-productive members doing stupid stuff just to be famous.

I'm sorry Shoal, but I don't think I should have a responsibility to pay for the healthcare for a multi-millionaire who also has health insurance through his employer. No matter how entertaining he may be to other people. His job is dangerous but it's also totally unnecessary and I only benefit from it inasmuch as I benefit from any work that stimulates the economy. I don't owe him so much as the time of day. In fact, I'll go on record and say that if a man earns an unimaginable fortune playing a game and gets health care from his employer, and then he comes to me and asks me for a few bucks so he can see a doctor, I might tell him to go f*** himself.

Also, your "doubt" is not evidence. Maybe she's paying taxes on her income and maybe she's not. You're assuming she's not. That's fine for you, but stop presenting it as evidence that she's not.

I want to make it clear that I'm not saying the woman is worth as much as an athlete. I'm saying the athlete is worth as much as the woman. I hope you can appreciate the distinction.

Aetius wrote:

I'm really interested as to how you put these two positions together. Isn't progressive politics the attempt to improve society by enforcing better ideas?

I included the 2nd statement as showing that I understand the impulse. You are correct in pointing out a certain dissonance. The key to resolving this is the difference between convincing and enforcing. Progressive politics will work by helping people see that experts have solutions to complex problems that are better than other solutions. Progressive politics becomes fascism at the point when the experts stop trying to convince and start compelling.

In this case I was trying to agree w/ Paleocon that his ideas of nutrition and fitness are better ideas than sloth and gluttony. However, compulsion is taking this too far.

Paleocon wrote:

Sure, this moron should be "allowed" to kill herself with food, but to enshrine this as some sort of basic freedom and demand that we accept it as anything other than reprehensible deviance is asking a lot. A lot I'm unwilling to give.

Does it help if the definition of freedom includes both liberty and license? We are free to do a LOT of things that I don't find worth celebrating. We're free to use poor grammar. We're free to bully weaker people within the law. Heck, we're even free to use designated hitters instead of making the pitchers bat in some leagues. We're free to wear brown socks with black shoes. To say that we shouldn't make choices for other people is not the same thing as saying that we can't prefer some choices to others. As long as we don't confuse our personal preferences for the "Absolute Right Choices". I don't see how recognizing personal freedom means that we are somehow forced to celebrate everyone's choices.

Seth wrote:

Jonman I want to explore your point, though, because like I said before I agree with you (I think people should be able to pursue self destructive tendencies). As anyone who reads regularly knows, I'm a smoker and a scotch (and, recently, bourbon!) drinker. So I certainly consider myself a person with self destructive tendencies.

I think my point was that I don't think someone should expect the collective whole to finance the fallout from those behaviors -- i.e., I don't think public taxes should be spent on my (hypothetical) lung transplant. Nor do I think they should be spent on helping this giantess of a woman, either through tax funded scooters or surgeries.

On page 1 I compared her to an early 20th century circus freak; she is making a living by charging people to gawk at her, much like a bearded woman or strongman might in a bygone era. If her income is such that it affords her the insurance to cover any obesity related issues that befall her, I have absolutely zero problem with her self destructive tendencies. The article seems to hint that she's at least a passable parent, so i'll withold the natural but think of the children!!!! reaction.

It's if/when her self inflicted problems begin to require support from public funds that I get uneasy; and this is the same problem I have with national health care in general.

Your problem with national health care should extend to every form of group insurance. In every instance, an individual pays a premium based on the average cost of providing the insurance across the whole pool of the insured. Both the costs and the risks are shared across the pool.

How do you feel about paying your car insurance? Admittedly, there's incentives to encourage the insured to minimise their own risk through no-claims bonuses, which scale your individual payment, but that payment is still based on the group risk before it's scaled for the individual.

What about your home insurance? As a responsible homeowner, you no doubt maintain your home and take reasonable safety precautions. Your premiums are mostly going to pay for the less responsible person who falls asleep in bed smoking and burns his house down.

This was a long running broo-haha back in England before I moved. Questions were being asked in the press about things like providing lung transplants to smokers on the NHS.

Ultimately, any group insurance, whether provided by the government or a private company, rewards the risk takers the most. Insurance that you never claim on was a waste of money.

Paleocon wrote:

All that said, what I find objectionable is the idea that we should celebrate deviance as "freedom". The absence of government corrective action should not be confused with collective acceptance. Sure, this moron should be "allowed" to kill herself with food, but to enshrine this as some sort of basic freedom and demand that we accept it as anything other than reprehensible deviance is asking a lot. A lot I'm unwilling to give.

What is freedom if not the ability to deviate from the norm?

I'm also not sure where you got this idea of celebrating this woman's act. Pretty much everyone agrees that this woman is doing something crazy/moronic/foolish/short-sighted. There's no celebration going on. There's a lot of feeling of "cripes, you wouldn't catch me doing it, but if she wants to do it, go right ahead".

And *that* feeling, I celebrate. I celebrate the freedom to do things that other people think are ludicrous. That's f***ing freedom, my friend.

Sounds like you're hung up on the connotations of the words "freedom" and "right", Paleo.

Jonman wrote:

Your problem with national health care should extend to every form of group insurance. In every instance, an individual pays a premium based on the average cost of providing the insurance across the whole pool of the insured. Both the costs and the risks are shared across the pool.

How do you feel about paying your car insurance? Admittedly, there's incentives to encourage the insured to minimise their own risk through no-claims bonuses, which scale your individual payment, but that payment is still based on the group risk before it's scaled for the individual.

What about your home insurance? As a responsible homeowner, you no doubt maintain your home and take reasonable safety precautions. Your premiums are mostly going to pay for the less responsible person who falls asleep in bed smoking and burns his house down.

This was a long running broo-haha back in England before I moved. Questions were being asked in the press about things like providing lung transplants to smokers on the NHS.

Ultimately, any group insurance, whether provided by the government or a private company, rewards the risk takers the most. Insurance that you never claim on was a waste of money.

There's some really good points here, and I think they're spot on. The whole "insurance rewards the risk takers" is something I hadn't really cogently considered in this discussion.

My first reaction was to differentiate between voluntary insurance and forced insurance, but I realized that there's really not much difference. The only way I can avoid paying car or homeowners' insurance is to not drive or own a house. It is against the law for me not to have auto insurance, and no bank on the planet will give me a loan without proof of homeowner's insurance. So I can't really make the distinction between voluntary and involuntary insurance. In fact come to think of it my ONLY voluntary insurance is my health insurance.

Thanks for the post, Jonman.

Paleocon wrote:

All that said, what I find objectionable is the idea that we should celebrate deviance as "freedom". The absence of government corrective action should not be confused with collective acceptance. Sure, this moron should be "allowed" to kill herself with food, but to enshrine this as some sort of basic freedom and demand that we accept it as anything other than reprehensible deviance is asking a lot. A lot I'm unwilling to give.

I don't think anyone's saying you have to celebrate every action you don't want to outlaw.

Well, not anyone here.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

All that said, what I find objectionable is the idea that we should celebrate deviance as "freedom". The absence of government corrective action should not be confused with collective acceptance. Sure, this moron should be "allowed" to kill herself with food, but to enshrine this as some sort of basic freedom and demand that we accept it as anything other than reprehensible deviance is asking a lot. A lot I'm unwilling to give.

I don't think anyone's saying you have to celebrate every action you don't want to outlaw.

Well, not anyone here.

I think he's saying Mex should be imprisoned, or at least stripped of his freedoms, and I for one will not have that.

Liberalism is a mental disorder, you know. So is conservatism. And everyone hates libertarians.

Defining behavior you don't like as a mental disorder is the slipperiest of slopes.

Staats wrote:

Sounds like you're hung up on on the connotations of the words "freedom" and "right", Paleo.

That's possible. Like I said, I don't think we should use the power of the government to stop her from doing this to herself. I don't think it is the purpose of government to do so and can appreciate drawing a line at limits of government power. Moreover, I think it distracts from the things government should be doing.

I guess my issue is with the equating of a lack of government regulation with some sort of obligation we might have to protect one's "right" to be an idiot. If, for instance, her mother or a group of her concerned relatives and friends intervened to correct her action, I would think it would be a tragedy to use government power to stop them.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

I think he's saying Mex should be imprisoned, or at least stripped of his freedoms, and I for one will not have that.

Maybe just stripped?

Paleocon wrote:

If, for instance, her mother or a group of her concerned relatives and friends intervened to correct her action, I would think it would be a tragedy to use government power to stop them.

Intervened how exactly though? Like, chained her up in her basement and put her on a forced diet?