Have you ever heard the tired old
argument, guns don’t kill people, people kill people? Of course you have, that
question was rhetorical. The idea is that a gun, in and of itself, is neither
good nor bad, but a tool that may be used by bad people to do bad things. Well
then let me postulate by that same reasoning, that heroin does not kill people,
people who use heroin do. Makes sense, right? Of course it does. Well, then
please answer me, why one of those two things is illegal and the other is not?
Yet no one seems that eager to legalize heroin.
Our laws are inconsistent, and as time
goes on they will only get worse. The process is the problem. Laws are written for
the moral obligations of those with connections enough to lobby their
interests. So, while we all agree that heroin and guns both lead to inordinate
numbers of deaths, regardless of what “caused” them, there is too much interest
on the side of those who still wish to own guns to ban them. Likewise, tobacco
kills, and is honestly less useful than heroin, and second-hand smoke even
spreads the risks beyond the user, yet the profits keep tobacco products on the
shelf. Probably the biggest killers in the United States right now are, in
fact, still legal. That is added sugar and saturated fats. Nobody is fighting
that fight. But if you want to force people to live through legislation, (seat
belt laws, pro-life bills, doctor assisted suicide bans, etc…), the Forced
Nutrition Act of 2019 is the answer you didn’t know you needed. You could
effectively solve the health care crisis in a decade.
Personally, I tend to take the libertarian
side most of the time. I draw exceptions where the threat extends beyond the
individual to those outside of the decision. Others feel it is a societal
obligation to protect people from themselves. Whatever your take, just try to
be consistent. If you want to write the Forced Nutrition Act of 2019, go for
it. Just don’t absolve soda from the ban because you “have to have a Coke in
the afternoon.”
-AMS
