Your "lost productivity" (I feel dirty just typing that) argument doesn't exactly go hand-in-hand with your previously espoused arguments in the name of freedom.

If someone wants to sit around and get stoned rather than working, that's up to them. Seems like a perfectly sensible, not to mention valid, choice.

Emperor Nero, have you ever been wrong about anything?

I wish we could have freedom back. That could then go along with marijuana legalization. What I'm telling you is that we made a conscious decision away from freedom, and now we have to deal with the consequences.
http://www.philosophyforum.com/forum/lounge/general-discussion/4016-recreational-use-drugs-legal-illegal-14.html#post61668

Sure. And I am very willing to admit it when I am wrong. But I'm usually right because I from my conclusions depending on the arguments, as opposed to most people, who form arguments to support pre-set conclusions.

I told you I'm fine with marijuana legalization in a libertarian system, sadly you people wanted socialism, here it is, deal with it. You didn't want self reliance, but collectivism, hence self-harm is collective harm.
And we cant legalize something that is harm to others.

You clearly have ZERO idea what socialism is.

Are you seriously trying to assert that a country where you are thrown into the gutter and left to die because you have no money is a socialist system?

Are you seriously trying to assert that a country where it is legal to blow someone's head off with a .44 Magnum in defense of private property is a socialist system? Are you? Seriously?

Are you seriously trying to assert that a country where you are thrown into the gutter and left to die because you have no money is a socialist system?

Why did you think that? I was suggesting the opposite.

Druggies cost us a lot, and because of socialism, us others have to pay that.

I told you I'm fine with marijuana legalization in a libertarian system, sadly you people wanted socialism, here it is, deal with it.

I don't know about policies specifically relating to "druggies", but you have already ably demonstrated the imbalance in legislation there, vis-a-vis legality of alcohol and tobacco and illegality of marijuana. Perhaps the authorities don't want drug deaths swamping the statistics, so they get a degree of care that others don't. But I DO know that people who are ill in some other way can go and jump if they don't have cash. Which, in any circumstances, let alone in the richest country in the world, is indefensible. It's just plain sick.

So you are definitely saying the USA is a socialist country?

In the US, no emergency room can turn down someone who is ill, not even non-citizens. So we all have to pay for the ills of each others.

Yeah, I thought there was maybe something like that, but wasn't sure.

However, you don't go to an ER with cancer, or any of that sort of disease. Being refused treatment because you can't pay for it is obscene. The problem is that in the US, medical 'care' is operated as a business, which is fundamentally wrong. Medical care is a service. Where it is a privately run business, there is a direct conflict of interest between the care needer and the care provider. I'm broadly in favour of individual liberty myself, but certain things like medical care, water, power, etc. should always remain public services.

I agree in general. But lets leave the medical care aside, the public still has to pay for those entering the emergency room. (And nobody is prevented from being productive and getting medical care.)

More important are unemployment benefits. If somebody wants to smoke himself unproductive, fine. But then I have to pay for that? How would you like that if the tax system was structured in a way to make you pay for it?

Hahaha, man..... I live in Britain! If you don't know, do some research on tax in the UK... you will be crapping yourself VERY quickly. When the pound/dollar exchange rate was 1/2 a couple of years ago, petrol (gas) here was basically 10 dollars a gallon!!!!! :eek: And we are a ******* oil-producing nation!!! I know about taxes, believe me! The thing is, it's a BIG bone of contention over here, the ridiculous tax system, but almost to a man, the entire population is vehemently against cutting spending on the NHS, the health system. It's considered sacrosanct. I've never met anyone here who thinks the NHS should be done away with in order to lower taxes.

Also though, a lot of people will not get cover because of 'pre-existing conditions'; that is the flaw of running healthcare as a business. And what about people who work plenty and just don't earn enough to get insurance anyway? It's a bad scene, man.

Ok, I mentioned that in case you don't care because it's not your money. In a way: "Sure, let rich people pay for it, not my problem."

Rich people wouldn't exist without poor people. That is a fact. The poor are completely within their rights to expect rich people to pay for their healthcare.

That's quite a sentence. But let's not get side-tracked. Most people agree on health care.
More important are the other 99% of the giant government.
Governor's Budget - Department Index By Name

May I ask, if there were a lot of savings with abolishing motorcycle helmet laws, for example because it saves gas, would you be for abolishing the laws? Why?

May I ask, if there were a lot of savings with abolishing motorcycle helmet laws, for example because it saves gas, would you be for abolishing the laws? Why?

Eh? :perplexed:

How would abolishing motorcycle helmet laws save gas? Please, PLEASE tell me you don't mean that it takes less gas to be burned in order to carry a person around minus helmet!

I asked what if. Yes, what if that was calculated to be a lot of money. Plus the cost of enforcing the laws, the cost on the legal system, etc. Wearing no helmet is natural. Why are you for keeping a irrational law?