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 Peregrine wrote:
1) As I pointed out, libertarianism is obsessed with ideological purity over stupid "freedoms" that not even libertarians care about outside of ranting about the government taking away their freedom.

2) That's a position that's only available to a privileged few. I admit that libertarianism is great if you're already well off, but if you aren't it that "independence" isn't nearly as useful as things like being able to afford food.

No, sorry, that's incorrect.

text removed.
Reds8n

No we don't.

Yes, we do. And, once again, obesity is far, far more costly to society than no-seatbelt crashes could ever hope to be, so how are you not in favor of the government making things better for all of us? Because people enjoy eating themselves into blobs of fat? So what? I enjoy having the freedom to not wear a seatbelt. You made it clear that enjoyment of a freedom shouldn't be a factor in arguing for its dissolution, so why is it in the case of food?

Start being a consistent nanny-stater and you'll realize why your philosophy is so pernicious.

Oh yeah, there's the alternative where they just give you obscene bills that you'll never be able to pay off and force you into bankruptcy, at which point society pays the cost.

Or there's always the version where you are fatally injured and die despite all effort to save you, in which case the best they can do is hope to collect from your estate, and if you didn't have enough wealth to pay for it, well, society pays the cost.

Far, far more money lost down that hole to obesity, pal. Start dealing with reality rather than this fantasy world you live in where millions upon millions of uninsured motorists are needing medical care each year, and instead hop over to the real world where millions of millions of fat people are needing medical care each year despite a perfectly avoidable condition.

 Seaward wrote:
Look, I get that you need the government to tell you what to do to have any hope of making it through life. That isn't true for everyone, though. Some people - an increasingly rare percentage, apparently - do not need a lifelong nanny to make sure they make good decisions. Some people believe that you should have to live - or not, as the case may be - with the consequences of bad decisions.

You mean decisions like being born into a poor family? Yeah, better make better decisions next time.

And yes, I need the government to tell people what to do. YOU need the government to tell people what to do, unless you'd like to go with the Chinese approach to, say, not making food out of toxic chemicals. But I guess you should have the freedom to buy products with misleading labels and die? How dare the nanny state destroy this freedom and impose those standards of safety and purity on you!

Yes, we do.

No we don't. You can believe it all you like, but the facts are against you. There is no single miracle obesity-free diet, as you can see from the diet industry's constant failure to come up with one.

Far, far more money lost down that hole to obesity, pal. Start dealing with reality rather than this fantasy world you live in where millions upon millions of uninsured motorists are needing medical care each year, and instead hop over to the real world where millions of millions of fat people are needing medical care each year despite a perfectly avoidable condition.

Haven't we been over this enough yet?

1) Obesity is not "perfectly avoidable" in all cases, and there is no single magic diet to avoid it.

2) Imposing a government-mandated diet removes freedom of choice in a way that makes a meaningful difference in your life and overall happiness, while removing the "freedom" to earn a Darwin award does not.


But thank you for continuing to prove my point about how libertarianism is a broken political philosophy that cares more about ideological purity than actual results.

 Peregrine wrote:

You mean decisions like being born into a poor family? Yeah, better make better decisions next time.

No, I mean like poor parents who decide to have kids before they can support them. And if you're born into poverty, guess what? You can still make decisions for yourself. I don't know where we got the illusion that life is supposed to be fair. It's not fair for any other organism on this planet, the fact that we can talk makes it no different.

And yes, I need the government to tell people what to do. YOU need the government to tell people what to do, unless you'd like to go with the Chinese approach to, say, not making food out of toxic chemicals. But I guess you should have the freedom to buy products with misleading labels and die? How dare the nanny state destroy this freedom and impose those standards of safety and purity on you!

That's one of the few examples of something we do in fact need the government to do - preventing malicious, deliberate harm to others.

No we don't. You can believe it all you like, but the facts are against you. There is no single miracle obesity-free diet, as you can see from the diet industry's constant failure to come up with one.

Find me an adult human who's gotten obese on a 1500 calorie diet and you'll have a little credibility. The fact that you're the kind of guy who buys into fad diets and goes, "They don't work!" doesn't surprise me, honestly. Weight gain is very simple: take in more calories than you expend, you will gain weight.

Haven't we been over this enough yet?

Apparently not, as you're still making absurd claims.

1) Obesity is not "perfectly avoidable" in all cases, and there is no single magic diet to avoid it.

Really? Obesity's not perfectly avoidable? Someone woke up one day and discovered they were fat, with no chance to avoid it along the way? Please, please tell me you're joking. Please tell me the public education system in this country has not failed us this badly.

2) Imposing a government-mandated diet removes freedom of choice in a way that makes a meaningful difference in your life and overall happiness, while removing the "freedom" to earn a Darwin award does not.

So? You started this ridiculous defense of needing the government to pull your pants up and tie your shoes and make sure you never want from cradle to the grave by insisting that personal liberty is perfectly acceptable to give up in the face of a good outcome. I think trimming Americans' waistlines, and trimming billions of dollars from our health care expenditures, would be a perfectly good outcome. You, of course, realizing that you've argued yourself into a corner, have taken the tack of, "But you can't help getting fat!"

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you're under the age of 22.

Closed for excessive rudeness.

If this is the best you can do, then don't post.