this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
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It does not matter if a vice is chosen or unchosen. Smoking is a great example. You may not choose a tobacco addiction.
Situation A: you have the freedom to choose to quit or not. Quitting results in more freedom. Not quitting results in less. The total freedoms available to you at any time are the freedom TO quit and the freedom OF quitting
Situation B: You have no freedom to choose to quit. Your total freedoms are: freedom from quitting.
So your freedoms have decreased in situation B. We have to ask if personal freedoms are preferable to better outcomes.
The difference is that freedom is independent of opinion. You are either free to do so lawfully or not. But if I say “it would be better for you to not have that freedom”, I need to demonstrate what “better” means. And there everyone often disagrees.
If you really want to take smoking as an analogy the situation would be like this: Your parents forced you into a tabacco addiction. You are growing up being told that you can't go anywhere without smoking and those around you who do not smoke are doing a bad thing.
Is it good or bad if these children have a place where their parents have no power to force them to smoke?
It’s a good thing. Is it a good or bad thing that this child would be forced not to smoke?
It's a good thing that the child would be forced not to smoke. Because a 10 year old would gladly tell you she smokes of her own free will if you simply ask.
A rule like "no smoking in schools" doesn't harm you, unless your parents already made you think there will be terrible consequences if you stop doing so. Better to learn that it's made up bs, before the harm is done.
This is a position that is held because you believe other people would find your definitions of harm and better as reasonable.
Consider if you were in the minority here. You’re doing something and wearing something that you don’t view as harmful. And then someone else insists that it is harmful only to you and decides to stop you from doing said thing.
I don’t know how you’d consider that okay for the state to force you not to wear clothes because its “harmful”. Or for the state to force you to do the thing that others view is better for you to do. People should be free to disagree with the state and take personal actions that the state disagrees with. Full stop.