Comments on: New at Reason

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 17:52:28 +0000

“Being addicted to cigarettes limits one’s freedom. Restricting their consumption therefore increases personal freedom.”

Forgive me if I’m not stung by charges of being simplistic from anyone who thinks this is an interesting or insightful point.

By: Paul Zrimsek

Paul Zrimsek — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 04:31:46 +0000

…. a narrow and intellectually impoverished idea of freedom that was justly discarded by most intellectuals in the 19th century.

With the results we saw in the 20th century.

By: Jim Bob

Jim Bob — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 22:41:24 +0000

Being addicted to cigarettes limits one’s freedom. Restricting their consumption therefore increases personal freedom.

Libertarians are presumptuous for assuming that they care more about freedom than others, when in fact they simply subscribe to a narrow and intellectually impoverished idea of freedom that was justly discarded by most intellectuals in the 19th century.

For good reason you are not taken seriously by the American electorate.

By: Jon Lucks

Jon Lucks — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 05:08:03 +0000

This is the kind of thing that does make the idea of ‘libertarian authoritarianism’ sound pretty tempting, in all seriousness.

By: Brian Moore

Brian Moore — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 20:29:36 +0000

Well, if we could get the laws to only apply to those people, then that would be great!

We could distribute badges to them that said “please make decisions for me” and the bars would have signs that said “only fully functional citizens may smoke.” Only this class of people, who volunteer away their rights, would be affected by such laws.

The rest of humanity that doesn’t feel like weak-kneed half-wits could go on making their decisions as they saw fit.