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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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Surely the same duty that applies to you, applies to others. Doctors are going to be a source of the drugs.

Why? If we're restricting ourselves to what seems to be a rather minarchist AnCap Utopia, why is it that only doctors would be licensed to sell it?

Once again, my own views, and not representative of current reality:

Anyone can get a license to prescribe anything. They go to a government body that makes them pay a recurring sum that is a fair estimate of expected negative externalities, or what would have come out of the public purse. For highly addictive drugs, this would certainly be an enormous sum. It might even be legally required to buy insurance on the free market. Think of this as a more generalized form of malpractice insurance as paid by doctors, if you don't show proof of funds then too bad for you.

It might be framed as a bond, due to be returned with interest after X years, but any violations would be deducted from it. If they sold to someone with an Adult Card, then they'd be cleared of much of the liability.

It is not a fiction however but central to morality. Someone who is selling heroin to others is a horrible person.

Good luck on getting people to come to a true consensus on what is "good for you". A stable equilibrium is allowing people to choose for themselves, as long as they don't abuse the privilege by hurting others.

As far as I'm concerned, the State should not be in the business of being a nanny, and if it insists, then people should be allowed to opt out or form enclaves of like-minded people.

What you are proposing would be a betrayal to the principle of no regulation = liberty.

I re-iterate that I'm not a monomaniacal zealot. This counts as a concession, a mild step back from Absolute Freedom (or outright anarchy). I think your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.

I am willing to trade away a non-zero amount of freedom for other terminal values I have. I just value freedom more than most.

Plus smart people even though less than others, do stupid self destructive things too. Maybe this makes sense for something like crypto but makes less sense for heroin. Your proposal would surely lead to more restrictions than just banning the worst things.

I disagree. We currently do something maybe sorta kinda like what I propose, but in a half-baked manner without underlying guiding thought more than the whims of the Current Year.

It does make sense for some industries to limit them in some capacity when it comes to gambling, porn,etc. Still, the fact that you are willing to support something much more restrictive does undermine the claim that liberty to sell and buy heroin is an important principle. It is not. The duty of caring about the end result towards one fellow's man is more important here.

That is your opinion. I express my love and sense of duty towards my "fellow man" by hoping I can treat them like intelligent adults who can decide for themselves, and ask the same in turn.