I guess I am getting at the whole idea that I have the right to use illegal drugs; or any harmful substance, without thought for the common good or the common dollar. Personal choices are rarely personal--they nearly always effect someone. A child, a govt. agency, a community service...just a thought, ya know.

When I was away from my parents I exercised several rights without their permission, as was my right.

to perhaps be more palatable, forget being an addict. Think of grandma who insisted on biscuits and gravy or big mac's three times a day with heart trouble, the bar tender who got CA from second hand smoke, the daredevil who drives too fast and crashes...if anyone has the right to do anything they want with their bodies, how can I be responsible for their care? yet, we have welfare care.

Your rights are still your rights even if someone is preventing you from exercising them or is violating them. Does your right to own property disappear if someone steals your property? Of course not. You have the right to free speech even when the government is preventing you from exercising that right.

Our rights are immutable. They can not go away. They can not be given away, traded, bought, sold, or voted on. They are like gravity. If everyone on earth voted for gravity to disappear, we'd still have it.

You alone are responsible for your own healthcare. All government funded healthcare or social programs are wrong. There should be plenty of non-profits that might offer you help, but if they don't you have only yourself to blame.

When you consent to take part in an activity, you are consenting to the risks involved in it. If you sleep with street walkers, you might get an STD and you'll have only yourself to blame. It should be noted that there hasn't been a single case of an STD in the more than 30 years of legal prostitution in Nevada. In fact there hasn't even been a case of someone getting the sniffles.

If you consent to use dangerous drugs, you have only yourself to blame if you become addicted. It should be noted that not all drug use is drug abuse, and that if the government ended the failed "war on drugs", they would be very affordable and dosages would be regulated and measured so we'd have fewer deaths from overdose, virtually zero deaths from gang warfare for drug territory, families wouldn't be broken up and wouldn't have to collect welfare, and even addicts could support their habit with a regular job so there would be fewer robberies to pay for it.

The government is here to protect us from each other. It's not here to protect us from ourselves.

I think it's very civilized. Those who die due to irresponsibility (though we hope them to be few in number) would serve as an example to others of why they should act responsibly.

& if you've always been sick, so what! Right Radar?

Personal decisions USUALLY effect more than just ourselves. That's my point. Lots of CA patients are addicted to pain meds-thru no fault of their own. Are mentally ill people responsible for their mental illness? This is too slippery a slope for me and I'm a misanthrope to boot.

So. I am responsible for my own health care, my own police force?

BTW--I'm all for legalized prostitution.

Whether our decisions "effect" others only matters if that effect is physical harm, endangerment, or the violation of your person, property, or rights. We can't use government to lock people up who hurt your feelings.

As far as people who are sick through no fault of their own, they should get insurance, or rely on private non-profit charities like Doctors without borders as well as friends, family, neighbors, their church, or hospitals and clinics who are willing to help them out.

Nobody is OWED healthcare paid for by unwilling others. You have the right to get any healthcare you can afford or which you can get honestly through charity or other means. You do not have the right to use thugs (government) to force others to pay for it. The same is true of education, charity, retirement, etc.

Police on the otherhand are another matter. Other than in anarchy and lawlessness, a society does have legitimate laws to protect one persons property, rights, and self against attack by others. We have the right to defend ourselves by any means necessary and to hire agents to do that for us. This prevents the weak from being victimized by the strong. This is why a police force is unlike government funded (theft) charity is wrong, but government funded police are not.

I was thinking of children who are caught up in the nuttiness of the behaviour of their parents/guardians. I wasn't talking about "feelings"--but you knew that.

Legislating morality is "feelings".
That still is off topic from helping those who need it. The two are unrelated.

"Get insurance", where, from the magic insurance lamp? LOL, that was hilarious, "get insurance"... LMAO!

I don't really care about the morality or immorality of the act. My behavior impacts others whether I intend it to or not. That's all I'm saying. In a perfect world, naturally, it wouldn't--what I did would only affect me--not my kids, not my family, not my community. It doesn't really work that way.

Radar alienates where ever he goes. I was trying to get answers and he just wants to take pot shots and jab. I don't see his uber-defensive attitude helping his political ambitions.

How is that hilarious? People buy insurance every single day. Were it not for my insurance, the birth of my child a few days ago would have cost me close to $100,000. The few hundred a month I pay in comparison is a pittance.

My political ambitions are over. I'm no longer a member of the Libertarian Party and I choose not to vote anymore or run for office. I'm concentrating on raising my child and will most likely move to another country before this one collapses under its own debt and increasing levels of socialism, authoritarianism and the mixing of church and state.