this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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"Ensure liberty" and "provide for the common good" or similar language.
It's entirely within character for a good government to promote freedom of choice on the one hand (including freedom to make bad decisions) and provide resources to help people (not force people) to make healthier decisions on the other hand.
Ensure liberty is a very broad statement, and usually not an absolute one.
In most countries you aren't free to sell, buy or consume meth, for example, because it clashes with the common good. You could make the same arguments for an abundance of nicotine in cigarettes, or even cigarettes as a whole. You could even make that argument against alcohol, speeding, wearing helmets, having guns, or eating fast food.
There's a line somewhere, and where that line is exactly is not "written in the constitution" for most countries. It's one that can be, and is argued all the time.
It's pretty well understood that meth heroin, etc cause harm to others because addicts tend to lose their jobs and turn to crime to support their addiction. It's not about their personal health, it's about the harm done to others.
For most democracies, the line is (and imo should be) "your right to swing your first stops where my face begins". Individuals have the right to make their own choices, good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, until those choices begin to harm others.
Kinda
I wouldn’t conflate democratic with good government because it gives us certain freedoms. The liberty in contemporary democratic societies is of a certain kind. Foremost it is the liberty of trade, property and production. Other liberties follow through that. The consumer side freedom of choice follows just as the freedom to theoretically take any job. The state may allow you that, but you may still be excluded by the choices of those whose liberty is guaranteed as well. I mean a government that treats everyone the same, isn’t necessarily good, if its citizens have different means to begin with.
Sure but none of that changes my point. It's not really within scope for a good democracy to force its citizens to make healthy choices.
Yeah, that’s true. I just made the point because you said good government, and that, I think, is debatable.
Fair enough.