Alcohol Causes 20,000 Cancer-Related Deaths In The U.S. Each Year | ThinkProgress
If this is true then alchohol, in increased risk of cancer alone, kills more people in the US than a gun does every year by double. This does not include anything else. So if the Gun bans are intended to save lives wouldn't an alcohol ban do even more?
I seem to remember us trying that for about 3 years and it did not go so well. Maybe, just maybe a central authority attempting to take control of the populace wont solve much of anything.
I seem to remember us trying that for about 3 years and it did not go so well. Maybe, just maybe a central authority attempting to take control of the populace wont solve much of anything.
I like those odds....
So: If I drink like a fish, but stay out of Chicago, Harlem, and south L.A., then I will live a lot longer?
I already figured that one out! ;-)
People will do what they want to do. By all means let them; so long as its not initiation of force on another in some way.
Individualism is not just a political theory. It is a fact of life.
I also could not agree more. We are all individuals. The idea that we fit into some norm is ridiculous. I once had a co-worker that told me "Whats so special about you, your just a normal person like everyone else?" I replied "That statement makes me very sad." She asked why. my response "It tells me you have never found what makes you special, and no one should live without that knowledge."
One of the great evils of collectivism and all the ideals that go with it is that it convinces people that they are not special, or unique. Each of us is, and if we find that fire and develop those abilities that make us special we are all better off for it. collectivism encourages all to never find what makes us special, to be like the rest and not stand out. It is truly the greatest evil on this earth.
(to your other point.... the Kardashians think themselves quite "special"...and so do many other apparently. How is that a good thing?)
In "The Virtue of Selfishness" are two essays, "Isn't Everyone Selfish?" and "Counterfeit Individualism."
Having lived in Ann Arbor and now being in Austin, I know what it is like to live among solipsists. So, I take your point about people who think that they are special.
I believe that Xenokray identified a deeper stratum within collectivism, a kind of fatal flaw in democracy. If we are all equal, then we are interchangeable and anyone is replaceable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinio...
"The folks in the Fertile Crescent might not have understood that boiling water to make beer helped rid it of disease-carrying microbes, but they certainly figured out that falling down drunk was preferable to falling down dead."
http://www.onearth.org/blog/beer-saves-h...
I cited here before a PBS show about the history of the English language. They found a village with a Shakespearean accent and went into a pub. "My father drank hard cider every day of his life for 83 years and it killed him."
In point of fact, in the science fiction story "Islands in the Net" the heroine meets some really really old guys in a space station. One of them needs extra time to wake up because at night he dials the oxygen way way down because oxygen causes cancer.