I clicked on the link to an article in the New York Times, The 2,000-Year-Old Wonder Drug thinking I'd find an informational article on the benefits of aspirin.
Instead I found a political screed that justified government "regulating a person’s habits in the name of good health" as a "moral and social duty."
It's the same old story. Experts have decided what's best for you and they'll make you do it whether you like it or not.
C.S. Lewis said, "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipresent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with approval of their own conscience."
It's a fundamental tenet of libertarian thought that one may not subordinate another person for one's own ends. No matter how good the intent, taking from a man's daily wage to force him to pay so that the government can coerce him is a terrible evil.
There are no experts so wise that they deserve to have power over innocent peoples' bodies and lives. My "habits," good or bad, are my own business, so long as my habits don't directly harm others.
If we have so socialized our society that the cost of my health care is determined to be a harm to others, then the proper remedy is to not force people to pay for my health care, not to impose other people's opinions of proper behavior on me.
The only just government is a government instituted with the consent of the governed, to secure their rights -- not to infringe them.
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