Fair enough to doubt that states’ attempts in paternalism often fail, and maybe in many cases OP points out, a laissez-faire is on net leading to less harm. Yes, NYT not emphasizing the obviously crucial drug issue, is totally annoying—and that issue obviously makes it extremely more difficult to help them. Yes, Trump’s apparent capture of a bit of Fentanyl or what have you is a joke.
But: Using this sort of events as a basis to seemingly advocate for a full laissez-faire fells strawmanny, and while helping the weak is truly difficult, I do not believe taking the inherent human weaknesses seriously enough leads to the conclusions OP seems to have arrived at:
We are humans, weak flesh and blood creatures, not made of steel. In the wrong environment, all or most of us will fail to resist bad temptations. OP seems to advocate for leaving it all up to individuals, but it does not demand very much imagination to realize this is not a generalizable maxim itself.
To the degree that you really seem to think, it’s all almost by definition only the individual’s duty to save herself, this begs the question, purely as example: Which share of people would have to be accumulating unhealthy amounts of fat in our bodies for you’d agree the state might ideally consider supporting the fight against it—with whichever means may be promising some sort of effectiveness or efficiency?
Fair enough to doubt that states’ attempts in paternalism often fail, and maybe in many cases OP points out, a laissez-faire is on net leading to less harm. Yes, NYT not emphasizing the obviously crucial drug issue, is totally annoying—and that issue obviously makes it extremely more difficult to help them. Yes, Trump’s apparent capture of a bit of Fentanyl or what have you is a joke.
But: Using this sort of events as a basis to seemingly advocate for a full laissez-faire fells strawmanny, and while helping the weak is truly difficult, I do not believe taking the inherent human weaknesses seriously enough leads to the conclusions OP seems to have arrived at:
We are humans, weak flesh and blood creatures, not made of steel. In the wrong environment, all or most of us will fail to resist bad temptations. OP seems to advocate for leaving it all up to individuals, but it does not demand very much imagination to realize this is not a generalizable maxim itself.
To the degree that you really seem to think, it’s all almost by definition only the individual’s duty to save herself, this begs the question, purely as example: Which share of people would have to be accumulating unhealthy amounts of fat in our bodies for you’d agree the state might ideally consider supporting the fight against it—with whichever means may be promising some sort of effectiveness or efficiency?