Well-being vs Freedom

[Ganbare!]

Which orientation should society pursue? Should prostitution, euthanasia, incest, hard drugs, pornography, same-sex marriage, eugenics and so on be allowed?

Feel free to add anything based on ideology or a painful/great personal experience, you believe should be either legalized or banned to protect people.

[admin]

We should oscillate between the two, hypocritically, as is our nature.

[Ganbare!]

I might be more morally conservative than I would like to think considering I'm in favor of banning guns particularly automatic weapons, forbidding homosexual couples from adopting/having children through insemination but not from marrying and limiting the number of children in low income families. I find lawmakers are too lax on certain issues, prioritizing sacralized personal freedoms over society's happiness.

On the other hand I support the legalization in a controlled environment of prostitution, euthanasia and drugs as the negative externalities of them being illegal outweight their dangers anyway. Beyond morals or liberties what I value most is well-being.

[betahat]

^Should prostitution, euthanasia, incest, hard drugs, pornography, same-sex marriage, eugenics and so on be allowed?

Between consenting adults. Though eugenics isn't really a `personal choice.' Incest between consensual adults is icky but I don't think it should be illegal unless we also make it illegal for people with serious hereditary diseases to have children, which we don't in any society.

Same sex couples should be allowed to adopt and be super-inseminated. And we should allow polygamy between same sex couples and box turtles. And their children should be subject to routine teabagging and snorkelling every day in an effort to turn them gay.

[palavore]

We should legalize dueling. End the long standing feuds and contests of pride. Peace may finally come after enough men are finally allowed to walk their ten paces.

[Ganbare!]

^License to kill? Have you read the social contract or maybe you are a wannabe gunslinger? Modern states' citizens sacrificied vendetta for societal stability, if anyone could duel, it would mean the end of institutional monopoly of violence thus producing massacres everywhere because of impunity.

betahat: More rights and less global well-being is that it? Reading such crazy libertarian extremist opinions makes me almost feel the pain of religious or old-fashioned order nostalgics, granting anyone rights for anything is threat to social stability. Why not allow sexual intercourse between minor and adults or remove the concept of consent then? Simply because no one in his right mind would accept paying the price of a corrupted youth for more sexual freedom, some things need to be protected for the majority's welfare.

[betahat]

And WHO judges the majorities welfare Ganbare, you?


^We should legalize dueling. End the long standing feuds and contests of pride. Peace may finally come after enough men are finally allowed to walk their ten paces.

I think we should legalize duelling to resolve debates on internet forums as well, or at least use the power of pong. Then, finally, peace will come to the internets and we will preserve social stability and the majority's welfare.

[Ganbare!]

^The state under the enlighted guidance of specialists obviously. None of you actually replied, is freedom worth the price of public welfare? SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN 11!11!!!

I'm not supporting a dictatorial model where everything good or bad is forbidden but a balanced society where people have POSITIVE rights for their own and others' welfare (prostitution, same-sex marriage, euthanasia etc) but are not allowed to screw things up too much via rewards and sanctions. We know who the promoters of a 'free' society are. The same ruling elite who is largely responsible for the rest of the population's crime, educational, health issues and generally life frustration.

[betahat]

Good policy in my view is always about balancing individual rights and social welfare. I'm not that interested in debating generalities - you have to argue each case specifically. I agree with you on prostitution, euthanasia, drug legalization but I think we disagree on gays adopting and maybe polygamy.

While I like the idea of enlightened rule of experts as much as the next man, I'm probably less convinced than you that we can so readily come up with such a group - on the important and most controversial issues of each day the experts are in disagreement. Natural science and social science alone don't really help us answer a lot of these questions. Obviously people have put a lot more time and thought into these issues than either you or I, so I'll leave the political philosophy to them.