Laws Should Never Limit Personal Choices that have Little Impact on other Individuals

To begin with, this debate is going to revolve around the degree to which the state should be involved in the affairs of private individuals. Whereas my opponent belives the should ought to leave people to mind their own business as it pertains to activities with ostensibly little to no effect on society I'll argue that the state ought to prohibit and try to restrict certain things it deems harmful for the individual as well as for the society at large. My contention is that if the state is set out to work for the betterment of its people and in order to attain a certain state of wellbeing it has to make clear and definite distinctions of what is good and worth promoting as well as what is bad and ought to be discouraged and, if necessary, prohibited altogether. Ultimaltely this will mean that the state will have to be somewhat of a wet blanket at times and set store by things that it deems necessary to uphold societal progress and stability. This makes the state somewhat of moral arbitor, the conscious of society, that is responsible to demarcate wrong actions from good ones and the state ought to hold firm to those convictions through legislation and prohibitions. How we go about deciding what would constitute a public menace or public value is, I believe, is a matter of scientific review of measuring the positive and negative outcomes and draw reasonable conclusions based on what we find. My opponent seems to be of the opinion that the state should collect taxes in order to fund social secuirty programs and things of the like, presubambly in order to foster what my opponent believes to be for the betterment of the society (redistribution from the richer strata of the population to the less fortunate segment). We give up certain freedoms in order to gain certain favors from the state. The state uses its mandate and authority to expropriate my funds and I have no say in the matter. I am obliged and forced to pay my taxes or I'll be incarcerated. There is no reason other than a vision for a better society for why I have to face government compulsion of taxation as it pertains to the money I make by dint of hard work. Since we are all subject to compulsory taxation - which by and of itself is a violation of our economic freedom - the end result of it all better be worth it. I am therefore of the opinion that the realisation of this more well-functioning utopia that the state throug legislation and prohibitions strive towards far outweighs and trumps any individual concerns as to whether or not smoking pot or whether or not same-sex marriage should be legal is concerned. If we can demonstrate their negaitve effects on society, then the legalisations of which are not worth pursuing regardless if it violates pot-smokers or homosexuals freedoms in regard to those matters. To clarify the role of the state, it should work for the betterment of the society but also uphold certain inassailable rights such as the right to life, the rule of law, and so forth. (so don't accuse me of being a nazi) ;) Also, these things that you brought might seem innocuous with little to no effect on society but may ultimately in the grander scheme of things have quite a substantial impact on the community. At any rate, it should be incumbent upon the state to evaluate the best options possible in order to realise the growth and enhancement of the public health and wellbeing that we alll envisage when we become cash cows for the state (some people do not share this vision and would rather be left to themselves, but they're nevertheless forced to be reckoned with the fact that their money is at stake and therefore they naturally want it to be used as prudently as is humanly possible). Hence on behalf of the people and their joint vision of a well functioning social order the state must evaluate what works best and work with it. My opponent brought up three examples of activities that at first blush seem unharmful and doesn't "significantly" affect others in the surrounding community. There are certainly many more examples of similar activities where the line between a merely personal avenue with personal benefits or detriments and something that poses a larger social or finanal threat to society can to a certain degree be blurred and oftentimes muddled with political rethorics and misconceptions that further dissembles the true nature of the things discussed. One such example is marijuana use - and the same goes for all use illegal drugs out there - which my opponent argues is something whose effects upon society at large is negligible enough to overlook. Since I believe the state ought to establish clear parameters for good and bad behaviour, marijuana use most certainly falls in the category of something that should be frowned upon and discouraged by the state. There are by all means responsible marijuana users that don't get hooked up on it and that only uses it recreationally. This is not a problem. One of the problems, however, is the estimated 9% of users who get addicted to the drug. The dependancy rate is roughly 17% for those who start in their teens and to 25-50% for daily users and it stands to reason that legalisation would further exacerbate the problem of people being involuntary hooked up to Marijuana. You need only to ask Lady Gaga and she will tell you how dreadful and painful it is to be hooked up on Marijuana. She said: "I have been addicted to it and it's ultimately related to anxiety coping and it's a form of self-medication and I was smoking up to 15 or 20 marijuana cigarettes a day with no tobacco," she said. "I was living on a totally other psychedelic plane, numbing myself completely." In fact, 4.2 millions of all the 6.9 million americans that are dependent on illicit drugs were abusing Marijuana so she is far from alone. Secondly, another misconception concerning Marijuana is that the costs of which for society is mainly related to the criminal justice system even though it is fou nd that people in prison for marijuana use is only 0.1-0.2 percent. In fact, up to 37% of those who are treated for drug abuse come directly from the criminal justice system, 57% of which are Marijuana users. Marijuana users who are apprahended and arrested by police are sent to treatment where they can get help to stamp out their addiction. As we can see, Marijuana use can clearly get out of hand. Now it's not a matter of someone doing what they want without harming someone else, now it's an addiction - something that the state needs to rectify through the use of our public funds. Surely none of us would throw these people under the bus and say that they should fend for themselvves and suffer the consequences for their genetic predisposition to Marijuana addiction or whatever reason have you for the mess that they're in. This was a demonstration of your false premise about Marijuana. Due to time constraint I wont be able to go through the other two examples you cited as examples of things that the state should let off the hook. Hopefully we will expand the debate in the coming rounds. http://www.cnbc.com...#. http://www.cnbc.com...#. http://edition.cnn.com... http://coruraltrack.org...