> And if they want to do that, they can. Nobody is removing your ability to drink. You're taxing it more heavily because this specific choice results in societal problems that everyone else has to clean up.
Apply the same argument to healthcare. The main difference is that you think that you have the right to tell people what's good for them.
> This hypothetical tax is meant to represent my desire not to have to deal with the consequences of your choices.
If a man and his son crack a couple beers by the fire in Wyoming, why should their private activities be any of your business? Why impose your will more on the poor than on the middle class or the rich? Your desires are not relevant to the right of ordinary Americans to buy and sell alcohol to and from the willing, just as they are irrelevant to the right of a single mother to raise her own son, or for teenagers to get pregnant; it's just none of your business what people do once you've said your piece, no matter what you think of the risk that they might tend to be more likely to behave in a way you dislike.
Apply the same argument to healthcare. The main difference is that you think that you have the right to tell people what's good for them.
> This hypothetical tax is meant to represent my desire not to have to deal with the consequences of your choices.
If a man and his son crack a couple beers by the fire in Wyoming, why should their private activities be any of your business? Why impose your will more on the poor than on the middle class or the rich? Your desires are not relevant to the right of ordinary Americans to buy and sell alcohol to and from the willing, just as they are irrelevant to the right of a single mother to raise her own son, or for teenagers to get pregnant; it's just none of your business what people do once you've said your piece, no matter what you think of the risk that they might tend to be more likely to behave in a way you dislike.