> If you choose to make decisions that hurt you, you must suffer the consequences; it is not the state's place to protect you from yourself.
1. Not ever? Surely you don't think that the age of majority/consent is 0-years-old?
2. Taxation for Military defense falls under that same umbrella! Normally, people would never pay any taxes to support it until they feel threatened... And then it's too late, and they suffer from their own short-sighted penny-pinching. Are you saying the government should not collectively protect them from their own decisions?
> Need I preface everything I say with "between consenting adults?"
No, because it wouldn't help your argument anyway: The point (which I think you've tacitly acknowledged) is that sometimes the government SHOULD protect non-competent humans from making bad decisions... the only question is which shade of grey you think society should draw the line on.
> No it doesn't because taxation isn't a la carte; it's a fictional scenario.
Please read it again. I'm describing the system we DO have, and explaining how it is already preventing the society from making quote-unquote-"wrong" choices with their money.
Yes we should protect those who can't make those choices for themselves, but that's already the norm, there'd be a legal age no matter what we come up with. The interesting debate is what we allow adults to do, I consider the children a red herring.
Ok, I reread it, and I'd say providing for national defense was always a core job of government, it's in our constitution. The same is not true of these other things, we've not agreed by an amendment level of agreement that victimless crimes deserve jail. It's just wrong, there's no justification for jailing someone for anything related to what they ingest, who they marry and in what numbers, or anything else where the only direct victim is themselves. I own my body and no one has a right to claim otherwise.
1. Not ever? Surely you don't think that the age of majority/consent is 0-years-old?
2. Taxation for Military defense falls under that same umbrella! Normally, people would never pay any taxes to support it until they feel threatened... And then it's too late, and they suffer from their own short-sighted penny-pinching. Are you saying the government should not collectively protect them from their own decisions?