Word: argumentative
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...first argument used to justify a cigarette tax—that the government should protect people from their bad choices because of its compelling interest in the health of its citizenry—is unpersuasive. It is incredibly paternalistic and condescending toward the tens of millions of Americans who make the conscious decision to start smoking, knowing the harmful health effects associated with it. The logic of the argument is that smokers’ loss of liberty is less important than the government’s compelling interest in smoker’s health, and the underlying assumption is that...
...clever, similar, but currently unfulfilling argument used to justify high taxes on cigarettes is that smokers will have greater incentive to quit if their habit costs them more money, and since they’ll be better off cigarette-free in the long run, a tax discouraging smoking actually makes smokers happier. This argument also relies on the government-knows-best assumption, along with the idea that since smoking is addictive and people get hooked when they are young, they never make a conscious rational decision to smoke. While some individuals might be happier as tax-induced former smokers, second...
...reasonable argument made to justify high cigarette taxes is that the negative health repercussions of smoking, even if they were suffered entirely by the smoker, such as increased rates of lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease, are often borne by society as publicly funded medical costs. This is an example of what economists call a negative consumption externality; the smoker doesn’t pay the entire cost of his habit because he might not cover his increased medical expenses through higher private insurance premiums. The classic solution to this negative externality is to impose a tax that erases...
While the economic argument for taxing cigarettes is cogent in theory, despite its practical difficulties, it still raises questions about broader public policy. For if the government has a compelling interest in restricting smoking, why not drinking? After all, there are immense economic costs to society when productive people are killed by drunk drivers. Why should smokers be the sole sinners to pay up when there are so many compelling social engineering goals for the government to reach and so many different groups of wayward citizens to target...
According to the Bergen Record, police say that harsh words were exchanged between Elena, a former midfielder for Northfield Regional’s field hockey team, and the alleged victim in July. (Marco’s attorney has said that the girl used offensive anti-Italian remarks). The argument moved upstairs and, according to police, Marco eventually held the victim by the stomach as Elena pummeled...