#individual autonomy

[indizombie]

The UP law infringes people’s rights to privacy, choice of partner, and freedom of conscience. Religion, after all, is an idea; one can believe it, disavow it, disregard it, embrace another idea, or choose not to embrace any religious idea at all. Not only is that consistent with respect for the individual’s dignity, it is also consistent with freedoms assured by the Indian Constitution. The UP law on interfaith marriages ignores an individual’s autonomy. It strengthens regressive authority. Its effect has been to frighten a religious minority with the prospect of subjugation. And it draws from the belief that those who make up nearly half of India’s adult population—its women—cannot be trusted to decide what’s good for them. Such a repressive law deserves scorn and needs to be repealed.

Salil Tripathi, ‘An anti-interfaith-marriage law should be called out for what it is’, Livemint

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

“People who are making decisions for themselves don’t always come up with the right answer. They don’t necessarily make tradeoffs between health and other values in an informed or carefully considered manner. Sometimes they regret their decisions. But they know their own tastes and preferences, and they have access to myriad pieces of local information about the relevant costs and benefits that no government regulator can possibly know. They will not always make good decisions, but on balance they will make better decisions, as measured by their own subsequent evaluations, than any third party deciding for them. Leaving aside the question of who is better positioned to decided whether a given pleasure is worth the risk associated with it, there is an inherent value to freedom: When it comes to how people feel about their lives, they may well prefer to make their own bad choices rather than have better ones imposed on them.”

— Jacob Sullum - An Epidemic of Meddling | Reason Magazine, May 2007

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him, must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

John Stuart Mill

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

Ron Paul: Eat, drink, smoke whatever you want

"Where I think we have fallen down--and this is across the political spectrum--is this idea that it's your own body. That means, if your spiritual life, which is a serious responsibility, and your intellectual life is a serious responsibility, why is it that...if we assume that you can have free decisions there, why shouldn’t you have free decisions on what you eat, drink, smoke and put into your own body?"

(Washington Examiner via NORML)

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

"In a free society, the presumption must be that people can smoke, snort, eat or inject whatever they wish, so long as they do not harm others." -- Jeffrey Miron