What is OmniNerd?

Welcome! OmniNerd's content is generated by you, the reader. Through voting and moderation we strive to highlight the nerdiest of what's around and provide content that's a little more thought provoking than other sites.

Submit New Content

Voting Booth

Reaction to Michelle Obama saying, "For the first time, I am proud of my country"?

View Results, All Polls
50 votes, 7 comments
1
Nerd-It
+ -

RE: Taxing smokers is unjust and ludacris

Comment comment by Brandon on 21 December 2007

I understand your reasoning and agree the majority of those paying the tax on cigarettes are those who can least afford it. However, I don't think this qualifies the tax as being unjust, due to the fact that it is completely and totally voluntary. Ignorance or addiction are not excuses. Just like playing the lottery.

You are a viewing a subset of a larger discussion.
View Full Discussion
Star This to Save in Your Profile Favorite
Thread parent sort order:
Highest Voted : Lowest Voted : Oldest : Newest
Thread verbosity:
Expand All : Minimize Replies to Comments
1 Nerd-It - +
RE: Taxing smokers is unjust and ludacris by scottb :: NR7

I don't think that really has anything to do with it.

Look at it from this perspective. The people who propose and vote for these taxes are elected government representatives. Their job is to represent the people of their district.

The choice to propose and approve a tax like this shows that the representative is perfectly willing to prey on the weaknesses of his constituency. That's hardly doing a proper job of representing them.

Saying, "tough - you can quit if you really want to" is beside the point. There will be many smokers, still.

There are lots of ignorant and addicted people out there, but they're still Americans, and they're still entitled to proper representation in their government. For the government to simply take advantage of their ignorance or addiction to increase revenues is pretty lousy morality.

Cheering it on isn't much better.

Posted 21 December 2007, Hide, Parent, Reply