1) Ideally everyone "should" be responsible for his actions. In real life though this is seldom achieved. Most people are irresponsible to greater or lesser degrees and for 90%+ of the time it makes no difference and actually helps keep people employed in health care, law enforcement, and other fields.
But what about when someone simply bombs out big time? When their actions are dangerous to themselves and others? When people become aged and demented we have a system of conservatorship to take care of such people, and in the last resort it is the state through its agencies that serves that function. So, yes, ideally everyone ought to be responsible but in practice where this is impossible the state takes an interest and ultimately steps in as responsible party of the last resort.
Sounds awful sweet, but we all know that benevolant nanny-government doesn't exist the way you imply it does. Insane people and the elderly are rarely placed in government care unless they violate laws that would cause you or I to be arrested. The state-run conservatorship is far more limited than you think it is ... except in regards to a few plants and chemicals.
Our government lets people drink themselves to death every day and only interferes when they endanger others (driving intoxicated, getting in fights when drunk, etc). This is how it should be with other drugs - even if they are equally or more harmful to the user than currently legal drugs are.
Additionally, the threshold for when someone "bombs out big time" and when their "actions are dangerous to themselves and others" is inconsistent; nay, downright meaningless. Someone eating a "special" brownie and vegging out on a couch, or chewing a handful of coca leaves for a little rush, or eating some peyote may be arrested and imprisoned whether their actions are harmful to themselves and/or others or not. (Exceptions are made for Indian tribes who claim peyote as a religious tool, of course.) On the other hand, it is entirely lawful for a bunch of 21 year old college kids to get drunk out of their minds and have promiscuous, unprotected sex. You defend a system that allows people to be wildly harmful to themselves with a few chemicals but punishes people for being even moderately involved in others?
In my mind one should either be in favor of increased restrictions to control the populace or one should be in favor of decreased restrictions, but at the very least one should be consistent. People advocating the preservation of the status quo are anything but consistent.
How do you defend your inconsistency?
2. Your person is subject to laws of the government. If you drive recklessly through a school zone at 100mph you will go to jail, making your body subject to gov't standards of care. If the gov't deems your services critical enough it has the power to draft you and remove you from your home and surroundings. In everyday circumstances we do not consider this power because it is not in the gov't's interest to detain people for no reason but the power remains there. So ultimately you could say that in fact your body is not yours in an unrestricted way.
Driving recklessly endangers others and the existence of a punishment for that doesn't bother me.
That the government
can conscript people into its service does not establish the morality of it. As Heinlein said, no "people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery."
But essentially what you're saying is that because the government has the power to control you, they have the right to do so?
3. This standard is incomprehensible. You are confusing and confuting society with government. Society does not make laws, gov't does. I do not know what "sanity" entails as a standard of society. On tthat standard there has never been a "sane" society.
Very well, in that case the government, or at the very least the laws it creates are irrational. That worded better?
Are you persuaded now?
Not quite. You've tried to challenge my belief that people must own themselves and be responsible for what they do to themselves by saying in essence: "Well, the government knows best, and they have the power to do whatever they want to you, so its right." That doesn't follow for me.
Thanks for trying, though.
