Now, banning smoking in public, that I can get behind. I don't want none of that nasty second-hand smoke.
I do not want to finance health insurance for drug addicts, for example. And yes, I agree, also smoking should be banned and the health insurance limited.
Sorry, but not sorry for having a conservative stand. You _must_ accept my opinion instead of downvoting... I thought that Pluralism of Opinions is a valued concept in democracies...
I do not want to finance health insurance for you. But I have a healthy understanding of risk sharing and know I am better off with more people, yourself included, in my risk pool, than with less.
Rehabilitation of drug addicts is, iirc, cheaper than the policing and economic (inc. opportunity) costs they tend to otherwise cause. The health insurance system can't natively deal with this kind of thing, but a decent healthcare system supporting drug addicts would cost you less.
Also, I do not have to accept your opinion. Not every opinion is valid nor should every opinion be considered. For example, I can ignore anti-vaccine sentiments, white nationalism, and serious flat earth bs without investigating further.
That's got nothing to do with whether people are in a Democracy at all. It's not even to do with whether the society is individualistic or collectivist. It's more to do populist messaging and how they are spread.
... booooom, millions of people dead.
... or we could look at countries that did indeed legalize drug use completely and are successful with it.
Same logic as... "let us not legally force face masks on people, but trust in their responsibility. Let us not control social distancing, but trust that people, especially young people, will be responsible"
... booooom, over 9000 covid cases.
Democracy assumes rational people and people with responsibility. We see now how well it all works.
Same "responsibility" applies to the free internet. It is amazing, when people are responsible and are not pushing fake news to allow demagogues and populists to rise to power.
Was it Sokrates who once said that Democracy fails because of Unmündigkeit?
I cannot find the English translation of this word.