Yeah, I guess you could say I agree with Vidal's statement that "each man has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbor's pursuit of happiness."
I would like to add something to this statement however: I do believe that when a friend of mine may do something terrible to themselves, whether it be drugs or something else, it affects me. These actions can make me lose a friend or a loved one.
In the case of one of my elementary school teachers, his father died prematurely from cancer brought on by a lifetime of smoking. My teacher was furious at his father for this. His mother smoked, but quit immediately after it was proven that there were negative effects. My teacher's father however, kept on smoking. And he died. While this did not create an obstacle technically for my teacher's pursuit of happiness it did prove to be hurtful. I am not saying his father's intent was to create emotional pain in his son, I am merely providing this to propose the idea that choices of others can effect a person in a way that is not the "pursuit of happiness."
Vidal's idea for drugs in a society like ours is incredibly interesting, and I would be very curious to see the effects. Personally, I think the laws we have in place currently prevent a certain amount of people from getting into drug abuse, and that would possibly save lives. Now, if the laws weren't in place, one can argue that those certain people would not have gotten into drugs anyway, and thus would be safe from ill effects. If we assume these people would have gotten into drugs, we can also say that those certain people would only be harming themselves, which brings me to my point. Families have been destroyed based upon drug usage of a single member, and that is why I don't fully agree with Vidal's statement.
No comments:
Post a Comment