why do we get on a flap about someone dying of some obscure disease and finding a cause and legal liability?

Question

when thousands of people are dying every day of smoking, drinking, drugging and over eating? Weird huh?

Yea i knew the choice thing would come up but who in their right minds would choose to do these things to such excess that it puts their life in danger, i dont think thats choice or free will, i think its delusion and denial

Answer 1

could be because the other things you mention are all things we choose to do to our bodies and thus take the risk in full knowledge. An obscure disease is likely something that the sufferer didnt choose to risk.

Answer 2

Because we already know how to cure people dying of smoking, drinking and taking drugs....DON'T DO THAT!

Instead, obscure diseases are generally not curable because they haven't come up before. Rather than letting someone die for something outside their control, we like to save people. Just like it's against the law to drive without a seat belt and (in most states) a motocycle helmet, the gov't has an interest in preserving life.

Cigarettes are heavily taxed in some states and most drugs are illegal. You can't outlaw food, so we can't stop obesity. But now we have stomach stapling! Everything that is bad that involved choice is something that we try to regulate but often times cannot. For all other...we try to find a cure.

However, the one major killer that we SHOULD and CAN do something about is world poverty. Rather than paying atheletes millions, this money could go to the rest of the world, roughly 95% of the world's population, that work for under a dollar a day.

Answer 3

i certainly agree with you. i just don't get these people who choose to drink and smoke their way to death, only to have the utter cheek to go and sue the tobacco company or whoever for endangering their lives. excuse me? but these people chose this way of living- even though i and many others believe it is not right, well the smoking bit that is. these people are just two-faced and hypocrites.

and if they know the risks, which are posed by doing these things, then they ought to know whether they are doing the right thing. so why have a moan about it?

i personally think that although i dislike smoking, as it is a filthy, disgusting and harmful habit that robs the lives of millions of people, it is a personal choice after all. i blame the cigarette companies for destroying people's lives and thus making billions of dollars and pounds. besides, why are there warning signs printed on cigarette packets when in the end an avid a 30- day smoker, for example, is not going to take notice of it until they've been told by their doctors that they are suffering from lung and mouth cancer, heart disease and other health problems.

i don't smoke myself and i have never smoked because i hate the smell and realise the harm it would do to my internal organs and since i was 4, i had learnt about the dangers posed in smoking. therefore, i'd say if you know its bad enough to kill you then stop and quit and make a promise to yourself that you won't do it anymore. yes it can be hard, but if smokers have the willpower and guts, as well as a good support network and the determination to do what is for the good of their health and make a clean slate, then it is always possible. but don't be surprised if they try to pin the blame on the tobacco firms for destroying their health- seeing as they have done that to themselves.

Answer 4

Remember this, you have to die of something. Neither the state, nor anyone else, has the right to tell you how to live your life. Some people have wretched lives and use the substances you refer to as a support in life. Also, the purpose of life isn't to live as long as you can, but to try and live a purposeful and as meaningful life as you can. Winston Churchill once said, " that he had taken more out of drink than drink had taken out of him. Also, so called passive smoking, has been grossly exaggerated in order to enable the anti smoking bullies to push through their smoke free agenda.

Sorry, I am not avoiding your main point, which seems to be, all this routine dying is going on but we seem to worry more about unusual causes of death. Do you mean things like 'Bird Flu'?. That would cause a panic, because we can't predict the extent of the problem. I think that what is missing from your question is an example of what you mean by an 'obscure illness' and in what way you think that we are in a flap about it. It has to be said, that the State seems to be using the routine maladies you refer to in your question as an excuse to tell us how to live our lives, at least in Britain. So, it could be argued that 'we' are already fussing over the routine causes of so called, preventative deaths.

Answer 5

It's called the British Disease - trying to get something for nothing. Whether you are in the right or on the wrong, sue someone, it must be their fault. The Americans are almost as bad and In South Africa you can take out a legal insurance so that if you have to sue someone the insurance pays all the legal bills.

Answer 6

Because it is the right thing to do. As for people who do stuff to kill themselves. I think it could be summed up that it is mix of free choice, delusion, and denial. We do have the choice whether we are informed, and decide to ignore it. We just simply disbelieve that statement. Or we know about the consequences, and say that "it won't happen to me.".
CyberNara

Answer 7

~Too true. We should ban all research of heart disease, cancer, aids, alzheimer, small pox, measles and all that other crap and use the money instead for free tobacco, booze and drug dispensaries, to be located next to (or in) McDonald's and Burger King. Hell, if I ever got Ebola Fever or Legionairs Disease or some other exotic bug, I'd much rather let it spread into a global pandemic than to have a cure or a vaccine.

Answer 8

Well, as human beings we are so used to killing us selves--committing slow suicide with the things we use and are used to. So, when we see people dying of rare diseases we are moved because they don't die of the regular slow suicidal means. For instance, I am saddened and in emotional/mental flux after watching my wife die of a combination of childhood liver problems and the rare PAH (pulmonary arterial hypertension) last year. How else do you expect me to react to the death of my 26 year old wife. I know other sides of death too--my mother died of heart failure at 26, my father died of congenital heart problems (worsened by his own bad health habits) at 52 and so did three more of his brothers, my grandmother died of a stroke two years ago and so did my mother in law (I don't know what she died of)...

Answer 9

It takes the spotlight off of us...plain and simple. Was it AC./D./C. who had a song about dirty deeds and then there was the other about the newscasters betting on whether or not the victim would die?

Its news..and it takes us to another life..rather than ours!

Answer 10

Death is something that is impossible to fight and some people face up to it after the fact by a fight with the cause.
Grief can do awful things to people.