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Yo_Mama

(8,303 posts)
10. No
Wed Jan 11, 2012, 11:20 PM
Jan 2012

We live too interdependently for that to be true.

Theoretically, I may have the right to take out a negative amortization mortgage if I can find a borrower dumb enough to give me one, but if the practice becomes widespread everyone suffers, so in fact we must regulate many of these decisions.

We carve out certain exemptions for very private things, like religion, sex, contraception and so forth because otherwise we would find ourselves living in a hell of good intentions, but really those things tend to affect more than just the individual, economically speaking.

If I really want to live it up and sleep with a hundred people and don't much care about safe sex (and maybe even if I do), the fact is sooner or later my medical bills will seep through to everyone else. Economically, our choices have large impacts even if it is just about whether we live from check to check.

I suppose theoretically a few of us could move to Antarctica and not bother the rest, but the vast majority of people are living in a very interrelated world in which our activities and problems affect other people more than we might want to admit.

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