Liberty Alone

The recent government proposals to raise the smoking age to 18 expose the lack of principle and the illiberal outlook of this government and raises difficult questions around responsibility and the nature of adulthood.

Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance highlights the nature of this government in the press release made on this issue. Rather bluntly he says:

We note with some amusement that in Tony Blair’s New Britain, a man may sodomise a schoolboy in a public lavatory, and the police must look the other way; but if he gives the boy a cigarette afterwards, he will soon be committing a criminal act.

The press release goes on to say the former (with consent naturally) is a good thing, however the way it came about, and the reasons for the proposed raising of the smoking age are for the same reasons, not some ideological reason, but the government prostituting itself to special interest groups in the hopes of gaining votes, and probably money (although I doubt they’d be so stupid to make any deal on these grounds).

Quite rightly, the gay lobby argued for equalisation of the ages of consent. The fact that this is a liberal position to take however meant nothing to the government, they simply want the good press.

Similarly, although wrongly, various lobby groups, including medical professionals (who increasingly take the view that they are the guardians of our health and lifestyles) argue for increasing the smoking age. True, they mean well, but it is not the government’s job to tell us what to do with our own bodies. When they do this, we start to become possessions of the state and not free individuals.

There is no liberal argument for raising the age limit for purchasing cigarettes. Some will try to argue that its for people’s own good, but the government should not be saying what we may or may not do for our own health. Others will try to argue that it costs the NHS money. Well, cigarettes are taxed heavily, isn’t that money meant to be for the NHS to offset the costs to it of smoking (this leaves aside the fact that the NHS is illiberal).

Even if you did argue for it on health grounds and advocated government intervention in our personal lives, this is an inconsistent argument. Sex can be very dangerous to your health, yet we trust 16 year olds to be able to decide whether to have sex and how to do it if they do. We allow 16 year olds to join the army, a job which almost certainly risks your health and even your life.

This leads onto the question of responsibility and adulthood. Colin Ross makes good points on his blog about this. We have no clear definition of what we can or cannot do. Responsibilities which come with adulthood are spread around, arbitrarily, over many ages. Colin summarises these, revealing many I didn’t know existed.

Surely, if someone is responsible enough to know that having sex with someone under the age of consent is illegal they are responsible enough to have sex? If they’re responsible enough to smoke, why not drink? Why not drive? Or vote? If I’m considered responsible enough to decide to fight and possibly die for my country, why can’t I vote?
This area is ripe for discussion, I don’t know what the answer is, except surely we should have an age at which a person is considered an adult and has the responsibility which comes with it. The only reason to have such variegated age limits is to deny responsibility to young people which just feeds into a culture of irresponsibility, fueled by numerous other governmental initiatives to remove personal responsibility and create state dependence.

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