To the Editor:
In his opinion article ("Just say ‘no' (to the nanny state)," Feb. 4), Hunter Fast '12 states that the justification for sin taxes rests "on the erroneous belief that one person's health is the concern of the whole of society." This is wildly absurd. One need only imagine a similar statement concerning the American judicial system, that it rests "on the erroneous beliefs that one person's injustice is the concern of the whole society," to see the vast faults in such logic.
Indeed, the very opposite of what Fast writes is true. There is no more basic argument for the existence of the state than that it advances the welfare of its constituents — and what is welfare but health? Whether or not sin taxes are useful in this regard is a debate unto itself that I do not have space to address here. However, as anyone familiar with the basic rules of logic knows, an argument based on a flawed premise can only be flawed itself.
Kerem Trolander '14
