This is the case with privilege, you are mixing together special rights which are granted undemocratically with simple use.

In the case of government (at least a democratic one) the presumption is that it acts on behalf of the people (or at least a majority). That this turns out not to be entirely true in practice does not change the theoretical ideal. Now if you want to argue that this ideal can never be realized in practice so that we really should adopt another form of government I'm open to fresh ideas.

As to using taxes to control unwanted behavior, there is nothing special about alcohol or tobacco. The fact that they produce bad side effects is incidental. We could just as easily impose a meat tax since it is associated with heart disease and requires an excessive amount of resources to produce compared to eating plant materials ourselves. That one is taxed and not the other is a function of our Puritanical social underpinnings.

I'm afraid that much of your objection to privilege is based upon a similar moral stance. This is admirable, and I agree with it, but it can't be the basis for public policy - the moral axioms differ from society to society. We need a more "objective" measure to decide when someone is getting more of their fair share of the pie.

John Rawls tried to do this with regard to legal standing. After a lifetime of work his ideas really just boil down to the golden rule, not a bad principle, but not very original.

Many societies have had little in the way of privilege. Look at the subsistence tribal societies for example. People owned little more than their clothing, tools and shelter. The concept of having an excess to hoard made no sense and the land was not something that was "owned" at all.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the reason for the rise of greed is because people aren't assured that they will be taken care of by society. That is the social services for health care, child care and old age care are not assured. If they were would there be any need to save for retirement?

Sorry to ramble on, but what needs to be clarified is: is this instance of government just failing us or is the basic organization inherently defective?

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape