Comment & Analysis: When should we respect others' personal choice?

Personal choice should work both ways, and it should always apply to everyone unless someone is at an immediate risk of harm or loss.

Copyright: Dwayne Hards.

Personal choice should be respected, for the most part, when other people aren't being seriously affected by someone else's choices. However, if someone's behaviour affects other people, it is no longer considered freedom of choice because it's affecting everyone else; for example, smoking indoors or in an enclosed space. However, If someone wants to sit on a park bench and smoke a spliff, I don't see a problem with that because it's not seriously harming anyone, especially not other people.

When people drive dangerously, this affects everyone around them and puts others at risk of being seriously injured or killed; therefore, this is not personal choice. However, if someone doesn't wear a seatbelt in the front seat of a car, this only affects them. Therefore, it should have nothing to do with anyone else providing that they're able to make their own lifestyle choices.

In my opinion, we should all work together and stop politically competing against one another. Oh, and by the way, this works both ways — and so does fairness and respect.