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by Jamilah
on Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:45 am |
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First I'm tickled that I have found this site. Second, I'm soooo peeved that a bunch of control freaks are going to tell me what I can and can NOT do with my body and life! Yes, I admit smoking stinks and is unhealthy but so is the meat we eat with all the hormones and meat tenderizers. So is the air we breath. So is the water we drink. I have always considered myself a polite smoker, I don't blow it in peoples faces, I'm aware of when kids are around - yadda yadda yadda. BUT, if they are going to put gory pictures of what smoking CAN do to a person then they need to put pictures of blood splattered children on alcohol bottles. If they are going to put a ban on things that are unhealthy and "threaten" people with horrid pictures then the picture of the Big Mac at McDonald's should have a serious make over (picture of an exploding heart)! I'm sorry but I feel this is a huge infringment on MY personal rights, I have been smoking since I was 13 years old and I enjoy smoking! It's not like I'm a crack addict robbing little old ladies of their pocket change. Isn't there some kind of happy medium that the control freaks can live with? But I'll be damned if anyone is going to take away my right to smoke. Just imagine how overcrowded the prisons will be when it gets to the point they start arresting people for it - which it certainly feels like it's heading in that direction.
The point that I'm trying to make in fit of rage and frustration is this - where are they going to draw the line? Next thing you know they will be telling us how many squares of TP to use. If their reasoning for banning tobacco is because it's unhealthy and kills then they need to put a ban on McDonalds, ban alcohol, ban automobiles, ban perfume (gives me SERIOUS breathing fits) and SERIOUSLY fine the people who bath in the bloody stuff! - the list goes on and on. |
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Jamilah
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by activist0000
on Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:21 pm |
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Jamilah wrote: The point that I'm trying to make in fit of rage and frustration is this - where are they going to draw the line? Next thing you know they will be telling us how many squares of TP to use. If their reasoning for banning tobacco is because it's unhealthy and kills then they need to put a ban on McDonalds, ban alcohol, ban automobiles, ban perfume (gives me SERIOUS breathing fits) and SERIOUSLY fine the people who bath in the bloody stuff! - the list goes on and on.
That's what it all boils down to. If you dredge up the figures on the Internet, you'll see that the MSA is paying out billions of dollars to the anti-smoking people in each state. The people who are getting paid for these anti-smoking efforts aren't ever going to say they're satisfied and just walk off. They basically have to keep inflicting more financial and mental abuse on smokers, or they won't have a job next week.
It's surprising to me, in the current economic climate, that violence hasn't erupted over all this. Things are bad, and just when people are stressed out, suffering layoffs, losing health insurance, getting forced out of homes, etc., the government decides it's a good time to force people into smoking rehab, which is not a fun experience even for those who choose it, much less people who don't really want to quit smoking. It's a wonder no one has strapped a bomb around their waist and marched straight into their state capitol. |
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activist0000
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by Darkseid
on Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:09 pm |
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| And how do you know it hasn't happened already?? There was a lot of violence and fist-fighting in bars and a few restaurants in OheilO (as well as lighting-up resistance) when the smoker ban first went into place-but the illustrious media refused to report it. Wouldn't want the pockets of resistance to spread. Several deaths occurred in New York with thiers. Nary a peep from the nationwide, even the NY state media. Only way you knew about it was to read the local news from the town it happened on the internet. |
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Darkseid
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by activist0000
on Sun Jun 07, 2009 3:49 pm |
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Darkseid wrote: And how do you know it hasn't happened already?? There was a lot of violence and fist-fighting in bars and a few restaurants in OheilO (as well as lighting-up resistance) when the smoker ban first went into place-but the illustrious media refused to report it. Wouldn't want the pockets of resistance to spread. Several deaths occurred in New York with thiers. Nary a peep from the nationwide, even the NY state media. Only way you knew about it was to read the local news from the town it happened on the internet. |
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activist0000
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by Darkseid
on Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:37 pm |
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| Not so, there was a pretty decent size demonstration in Columbus back in the beginning, several hundred people, but the media didn't report it. Plus that was organized on only about a week's notice. |
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Darkseid
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by Pete Gatti
on Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:12 pm |
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Jamilah wrote: First I'm tickled that I have found this site. Second, I'm soooo peeved that a bunch of control freaks are going to tell me what I can and can NOT do with my body and life!
This says it loud and clear and then you go and spoil it by offering the control freaks other things to control like McDonald's.
I would rather live in a society void of health care than in a society that dictates healthism. Oppression comes in many disguises. There is freedom in knowing one can indulge in life's special little pleasures and it is a freedom I will not be coerced, bamboozled, tricked, forced or feared into giving up. That's the bottom line for me.
BTW, IMO smoking does not stink, it has a dreamlike aroma reminiscent of a by gone era. |
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Pete Gatti
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by libertarian99
on Mon Jun 08, 2009 1:36 am |
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Pete Gatti wrote: Jamilah wrote: First I'm tickled that I have found this site. Second, I'm soooo peeved that a bunch of control freaks are going to tell me what I can and can NOT do with my body and life!
This says it loud and clear and then you go and spoil it by offering the control freaks other things to control like McDonald's.
I would rather live in a society void of health care than in a society that dictates healthism. Oppression comes in many disguises. There is freedom in knowing one can indulge in life's special little pleasures and it is a freedom I will not be coerced, bamboozled, tricked, forced or feared into giving up. That's the bottom line for me.
BTW, IMO smoking does not stink, it has a dreamlike aroma reminiscent of a by gone era.
How far can it all go? We've already got violence in the War on Drugs, but apparently that's not enough to illustrate to lawmakers where everything is headed. Apparently they just think that kind of thing can't happen here. They have this weird little bubble of invulnerability.
Maybe we will just trade places with the pot smokers. We'll be sitting in jail for smoking our cigs, and they'll be sitting out on the street corner with their doobies (remember that term?) Bet they never thought they'd see the day when politicians started talking seriously about legalization of marijuana.
Pete, I don't think we have any choice but to become stoners. |
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libertarian99
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by runamok
on Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:57 pm |
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libertarian99 wrote: This FDA thing is a nightmare. It's obviously an inch closer to prohibition. That's how all this has happened, inch by inch. They pass a small restriction, then expand it a little further, then expand it a little further, and before you know it, your lifestyle is on the verge of total destruction. I don't see how the lawmakers, the antis or anyone else can claim that prohibition won't be the next step after FDA regulation.
Within the anti-smoking organizations there are certainly hard-core prohibitionists but their role is typically (but not exclusively) as volunteer foot-soldiers. Most are not on the payroll and the ones that are, are true fanatics who would happily give up their income if only the demon tobacco was designated as illegal contraband.
Within the general population there is a substantial and growing number of people who would cast a vote, today, in favor of making the selling and using of cigarettes illegal. I would be willing to bet that you would get about 30-35% of the population voting in favor of prohibition. These "casual prohibitionists" are your average Joans and Joes who are busy with kids and their workaday lives. They read the news stories about SHS and the body counts and have no reason to doubt any of it. They have no idea whatsoever of the vast sums of money involved and the politics behind all of it. Any story that starts out with "Studies show" or "Scientists say" is taken as gospel and they will never question it.
In the upper echelons of the anti-smoking organizations, you've got your true parasites. They give the marching orders and they are in it for the money. This is their job, their career, and they know quite well where the money comes from. Though you'll never hear them say it, they, for obvious reasons, are adamantly opposed to total prohibition. However, to keep the money flowing, they lobby for ever-more draconian bans and punitive taxes. This is what they are paid to do. Of course, every new ban and tax pushes them ever closer to the only logical end of their "noble" quest which is prohibition. At some point, it will be the only thing left for them to push for. Either that or fold up the tents and go home. Yet, if prohibition is enacted, they likewise are out of a job.
What to do?
There is no honor among thieves. Government is a greedy, two headed monster and if anti is seen to be doing nothing anymore except sucking down the money they have granted to them, gov't will want all of that money for themselves. Since taxes by this time are already past the tipping point, they will have no use for anti-smoking anymore and funding will be cut off completely, or at least to a bare minimum for just a few organizations.
Gov't is in this for the money as is quite obvious. States are constantly going to bat for Big Tobacco to protect the Settlement Payments and the Feds have S-CHIP to pay for...on and on it goes. Once the anti-tobacco organizations are not a profitable investment anymore, they will be jettisoned like so much garbage.
If the anti-smoking organizations actually do begin the outright push for prohibition, gov't will protect their tobacco revenues by any means necessary. If anti will not go quietly, gov't will use all the powers at their disposal to discredit and stop them, including de-bunking their SHS science.
Anti-smoking is a paradox that has to consume itself in the end and I'm not sure we can really do much to de-rail them. The best thing we could probably do would be to speed them on their way....make sure they hit the brick wall at a high velocity.
They will leave behind a socially and economically devastated landscape that we will never fully recover from which is scary and sad but anti-smoking as a political force will cease to exist and tobacco prohibition will never become a reality. |
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runamok
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by Pete Gatti
on Mon Jun 08, 2009 2:27 pm |
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libertarian99 wrote: This FDA thing is a nightmare. It's obviously an inch closer to prohibition. That's how all this has happened, inch by inch. They pass a small restriction, then expand it a little further, then expand it a little further, and before you know it, your lifestyle is on the verge of total destruction. I don't see how the lawmakers, the antis or anyone else can claim that prohibition won't be the next step after FDA regulation.
The genius part is in managing to get the smokers to financed their scam every step of the way. Truly unprecedented on such a grand scale. I'll give them that much.
Quote: How far can it all go? We've already got violence in the War on Drugs, but apparently that's not enough to illustrate to lawmakers where everything is headed. Apparently they just think that kind of thing can't happen here. They have this weird little bubble of invulnerability.
Well they think de-normalization of smoking is the trick that'll make it work this time. Fortunately there are those with their heads screwed on straight who resist the idea of living another's social script. They think they're nailed this time but like all nut cases they are doomed to relive history over and over again while always expecting a different outcome. As long as there exists tobacco, there will be smoking, it's illegally will just be a temporary stumbling block. Remember, tobacco = taxes, enforcement of prohibition = drain on taxes. Few politicians can resist those equations for very long.
Quote: Maybe we will just trade places with the pot smokers. We'll be sitting in jail for smoking our cigs, and they'll be sitting out on the street corner with their doobies (remember that term?) Bet they never thought they'd see the day when politicians started talking seriously about legalization of marijuana.
I have an enormous amount of faith in power of greed. I predict a time when both tobacco and marijuana will once again be accepted human indulgences... that is of course until anti emerges from the slime again.
Quote: Pete, I don't think we have any choice but to become stoners.
Unfortunately every since I moved to this 'goodie two shoes" area I haven't made a connection in 4 years. I use to be an occasional pot smoker. But yea, if it becomes legal, I wouldn't mind sharing a joint with you. |
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Pete Gatti
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Location: Dade City, Florida
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by garhkal
on Mon Jun 08, 2009 4:45 pm |
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runamok wrote:
If the anti-smoking organizations actually do begin the outright push for prohibition, gov't will protect their tobacco revenues by any means necessary. If anti will not go quietly, gov't will use all the powers at their disposal to discredit and stop them, including de-bunking their SHS science.
Prob i see, is if they go that route and debunk the SHS stuff, then won't that also give legitemate credience to the tobacco companies to repeal the MSA thinggy? |
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garhkal
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