we need a leader.....

Forum Index > Smokers Rights > we need a leader..... > Post a New Reply

Share/Bookmark this Topic:

Message

Author

by emme123 on Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:49 pm

We need to stop talking about how wrong the cig. taxes
are and get a plan to get our rights back as adults. Cigarettes are a legal product, and I'am sick of being stepped on.
I'am not a leader, I hope someone can help us!!!

emme123

Newbie Joined: Feb 12, 2009 Posts: 8 Location: New York

by runamok on Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:44 am

emme123 wrote:

I've often considered going front and center on smoking issues, really making some noise, but it is risky business.

I am not independently wealthy and I need my day job. As divisive as this issue is, having my name sprinkled about in the news media would not be unlike advertising myself as a pro-Jewish activist in Germany in 1940. About a year ago at the Hemminghaus rally in southern Illinois, I was interviewed by a local rag and the first two words in their article the next day was MY NAME. I was kinda freaked out for a couple months until a Google news search of my name quit turning up the article.

Due to that interview and a couple of pro-freedom letters to the editor published in the Star-Tribune here in the Twin Cities, I am undoubtedly on anti's list of "subversives" already.

Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid but I will remain under the radar as best I can until I am comfortably retired (which is looking less and less likely every day) or I win the PowerBall, a game I rarely play. I simply cannot afford the potential trouble they could direct my way. There is also the possibility of a fanatic anti, who might be in a high management position at the company I work for, seeing my name in the paper.

I'm quite certain there are many others who would like to stand up and lead but have the exact same fears that I do.

runamok

Smoking Lobby Sponsor Joined: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 1288

by Lynda F on Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:04 pm

runamok wrote:

I am not independently wealthy and I need my day job.

I'm quite certain there are many others who would like to stand up and lead but have the exact same fears that I do.

Absolutely true. I will be out of my job come April first and have started looking. I actually googled my name to be sure there was nothing there I needed to worry about. Fortunately there isn't. I do my blog under a different ID and most groups I use a private yahoo ID I have - whose profile is ADULT.

IF I had money to live on, I would do it, have thought of it, but can't figure out how to to do that AND pay my rent/utilities/food bills.

Unfortunately, most of us are in this position I think.

Lynda F

Enthusiastic Smoker Joined: May 02, 2007 Posts: 501 Location: Phoenix, AZ

by Phil Williams on Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:11 pm

Googling HairyChestnuts is rather exciting and I do put my real name on many of my videos (as well as most forums). The antis are definately aware of me, but I'm safe thanks to my own abject poverty. As long as I haven't got two brass farthings to rub together they tend to leave me alone. But if I ever won the lottery, they'd get wind of it and no doubt swamp me with law suits. Wink

Phil Williams Newbie

Newbie Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Norfolk, England

by seesolo on Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:09 pm

Phil Williams wrote:

excuse me for asking, i am ignorant of this, but what would the antis secure your money if you were to speak up, please clarify this for I do not understand, so they would actually try to harm your assets so you will shy away?

seesolo

Newbie Joined: Feb 04, 2009 Posts: 25

by Phil Williams on Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:26 pm

seesolo,
My point was, I do speak up through my videos (including many personal digs at Stanton Glantz), but since I haven't got any money the antis would never profit from trying to sue me for slander or anything. The one thing the antis love more than stamping out smoking is profit, and there's no profit in dragging paupers through the law courts.
So in effect, we can be as vocal an opposition as we like as long as we're broke, but don't look for a wealthy person to provide leadership, they'd have too much to loose.

But that is just my personal oppinion of course.

Phil Williams Newbie

Newbie Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Norfolk, England

by runamok on Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:39 pm

seesolo wrote:

Anti-smoking has proven time and again that they will do or say anything, no matter how absurd or dishonest, to further their agenda. I can't take the chance, at least at this stage of my life, of putting my job and finances in jeopardy by openly becoming a thorn in their side. They have piles of money and are very well connected politically. Last thing I need is a tax audit every year that is designed to find some "problems".

There is also the possibility that the man who signs my check lost his smoking mother to cancer and when he reads that I'm "promoting smoking", well, that may not go very well for me.

runamok

Smoking Lobby Sponsor Joined: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 1288

by twillercat on Tue Feb 24, 2009 12:06 am

You know, there are quite a few respected people out there who could get away with speaking out and I do wish they would. Morley Safer, Louis Lapham (retired editor of Harper's Magazine), Fran Liebowitz (writer), probably a zillion movie stars. Wouldn't it be nice if they'd all get together and say "Enough already."

twillercat Toker

Toker Joined: Jul 15, 2007 Posts: 108

by seesolo on Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:06 am

runamok wrote:

seesolo wrote:

that makes more sense, man i didn't think it went down to that level, where us smokers are scared to even speak out, shit man, today I had break from class, and this chick walked out, and like i had to look over my shoulder out of habit, to see if i was bothering her with my smoke, but to my amazement, she took out a stog, thus we had a nice chat. glory to us smokers

seesolo

Newbie Joined: Feb 04, 2009 Posts: 25

by sypher704 on Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:12 am

I'm a twenty year old male college student, I've been smoking for a while now, and i do enjoy the hobby. i am addicted to it, and sometimes that can become a hassle, but everyone has there own addictions, and no one forces middle-aged women who eat compulsively, or even alcoholics drinking their life away, to do it out doors where they wont be seen or heard from. I'm sure this is the rallying cry of this forum already, but I'm new.
the point it, it's 25 degrees outside where i live, with a wind that would give an Eskimo chills tearing past at any given moment, i thought I'd have a cigarette, and i realized that it was legitimately inhumane the way i was forced by an invisible hand to indulge in the torturous conditions that awaited in the great outdoors. i still cant get the chill out of my spine.
maybe i hope to give up smoking, and maybe I'll always find solace in the warmth and comfort of a nice cigarette in a stressful situation, but no matter what my status as a smoker, i believe no man or woman should ever need to stand out in what i was just standing in to feed a habit, good or bad. smoking bans destroy my civil rights, and someone does need to stand up for more than just tax breaks, someone needs to say "smokers are people too."

on a sidenote, censorship is absurd, and on a site dedicated to the rights of a habit that legally requires you to be an adult, i feel everyone should be able to handle the S word, and my signature is now ruined. thanks.

sypher704

Newbie Joined: Feb 24, 2009 Posts: 2

All times are GMT - 5 Hours

Page 1 of 8 Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Next Smoking Lobby Smokers Rights Forum Index ~ Smokers Rights

Smoking Lobby Forum for Smokers Rights