From Anger to Curiosity
In a way, this follows on from yesterday's little rant.
This isn't so much a rant though as a question.
Why?
Why is there this sudden obsession with preventative health? Why is it actually anyone's business?
Back in the Good Old Days health services were there to treat you if you had an accident or fell seriously ill. OK, there were vaccinations to prevent the spread of various nasties such as Polio and TB and as a result those diseases are now a rarity, but that was all there was to it. You live your life as you want to and we'll fix you up if you fall ill. That was a good sound philosophy and in the main it worked well.
But now suddenly they are frantically trying to prevent people from falling ill, which is about as optimistic as King Canute ranting at the tide. Even worse, they are trying to prevent people catching a nasty when there is only a small chance that the nasty will strike anyway.
Take for example lung cancer. Apparently there is a one in sixteen chance of dying from that. So out of a group of sixteen, there is a statistical chance that one may die. Naturally they don't know which one of the sixteen is the unfortunate one so their answer is to impose massive restrictions [and gross interference in personal choice] on all sixteen. Even worse, those restrictions guarantee nothing, as the person is just as likely to die from cancer anyway. If there was a one in sixteen chance of dying in a car accident would they ban all cars?
And why do they care anyway? People have to die sooner or later, some in horrible accidents, some of a painful disease and some peacefully in their beds and there is no way of preventing that. The healthists apparently all want us to live longer, thereby vastly increasing our chances of developing cancer or some insidious form of dementia, but why do they care? They come up with ridiculous figures that X costs the health service Y billion a year but that means precisely nothing. The health services are there to help us, not cut imaginary costs.
My personal theory is that Tobacco Control was some kind of test case. Let's see how easily we can control people's lives, and if it's deemed a success we can use the template and apply it to anything else we put our minds to, with the express purpose of moulding society into good little obedient healthy workers that don't cause any trouble.
That little theory would explain one of the great current mysteries – why they are so viciously opposed to vaping. They don't give a shit about vapers [or for that matter, smokers, the obese, alcoholics or whatever your choice of pleasure is]. What they are concerned about is power and control, and the idea that vapers are standing up to them infuriates them. So my advice to vapers everywhere is to stop chanting their own propaganda back at them [that vaping has saved soooo many lives and therefore has to be good]. They don't give a shit how many lives are lost or saved: all they care about is obedience. They don't give a shit about you or me.
They just want us to be good obedient little slaves.
Just a slight correction there Granbdad. There are 4.6m people in the country and the total incidences of Lung Cancer last year was 2.316. So last year, you had a one in 19,863 chaces of developing lung cancer.
To put that is statistical perspective, 29,000 people die from all causes or one chance in 159 of dying in any given year
Where would you place your bets?
Or to put it another way, 19,862 people have to be penalised, "denormalised" and made suffer just in case one person gets cancer? That makes a LOT of sense!
Personally I think your little theory is only partly true Granddad. I prefer to follow the money trail and that explains everything. Vaping is a threat to their paymasters in big pharma and they need the power and control to keep themselves in lavish lifestyle. You of all people know how it goes. I've witnessed exactly the same kind of thing at work (on a much smaller scale, of course) – when the big bosses decide that there is too much middle management and decide to have a cull, they are falling over themselves and stabbing each other in the back to come up with ridiculous ideas in order to hang on to their large salaries. Some of these things are just plain unworkable but they don't care about that, if they are seen to be 'doing something' or 'using initiative' or 'thinking outside the box' then it is the next man who will go. Meanwhile the shop floor workers all suffer in implementing those 'ideas'. That sums up the whole mentality of tobacco control, its not about health, or even power come to that. They have no particular desire to control anyone, its just part of the job, something that is required for their scam to work, and they will sink as low as needed to make sure it does work.
The same kind of thing goes on with vapers and smokers – the theory that if the vapers chant tobacco control's propaganda back at them, then it will be the smokers who come worse off. We are in the same kind of scramble for survival as those middle managers at work. Its the only shot that the vaper has in the armory. I feel ashamed myself because I'm a vaper – well, a former smoker who believes that instead of all that rubbish vapers and smokers should be standing as one against a common enemy. Health-wise, speaking for myself, I don't feel any healthier than I used to when smoking, but on the other hand I don't have coughing fits anymore and notice sharper senses of smell and taste, so although I originally didn't set out to quit smoking its done at least some good for me. But take away my sugar, greasy spoon food and salt at your own peril.
Money is definitely an aspect, but by my theory they chose smoking as their test case as Big Pharma would be only too willing to fund them. However there are few vested interests in banning sugar, fat, alcohol or whatever. But by the time the Puritans moved on from tobacco they were receiving funding from central tax funds, so there was little need for commercial backers. They had managed to convince gubmints that there was a vast untapped resource out there – sin taxes.
Not only should smokers and vapers stands together but they should be joined by everyone who has a lifestyle disapproved by the Puritans, which incidentally must cover virtually the entire population at this stage.
Agreed. However the rest of the lifestyle 'sinners' have not yet reached the low of vapers and smokers, for example if you are in a restaurant and want salt on your food you are not made to eat it outside. But I don't think that time will be very long in coming and perhaps when it does we will find some unity. Hopefully.
You mention in another comment that it wouldn't surprise you, if sometime in the future, all smokers and vapers have to wear a badge on their coat. I think that in a sense we already do – the sight of smokers and vapers huddled together in what could be described as a poorly made cattle shed serves the same purpose as the badge. That was the real intention of the indoor ban, it had nothing whatsoever to do with protecting anyone from the illusory second hand smoke.
The problem with lifestyle sinners in general is that they need to grow a pair and collectively just ignore the puritans demands, but they just let it happen. The story of the tiny dot is just as relevant to this as anything else. After all, its all just brainwashing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6b70TUbdfs
A nice thought provoking video! Time for a revolution, anyone?
"Tobacco control was some kind of test case"
I think you're on the right track with this GD. The term "passive smoking" was coined by the Nazis. Google <Nazi anti smoking> or <Nazi health>. A lot of the stuff being pushed by the health fascists these days is almost word for word the stuff of Nazi propaganda.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=nazi+anti+smoking&biw=1366&bih=640&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwi58uTQ1ZzOAhVMtJQKHdHLA3MQsAQIJg
The current anti-smoker purge is as a direct result of the Nazi movement, and that is why I never hesitate to label them as Nazis. They follow the Nazi manifesto almost to the letter. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if sometime they pass a law saying that all smokers and vapers have to wear a badge on their coats.
No, it wasn't the Nazis who came up first with that idea. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_ban – scroll down to "history". Roman Catholic church obviously was first with that splendid idea, followed by King James I.
But it was the Nazis who led the latest charge and the modern ideology is pretty similar to theirs – second hand smoke, banning smoking in certain areas and the rest.
Don't understand all this concern with keeping us all hale and hearty myself.
Last I checked there were an est. 7 billion people crowding the planet, many of whom have no means of keeping themselves together, another large portion of whom we've (where "we" equals the larger world powers, i.e. America, Britain, France, Germany…) deliberately decided not to assist, despite the constant barrage of bloated-belly starving children playing on our television screens. In other words, "we've" fully written off nearly 2/3s of the world population that we could be helping, and instead have developed this weird idée fixe with ourselves.
None of which sounds healthy to me.
Ah but health has nothing to do with it. You only have to look at the recent Ebola outbreak [in Africa, therefore not important] where the head of the World Health Organisation was more concerned about an Anti-Smoker conference in Moscow that she was about the plight of the Africans.
It has never been about health.
Because there is no money in helping to save lives.
Ah! But Big Pharma gets more money from treating people than it does curing people. Once you are cured their money train stops!
Trying again as my first attempt disappeared into the void!
Ah! But Big Pharma only makes money from treating people not curing them. Once you are cured their money train stops.
You ask "why" Grandad. The short answer is because we are lab rats controlled by psycopaths > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lIboR9Wtg8
Which pretty much fits in with my theory? The more you abuse people, the more compliant they become. The perfect world where the Great Unwashed no longer question their Lords and Masters.