You will be next
You may accuse me of going on a bit about the smoking ban, and you may be right.
But have you ever stopped to really think about it?
The anti-smoking movement started in the States [where else?!], and is largely based on pseudo-science, lies, distortions and just enough hard facts to create a movement. Through skilful propaganda, this movement has grown into a world wide phenomenon. Quite why this movement exists, I’m not sure. They claim to be concerned about the general health of mankind, but I find this very hard to believe, as surely such things as famine and wars do far greater damage?
What really concerns me is the way the movement has created a shift in public opinion that defies logic.
Take for example the case that was reported yesterday of a man caught giving a cigarette to a three year old. Now I wouldn’t for a second condone this, just as I wouldn’t condone giving a three year old alcohol or control of a car. But the public perception of the “evils” of smoking led to this bloke getting a prison sentence. What? What he did was irresponsible, but the reaction was completely out of proportion to the action simply because of the now ingrained perception of cigarettes being the ultimate evil.
The anti-smoking lobby have successfully cordoned off smokers as a separate group within society and have turned society against them. Smokers are filthy, irresponsible sub-humans who must be “educated” and re-integrated into “normal” society at all costs.
One of the sites which I frequent is the excellent Freedom-2-Choose, which is informative and often very humorous. Yesterday there was an article which got me thinking and finally polarised my thoughts. In his article Collective Madness 2, Frank Davis examines the growing rift between smokers and anti-smokers.
You may think this is all an overreaction, but is it?
The question I would ask is where will it stop?
Already “they” are turning their attention to alcohol and obesity. Soon the lover of the occasional pint of stout will be seen as the dregs of humanity, who is indulging in a filthy habit and must be shunned by “decent society”? A person eating a plate of chips must immediately be “re-educated” for their “own good”?
And what will come after that?
Will they turn their beady eyes on the non eco-friendly? Will they demand that iPods be taxed out of existence because of the horrific damage being done to the hearing? Your guess is as good as mine.
One of the aspects of all this that really gets up my nose is the snitch-lines. They have set up phone numbers for members of the public to inform the authorities of their neighbours transgressions. How insidious is that? We have phone numbers to call if someone [God forbid] is smoking where they shouldn’t. We have phone numbers to call if we think someone is driving the way they shouldn’t.
Where is this going to end?
Are we going to have phone numbers to call if a neighbour is found putting a bottle in the normal bin?
Are we going to have phone numbers to call if we think a neighbour is getting too fat?
You mark my words – it will come.
Sooner or later you will fall into a target group.
Remember the Soviet Union?
There’s usually a reaction to this kind of thing…. we’re seeing the last wave of a kind of ‘paternalism’ (‘we know whats good for you and we’re going to make it illegal for you to disagree’) which has been sweeping across western society.
Its disguised nazism really, at the risk of invoking Godwins Law. Many Americans for example rail on about the dead hand of ‘PC liberalism’ without realising that political correctness is not European- it began as a university based disguised moralising and came from US campuses.
David Mamet wrote a very good play called ‘Oleanna’ about the dangers of this disguised attempt at government without consequence. Its been televised and I’d watch out for that.
Every organisation representing a profession which thinks it has the right to tell people how to live (Doctors, Insurance co’s, ‘Elf & Safety etc) has been busy distorting statistics and bending the ear of politicians who are too dumb to question the reports put in front of them.
The medical profession for example never shuts up about smoking, drinking and obesity and at the same time is notoriously one of the professions with the highest rates of alcohol and drug abuse as well as suicide among its ranks.
They have no intention of examining the reasons for that- but equally they will happily lecture anybody and everybody else on ‘healthy living’.
Its no conspiracy- merely a social dynamic and the inevitable reaction is beginning to set in. Hence your post(!)
It is slightly daft, I mean I happily enjoy the result of the smoking ban, but actually have no strong feeling either way. I strongly suspect that it is all a bean-counter thing, in that people who are ill for any reason (and smokers do get more coughs and sniffles) are less productive, similarly for drinkers and over-eaters. Instead we should be healthy effective drones making our best contribution to GDP.
Personally I think there are too many people kicking about, so I have no issue with people doing things that may kill them. Eat more bacon I say, in the hopes that I won’t have a situation where there is not enough pension money to go around when I retire.
I fondly remember the Soviet Union. Wish it would return.
Cap’n – One thing that does bemuse me is the ratioanale behind it all. It is ripe terretory for conspiracy theorists, but I’m damned if I can see any reason for it other than a desire to hold the high moral ground.
Fuck that. I’m grabbing the high moral ground for myself.
Thrifty – That is fucking depressing. We are all comodities that must be preserved in good working order for the greater good? Pass me the baccy, the brandy and the burger.
For some reason your post reminded me of this http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html
In California they have a rule where a smoker cannot legally smoke within three metres of a public building. Its been so successful in saving lives that I am told they extended the ban to something like five metres.
Ah Los Angeles. The city of cars that exhale oxygen…. fresh mountain air. In other news eleven million people will die from air pollution in cities by 2015.
‘Scuse me while I nip out for a cigarette.
Brave new world Grandad, be good and take your Soma.
Marcphisto – It’s anyone’s quess at the moment as to who is winning – Orwell or Huxley?
Cap’n – I think they are trying to introduce that kind of shite here. Why do the fuckers here have to copy everybody?
Thrifty – Brave New World, my arse. I’m going down fighting.
Have you read the article by Konrad Jamrozik? It makes no sense…. Its almost as if he pulls big important deadly numbers out of his ass to scare folks into not worrying about where he’s getting his numbers and calculations from.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7495/812
If the Government want to stop children from smoking they should change the law to make it more difficult for under 18s to smoke.
MPs voted NOT to make proxy purchasing of cigarettes illegal, so parents can buy cigarettes and give them to their children.
It is NOT illegal for somebody under 18 to BUY cigarettes, it is only illegal to sell them to under 18s.
I believe that the minimum age for smoking is something like 3yo. Am I correct?
The New Yorker, 17th September 1984
“The last cigarette smokers in America were located in a box canyon south of Donner Pass in the High Sierra by 2 federal tobacco agents in a helicopter who spotted little smoke puffs just before noon. The district chief called in the ground team & 6 men, members of a crack anti-smoking joggers unit, moved across the terrain, surrounding & subduing them with tear gas. There were 5 people in their mid-40’s who’d been on the run since the adoption of the 28th Amendment. The chief snatched an empty pack of Marlboro’s & said “Look at this! This warning has been there for decades! What does it take to make you understand?” The smokers knew that the end was near. They’d lost radio contact with the only other band of smokers they knew; 5 writers holed up in an Oakland apartment. Among the personal effects were 4 empty packs, slit open, the blank insides covered with handwriting. They were letters to Lindsay & Matt from their mother. They read: “I never thot it wld come to this…those yrs as ashtrays vanished fr parties & old pals made sarc remarks & FAA crackd down… Down to 1 cart… In 50s it was diffrnt, we all smokd… Food, sex, then smoke…theyre closing in… Reminded me of when yr dad turnd me in… Knew he was nut but didnt know he was creep… Goodbye. Love, Mother. “The 5 smokers were sentenced to write 20,000 words on the topic “Personal Integrity”. The mother was reunited with her children. One night, she saved them from death by pulling them back from the path of a speeding car. Her husband, who had just been telling her she could stand to lose some weight, was killed instantly, however”.
“The anti-smoking movement started in the States [where else?!]”
So what do you expect from a country that was basically founded by a puritanical theocracy? You know, the kind that beat their breasts with their bibles (King James version of course), gnashed their teeth at the fact that everything including breathing was a sin. That sex was a vile, horrible thing (it was a wonder we ever survived past the first generation) and those that smoked or drank were doomed to burn in hell for all eternity? That anyone one who wasn’t white, Anglo-Saxon protestant was a barbarian, a savage, a heathen and no better than an animal? (hell, our founding fathers slaughtered most of the natives of this land just because they were heathens and savages and, more importantly, in the way).
My country was settled by those idiots, morons and crackpots who were kicked out of all the good countries. Kicked out so far that they had to come all the way over here before they thought they were safe (which obviously wasn’t far enough as the folks from all the good countries still came over here and took pot shots at them).
I think we should just ban America. I mean really, any country that would come up with the idea of political correctness deserves to be banned–and I live here!
Sorry…I’ve been constipated all week and I’m in a real baaad mood!
@tt
“I fondly remember the Soviet Union. Wish it would return.”
Very funny, like.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT NICOTINE IS ONE OF THE MOST ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES AROUND – WOULD YOU CONDONE GIVING A THREE YEAR OLD ‘JUST ONE’ HIT OF CRACK COCAINE FOR INSTANCE????
Gluaistean – Third key up from the botom left of your keyboard – Caps Lock – I think it may be stuck. OK. So you are taking me up on the bloke giving a cigarette to a child? Your comment comparing that to crack cocaine is just the kind of ill-informed, over dramatised rhetoric that I would expect from an anti-smoker. I assume you are an anti? Could you please provide data that proves that “nicotine is one of the most addictive substances around”? Addictive – yes, but get things in perspective, for fuck’s sake.
The thing that gets me is how everyone has gone so pc about cigarette smoking – starting at government level. And yet, we as a nation still gratefully accept the tax money from the cigarette distributors……
That’s just ever so slightly hypocritical.