Nov 11 2010
Nanny State Goes Into Mindless Overdrive
We have to cut back government. There are tens of thousands of bureaucrats with way to much time on their hands and demigod-complexes. All they do is sit around trying to figure out the next great way to control everyone else’s lives. Worse yet, too many times the message these people concoct to rationalize their efforts is a slickly crafted package full of half truths and lies, more theology than science (man made global warming is just the latest incarnation of this).
For example, can you believe we are wasting millions of dollars for a bunch of ideologues to figure out the grossest pictures to put on cigarette packages? (Fair Warning – graphic images and major half truths). I especially object to this one:
Second hand smoke in the open air has NEVER been proven to cause fatal lung disease. In fact, it is far more likely lung damage comes more from public transportation (buses), new rugs in homes, new paint or stain on homes and furniture, gasoline and diesel fuel vapors at the pumps, cleaners used in homes without proper ventilation, constant over use of perfumes and disinfectants, etc. There are so many gases and particles produced all around us on a daily basis that there is no way to point to one and say ‘that caused the lung disease and the others did not’.
And there is a genetic component as well – a weakness in some lungs with handling particles and gases. Not to mention the potential that childhood shots might have caused asthma and other weaknesses.
Bottom line – we don’t know what is the root cause, or combination of root causes. All we know is people who smoke are slightly more likely to get lung cancer, but some smokers never do. When you realize some long term smokers NEVER get lung cancer, then you KNOW smoking is not a direct cause. Unlike applying acid, which always burns skin and cells, smoke does not always produce fatal damage.
This is false propaganda. And the rationalization used to accept these lies is some altruistic fantasy about saving people from themselves. It is pathetic, and a waste of our hard earned tax money.
We need to cut the government back down to a MINIMAL size. We need to learn to live without it – again.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Free To Prosper, AJ Strata. AJ Strata said: new: Nanny State Goes Into Mindless Overdrive http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/15385 […]
Someone needs to stand up to Big Government and take these foolish and costly mandates to court. All the way to the Supremes if need be and what better place to start than big Tobacco?
The federal Government is way overreaching their authority and it seems only the Voters through their elected representatives or the Judiciary has the will and the ability to stop them else we will all be regulated into the ice ages soon!
AJ you need to do a thread on the asinine tax confiscations put forth by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpleton.
To cut merely two Billion from the deficit by increasing taxes on virtually everyone over 5 – 10 years while the Defecrats spend trillions per year is the height of stupidity and those deficit reducers should be laughed out of town and their phony panel shut down.
That right there would be some real savings, that and putting the jerkoffs in the House and Senate on the military pay and benefit scale!
dhunter, the Texas Horse Floaters did that and just won.
The problem is that it costs a lot of money to fight. 🙁
We need an anti-ACLU organization to fight.
Sorry I guess they propose cutting 200 Billion not two, still a drop in the 50 gallon bucket of wasteful pocket lining, union payoffs and class warfare spending that the Defecrats seem bent on pursueing.
Throw more of em out and anyone who goes along with em.
Retire Simpson your an idiot!
hurrah! whatever was wrong is fixed!
As far as the topic, I’m no smoker, but neither am I obsessed with the notion that everyone has to make exactly the same lifestyle choices that I do.
Mark me down as 100% disagree …
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My Mom got a (5) pack in the mail at college … 1930 or so… Chain smoked all her life… Died of lung cancer… Age 64… her parents lived far side of 80 … I took her cigs away several times… curses on cigs …
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I’d agree on the 2nd hand smoke… If you do not like the smoke in the bar… Just go away …
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Almost all us pilots (esp military … (Back from that stress flight … debrief … coke & cig… ahhhhhhhhhhh… heavenly bliss)… were smokers in the 60’s… (pretty sure the same in earlier years) then less… then less…until 80’s almost all of us quit… because… Airline Captains take a (required FAA) physical every (6) months … Flunking a physical = loss of job … You think WE didn’t notice the (admitted anecdotal) evidence of who got sick … ???
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hehe… but here’s a little contradiction…
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smokers cost the country $96 billion a year in direct health care costs, and an additional $97 billion a year in lost productivity.
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but…
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No one mentioned the additional costs to society of caring for a nonsmoking population that lives longer.
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Smokers die some 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, according to the CDC, and those premature deaths provide a savings to Medicare, Social Security, private pensions and other programs…(my ad-on … and they don’t have as much fun as non-smokers like me either)
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hahaha… I am convincing myself to give a sh*t if YOU smoke… If you are that stupid… go ahead… God help me… I am starting to think like a Libertarian …
I have never smoked one whiff in my entire life and stay away from bars. I hated coming home smelling smoke in my hair. Besides, the music is just too loud. Waste of time.
I asked a smoker why he smoked. His answer is that he enjoys smoking. I mentioned that smoking is unhealthy. His response is so what? At least, he controls the destiny of his life.
Toes,
Don’t forget smokers also pay a helluva lot in taxes.
The point is, no one should dictate behavior. Smokers know the danger as well as everyone else (I know, being an ex-smoker).
Too much ice cream can kill you. Too many burgers.
Where does it end?
It seems to me that if the government were not involved in paying for health care, it would be none of the government’s business whether anyone smoked or not.
Insurers would be free to offer different health insurance policies to smokers and to nonsmokers – with different premiums to reflect different risks of cancer. They could even offer policies that excluded coverage for the cancers most commonly associated with smoking.
I think that would go a lot further towards encouraging responsible behavior than any of the annoying, and expensive, nanny state bureaucracy and its rules and regulation.
Yep 1.63 a pack here for the tax load.
Now by all the rules I should be already under the dirt.
I was a long time serving on submarines while in the Navy.
They keep track in your service record just how long you are submerged,underway on nuclear power.
Mine totals up a bit over 8 years and 3 months. That isn’t time on subs but actual at sea service days.
Subs back then had atmosphere control measures but nothing like the state of the art today.
My time there in one of the worst sort of air environment does take it’s toll.
Also back then about 80% of the crews were chain smokers due to the risk taking profile of who served there.
Now they have much improved control and monitoring equipment and other procedures and in the new year smoking will be banned from submarines.
Instead of lung cancer the only issues I have are with some damage from asbestos we used on subs back then for piping insulation.
I was a chain smoking 6 pack a day habit in those days and up till about a year ago when I switched over to electronic cigarettes which give you nicotine only.
Now the FDA wants to regulate them and states want to tax them just like cigarettes.
Some use them to gradually adjust the concentration down in order to quit others use them as a less unhealthy substitute.
I get my nicotine fix and simulation of the smoking experience long learned habits and all that I expose people around me too is water vapor it produces instead of smoke. States are already looking at this way to bypass anti smoking limits on where you can smoke since they are not a tobacco product.
Even worse than what AJ is posting on is something that I saw a couple months back with people claiming damage from THIRD hand smoking.
Those nicotine nazi’s will never give up their nanny state games.
The whole idea is so tasteless.
[…] says Tea Party will cause hyperinflation – hotair.com 11/11/2010 Uh, sure. more… Nanny State Goes Into Mindless Overdrive – strata-sphere.com 11/11/2010 We have to cut back government. There are tens of thousands of […]
OT/ another example of what is wrong with government, arrogance and complete lack of regard for other peoples’ money:
Washington Examiner – Obama panel probes stimulus waste — at Ritz Carlton By: Byron York
“My Mom got a (5) pack in the mail at college … 1930 or so… Chain smoked all her life… Died of lung cancer… Age 64… her parents lived far side of 80 ”
I’ll bet there are plenty of 64 years old running around that smoked all their life and don’t have cancer.
I don’t smoke and I’m sure smoking is not good for anyone but I am a firm believer that if someone wants to smoke, or eat fatty food and get to be 400 lbs, it is their business, no one else’s and certainly not the governments.
I absolutely think that there is no proof of the secondary smoke thing. no way. If you don’t like what you’re smelling, go upstream.
Newt Gingrich said that studies have been shown where 2 trillion can be cut out of the government and no one would ever feel any adverse effects from it, so all this baloney about the only place to cut is Social Security and such is just that, baloney.
It’s about politicians wanting to preserve their jobs and bankrupt the country. I’ll think they’re serious when they have the same health coverage as everyone else has.
I have said for year that smoking should be treated like liquor consumption.
Just as a bar or trendy eatery has to have a liquour license make them have a smoking license. If you have the license then your patrons can smoke anywhere inside. If you don’t they don’t. Make the licensing fee high enough that the owner has to think about it but not so high that nobody would buy it.
Then require establishments to simply post a sign that says “This is a smoking establishment” otherwise it would be a non-smoking place.
If you don’t want to be arround ciggarette smoke, don’t go in.
That is a better option than smoking bans IMO
Redteam,
My Dad is an example of someone who smoked until he was about 60 and then quit. Still kicking at 89.
It is definitely not good to smoke. Nor is to drink, or do lots of things. But it is not the role of government to tell us what we should do.
It is amazing has rapidly the Democrats and the left has fled the Center. All victories in politics come from the center. My beef with true conservatives is that they have given up on the art of persuasion. The right has to persuade the center that their policy prescriptions are correct.
The biggest mistake the “true conservatives” have made this last twenty years (Limbaugh included) is trying to persuade the leftists, socialists, nanny state bureaucrats, instead of concentrating their arguments on the center.
They destroy the centrists (Castle) and argue with the left, when they should try to work with and persuade the center and destroy the left. They major in the minors and minor in the majors.
Paul Ryan seems to be the only guy who gets it.
I occasionally enjoy a good cigar. I haven’t had one in about five or six months though. I despise cigarettes. They’re nothing if not disgusting. That said, those who like to smoke should feel free to do so. It’s their lives, not mine. So long as they don’t try to impose thier lifestyle on me, I’m perfectly happy with their decisions.
“I occasionally enjoy a good cigar.”
There’s a Bill Clinton joke in there somewhere!
From Dr. Sanity nails it! …
One reason I’m a Republican is that, while we may be cursed with a few of those she describes, the Democrats seem absolutely infested with them.
AJ: A few days ago I wrote to you about a problem where, whenever I attempted to log in, instead of getting the input panel for writing in a comment, I got “You must be logged in to comment”.
Well, I’ve since noticed that happens with Firefox in its noprmal mode. If I toggle it to IE mode, no problem.
FYI
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