Dick Puddlecote puts it better than me:
What we really need, of course, is a 'Keep Your Big Fat Interfering Nose Out Of Other People's Business Day', but there's no cash for fake charities in that idea.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
No Smoking Day!
Dick Puddlecote puts it better than me:
What we really need, of course, is a 'Keep Your Big Fat Interfering Nose Out Of Other People's Business Day', but there's no cash for fake charities in that idea.
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31 comments:
Aye, bollocks to the lot of them. Now where did I put my lighter....
I gave up smoking 20 a day 5 days ago
It really hurts when I cough
I have been up all night in hot and cold sweats from withdrawal
Giving up aint cool
My lungs feel like they are on fire
Oh if only i could have just one.....nooooooo
Whilst I do agree that anyone walking up to you and demanding you stub it out is a cheeky bastard and I'd probably tell em where to stick it too (Although I am all for a ban on public smoking) I have to say, nothing wrong with a no smoking day IMO.
Anything that may stop one kid from taking up the habit is fine by me.
I do wonder sometimes, would the smokers who stand up to be counted on a day like today pass a 13yr old on the street who was puffing like steam engine and smile thinking 'good on them'? or would they frown and consider saying something because of the day?
You should see the kids hanging about the smoking areas outside colleges.
Coz smoking is cool innit?
I have to laugh at those smoking areas as they look like bus stops.
You're all for a ban on public smoking Hitch? How disappointing. Do you enjoy putting on your own chains?
I stopped smoking over 6 years ago, then started again last year. For me, I didn't want to smoke and have stopped again over two weeks ago, for good this time.
However, one thing that pisses me off is the whole anti-smoking attitude. It pissed me off when I was a smoker and it still gets on my tits. If people want to smoke, then why not? How dare they be told what to do? Just because I don't want to smoke, doesn't mean I'm against other people smoking.
Still, it's only another ten hours till World Kidney Day
Socialism in all its glory and a complete failure to understand the essence of Martin Niemöller’s poem.
Those who drink, or eat fatty or salty foods are next for 'de-normalization', control, punitive taxation then an eventual ban. Maybe people will start to really squeal when governments start suggesting controls and bans on computer games, when the Tesco political officer is checking in their trolly to be sure they've bought their regulation five-a-day, or coffee and tea are listed as addictive drugs.
Sigh.
Yes I am Neal, for one simple reason. I don't enjoy breathing in smoke and don't see why I should have to.
To date I have never met a smoker in the street who cares where his shit is going, if I pass one they seem to always manage to blow it right in my face. This isn't nice mate, trust me.
I don't care what smokers do in there own home, however in public I fail to see why non-smokers should have to deal with it. I don't go around making them gasp by breathing clean air on them, I'll be damned if I want to cough back any crap thrown my way by them.
BTW, you knew this from the last discussion where I defended the right of the smoker to do wtf he wanted in his own abode :)
Mark: It pisses me off too, however it also pisses me off that people think they have a right to do wtf they want regardless of other people.
All I hear from smokers are 'we have the right to smoke', yeah sure ya do, guess what, I have the right to not breathe your smoke. Now in a private household I have a choice, go in or not, the smoker can tell me to fuck off if I complain and would be in the right to do so, however it is a simple truth that smoking in public can be annoying and disgusting.
In public a smoker has a choice to smoke, even the most arduous addict can survive long enough to go the shops, I however have to breathe. If I could hold my breathe for an hour or two perhaps I wouldn't care, I can't.
Do you drive a car, Hitch, forcing people to breathe your fumes? Do you think a law should be made to force people with BO to wash? I mean those are fumes and smells. Perhaps ugly people should be forced to wear bags? How about we introduce laws stopping people saying things we don't like (oops, to late, already done).
The point here is that it is up to you to complain. Reneging on that and crying 'something must be done' is precisely what control freaks in government love to hear. And every time someone says that they give up just a little bit more personal freedom. Government should not be there to cater to your personal likes and dislikes; to ban something because you find it 'annoying and disgusting'.
Personally I find righeous anti-smokers annoying and disgusting. Should they be banned?
it's not just annoying and disgusting, neal as you wrote in response to hitch - it's poisonous and guaranteed to kill you eventually. if it wasn't taxed so highly it would have been outlawed 50 years ago when they actually started investigating the dangers of smoking and then we wouldn't have 'this' conversation.
i hate smoking, i hate my son being exposed to it, but we both get lungfuls of it everytime we open our front door - why? - because our degenerate (for other reasons) neighbours smoke like chimneys and it permeates EVERYTHING.
No I don't drive. I am 43 and never learnt... however, the GF can but we do not own a car. We have looked at cars though and always we look at the hyrbids because we do think about what things may get damaged if we choose to drive. Bear in mind we also live in Norway and though I am English born I fit in here well. We do recycle, we do use hydro electricity and whatever else we can do that will help.
As for the ugly people comment. Expanding an argument into the ridiculous does not help the cause. I do not see an Orwellian future just because smoking may get banned in public. Drinking got banned in public yet we still drink. Taking drugs (not beer or smnoking) is illegal but we do not have CCTV in every room of the house.
I have seen your arguments against the fear mongering that is climate change, yet you use the same tactic to protect smokers, why? Because this time its personal? Its personal to me too that I do not cough on the acrid smoke of someone elses habit. Its not a bad thing to say what I do, it is like yours, a personal preference.
I don't understand why you think I am suddenly righteous. What is righteous about caring what I breathe in, or what my daughter or family breathes in? I do not demand you stop smoking, I only ask that you don't do it in my face when passing you by? Who exactly is being righteous here?
If a drunken man accosts you at restaurant while you eat food with you family and starts regaling you with his life story and breathing fumes all over your wife, do you sit there and offer him food whilst he puts you off yours? Do you fuck, you tell him to fuck off and call him a drunken idiot who should go home. You may even punch him.
Is it the same? Kinda... It is an extreme but then again you just essentially called me a righteous bastard for daring to speak out against smokers even though I defended your right to do WTF you wanted when it harms nobody else.
BTW in answer to your last question, yes, they should. Anyone who clearly has issues dealing with other people should be banned, goes for both sides of the coin though mate.
Side Question:
As it stands right now, would smoking be banned in the Polity? Unless I am mistaken anything that harms others is not allowed but beyond that anything goes?
Right now it is more certain that smoking can harm others than not. In your own universe would it be allowed or not? Given current medical trends.
Amazing the blindspots revealed by personal prejudice. You don't mind that you've been lied to about 2nd hand smoke, you don't mind that fake government-funded charities have lobbied for the politically correct line, you don't mind the thousands of pubs put out of business, just so long as those disgusting smokers are kept away.
Incidentally, Jebel, did you know that without close examination a pathologist cannot distinguish a smoker's lung from a non-smokers. Yet, apparently, it takes just a glance to distinguish a city dweller's lung from the lung of someone who lives in the country.
Did you also know that the only 2nd hand smoke study to come up with something revealing (before they moved the goalposts) was the one showing a higher resistance to lung cancer in the children of smokers?
Ponder on these.
actually i've held a smokers lung, (and a non-smoker's) and - trust me - you can EASILY tell the difference way before it gets to tactile feedback... not to mention the known effects of nicotine in your system, particularly on your nerve fibres and transmitters.
there's government lobbyists and fake charities for everything. the government doesn't need reasons to take away your privacy - when they want to they just invent stuff and do it anyway - these days they get away with it most of the time...
surely you can see that the matter of pubs closing is not just linked to social smoking - what about the prevalence of cheap supermarket alcohol, or the shift to drinking @ home, particularly amongst the young (and in a lot of cases too-young) crowd? it's not a black and white, cause and effect thing - as you should know from the global warming rubbish.
it doesn't surprise me there's a higher resistance to lung cancer in 2nd generation exposed families - the body will build a natural tolerance to a lot of things given time - some people in japan lived in once-high radiation zones, too - that doesn't mean it should be encouraged, especially as the long-term genetic changes are unknown (hell according to one repost i saw it takes a million years for proper adaptation to a new diet in horses...).
Okay, that lung one might be apocryphal, Jebel, or more likely that the smoker's lung you held was one with a smoking related disease (I'm not denying them).
But pub closures? Go google the rate of pub closures before the ban and then directly after it. You'll find that it went from about 4 a week before the ban to about 30 a week after it.
Hey, maybe you all wonder why I get a bit vitriolic. Could it be
years of being de-normalized; of being considered dirty and disgusting and lower than a heroin addict? Or watching pubs being closed down by anti-smokers who claimed they were being driven out by the smokers but who, once the smoking ban came in, failed to turn up and claim their places in those pubs?
Whatever, you're all still missing the Niemoller point.
I hardly think that First They Came applies to smoking! Invoking FTC on any regulation is a spurious argument, otherwise I could say
"First they came for the Chavs,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a chav.
Then they came for the racists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a racist.
Then they came for me with tesco basket inspectors and bathroom CCTV,
Conclusion: protect chavs"
Personally I don't care if people smoke in public, I never really find that smoking outside results in that much second hand but I am a supporter for encouraging people not to smoke. Whilst I'm all for personal choice if your choice results in draining medical services then you should definitely be discouraged.
First off, Ryan, it doesn't deplete the medical services since the tax revenus from smoking is larger than what is spent on smoking related diseases. Second, though anti-smoker cite figures about the cost to the NHS of smoking, they conveniently forget to cite what smoking DOES NOT cost the NHS i.e. smokers tend to die younger so do not stack up huge costs in OAP homes. In fact, they cost the NHS less than non-smokers.
And really, your take on Niemoller is fatuous.
Ah but the tax revenue on smoking doesn't necessarily relate to an increase in funds to the NHS. But I wasn't talking just about money, it's also hospital space and contact time.
I'm willing to admit that perhaps smokers do cost less money and time to the health services on average however I would still discourage smoking.
I fail to see how my take was any more fatuous than your assertion that No Smoking Day will lead to 1984 Britain.
Non smoking day! Ha! Big fun! Roll another one! Sigh, what's next....Smoked all my life, 30 something a day untill my lungs started squeaking. I had to stop, the misses was all worried about me, I am 64,such a pity no? Just smoke in the holidays now, works out fine, work in a school, so many holidays hahaha! no problem stopping, not at all, it's all in the mind.
No seriously, Hitch from Norway: what is a public place? you don't mean the street or the park do you? (Sorry but I am Dutch so my English is not so good at times....) but if you do, come on man, get a life, what will really make you sick is having to carry these thoughts in your mind, stress induced by frustration is so much more hazardous than a relaxing smoke. But then again you are excused, you live in Scandinavia, a friend of mine lived there, has some children, likes to smoke a little Maria Juana, social police found out, told him: no more smoking Maria Juana or we will take your children away and put them in a home, really....! He is wiser now, lives in Amsterdam...Sorry, I am loosing track again, must be all the smoking I did...One thing I know for sure, all these fanatic anti smoking people are really frightening me, whenever I meet them they give me the chills,they think it is about smoking but it is not, it is something else deep inside them, once we all stopped smoking they move on to the next issue and the next.....know your history!!! because if you don't one day blinded vans will ride the streets again, inside the vans will be people with long leather coats and dark glasses, they will knock on your door at 6 am and tell you that you have 5 minutes to pack your things, beware beware :)
good smells for everyone everywhere. "bad" ones for those that need them. Dow chemical to-> smokin joes, please enjoy, away from me.
usually position my person so people can go to an exit rather than seal off a room and hold in confinement when we are together. smoking, gasoline, & too much diesel fumes gives me nausea or headaches. ya, i avoid that shit like U2 concerts.
Japan used to be unbearable especially at the clubs. people chain smoke constantly and i had to stand out in the cold until shoetime.
the more illegal the drug the more sneaky people become to attain the habit.
2nd hand smoke: even the pomp and kneejerk Bullshit (tv show) apologized about false claims from 2nd hand smoke damage. hope you're not basing a corner of your arguement on that dim tripe and the b.s. they pulled the program together with. they (often) cull up facts from decades ago to hit home their points, often pointed pieces setting well on their heads and nowhere else.
there's a lady in Davis who can set you straight with some REAL facts. she is phenomenal in her research:
Kathy Friebertshauser did this study. heres a snip:
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/cdi/2003/943181/abs/
The amusing thing here is that had smoking never taken hold in the world tobacco would just have been considered a type of vegetation that emits a particular smell when burnt. Almost certainly there would have been shops offering tobacco-scented candles and joss sticks, perhaps herbal remedies in which it is included and maybe stimulating tobacco teas. Of course you won’t see that because the demonization of the plant, and the de-normalization of the people who smoke it, is almost complete. And of course the frightening thing is seeing how those who think smoking is disgusting (?) and dirty (completely sterile) don’t realize how effectively they’ve been brainwashed by government, fake charities and the likes of the BBC.
A couple of quotes from over at
http://underdogsbiteupwards.blogspot.com/
"Easter was, of course a Pagan fertility festival before Christianity arrived. Hence the eggs and the rabbits, both notably absent from any of the Gospel accounts of the Crucificion. There has never been any translation that included the line 'And lo, while the Saviour hung on the cross, the very rabbits came forth from the warrens under Calgary and offered unto him chocolate eggs'. Nope. Didn't happen. Or maybe it did and the disciples had a meeting afterwards and decided that some things were just pushing the envelope of credibility just that bit too far.
...
Finally, the obvious cards come into play. The blatant moves begin. National No Smokng day coincided with an event in the Christian calendar. Ash Wednesday. Now renamed ASH Wednesday. The new religion ousts the old by taking over its festivals. Same as it ever was."
Welcome to the new religion of the permanently offended righteous.
"And of course the frightening thing is seeing how those who think smoking is disgusting (?) and dirty "
it was cool and kool and all over the 'this guy is a bad ass, that girl is a sultry suavette.' as portrayed in media, and still is to an extent.
personally the white-toothed beauty i knew who stated smoking full time got the worst yellow teeth and the clothes became hard for me to be around after years of not being bothered by the body odor. no brainwashing.
"Welcome to the new religion of the permanently offended righteous."
you mean the smokers are getting permanently offended?
in THE WIRE's hometown people still go to the bars en masse, but there are speakeasys all over the city where people go to smoke and party. the unemployment is so deep there innovative entrepreneurs have popped up with canned beer and colored light bulbs. maybe England can take a cue. go underground.
Totally missed this blog post!
Just as well 'cos I would have been lambasted by one side of the other depending where, relative to the fence I was.
Mother used to tell me politics and religion caused arguments. Added smoking to that list.
8)
Amen Brother!
I think you could get smokers, drinkers, meat eaters, car drivers, etc. to support 'Keep Your Big Fat Interfering Nose Out Of Other People's Business Day'
They've already taken your guns, knives... and light bulbs. Whats next?
What's really the problem here? After all, you can buy all the tobacco you want, you can carry it anywhere you wish, you can smoke freely in any open space. The problem isn't that tobacco is being outlawed, no one is raiding your home checking for your stash, smokers don't go to jail or have criminal sentences haunting them for years, and there aren't blood tests looking for nicotine. The only thing happening is that you have slightly fewer places to indulge your habit. No one is dragging smokers off to prison, no libertarians are being killed, no one is "coming for you", smokers are nothing at all like Niemoller and anti-smoking laws are nothing like Nazi Germany.
Can we agree that it's just and even desirable to have laws which regulate what people do in public (eg: masturbating, drunkenness) even while allowing these same things in private? Can we agree that regulating which substances are in the air may serve a public good (eg: regulating asbestos or mercury)? I would guess that you would agree in principle so instead of talking concentration camps, can we just talk about whether some laws have gone too far or whether the evidence of harm is not sufficiently clear or dangerous? Maybe you think that the harm from smoking isn't great enough to warrant the cost of regulation, maybe you think the evidence isn't clear enough. That's fine and would be an interesting discussion but thumping on about burning people's eyes out and comparing the regs to a genocide isn't helping get any serious points across.
i'm ok with public masterbation. the naked duo in the Castro pretty much get ignored.
LOL! And some of the early philosophers used to try to shake people up by masturbating & defecating in the middle of streets so even these restrictions aren't universally agreed upon :)
I have some libertarian sympathies but I look at smoking cigarettes which can get people some nasty looks or a fine if they smoke in some buildings, and then I look at smoking pot which can get you imprisoned or killed in botched raids and I still think the rhetoric about tobacco is still wildly overblown.
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