Smokers compare themselves to Jews under the 3rd Reich
Friday, January 11th, 2008 - 6:33pm
It's pretty hard to offend me, but this comes pretty close. I wonder, how many Jews do you think told the SS, "I'm going to quit being Jewish, really! I'm going cold turkey! See? .... See?" Wonder how that worked out for them.
I'm not a smoker but I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that do obnoxious, irritating things. I'm not too upset about the plight of the Movie Theatre Cell Phone Guy, or the Tailgating SUV Driver either.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
All of them?
Smoking is a choice. I think the only people who can compare themselves to Jews under the 3rd Reich were Jews under the 3rd Reich.
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Every last one.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
At risk for saying something contreversial (sic), smokers gas themselves very.. slowly.. there is no need for persecution.
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Horror Vacui
Everyone knows the Nazis were the worst kind of liberals....
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Exactly.
Elysium: The democratization of the web ... has installed an illusion of a digital first amendment that protects speech no matter how poorly spelled or stupid.
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I wonder if the Nazis thought they were getting lung cancer by standing next to Jews.
This is the internet! In our natural environment, atheists run in packs and have dictionaries! --- JoeBeDurndurn
As a smoker I consider myself a Gypsy thank you.
Prederick wrote:
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis.
So you freely admit to shanking people in the lungs?
This is the internet! In our natural environment, atheists run in packs and have dictionaries! --- JoeBeDurndurn
That and also "Gyping" them of their lives.
Prederick wrote:
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis.
I try not to smoke around people or litter buts on the street. I try to cut down. I try to relate my posts to the subject at hand. I don't too try hard.
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(I hate badies)
So is religion.
These guys are ignorant of history, too. The Nazis banned smoking in public places and heavily restricted tobacco use and trade. In other words, if you lived in Nazi Germany and you were a smoker, you were *already* discriminated against!
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
So is random commentary.
Prederick wrote:
"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis.
While I despise most anti-smoking laws (though I am no longer a smoker myself), I would certainly agree the attempted analogy is rather stupid and falls on its face.
The fact that the shirt may have broken laws makes me wonder yet again how much the German goverment really 'learned' from that particular disaster.
Looks like I picked a good day to be too busy to read Twitter. So much bitching, you'd think people forgot how to use the back button -- Certis
I dont think it was random, but based on a bit of confusion.
The word "Jewish" can have at least two connotations: "being of the Jewish religion" and "being ethnically Jewish". I know what was taught in my history classes while in the public education system never bothered to point this out, and it would have been fairly easy to come away the Nazis were going after those who believed in the Jewish faith. In that case, it is easy to see how one migh try to argue that the Holocaust victimes died because they chose to be Jewish. The argument would still be false, but not random.
Looks like I picked a good day to be too busy to read Twitter. So much bitching, you'd think people forgot how to use the back button -- Certis
I generally tend to think that smoking by-laws are just government's attempt to legislate personal behavior but an analogy like this is ridiculous. I think smokers are unfairly treated yes but that comparison is out to lunch.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
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The anti-smoking laws are public health laws, just like anti-spitting or emergency quarantine laws. They are not born of a desire to control the individual, but rather to protect.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
EDIT: Nope, never mind. Not going to get into this pointless argument again.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
Nothing new to this question, but I'm curious what people think, and I'm asking honestly:
At what point does the value of protecting the public conflict with someone's right to make potentially harmful decisions for themselves?
A key secondary question is, what is the definition of protecting the public?
Things I've seen some people consider under protecting the public include:
- Protecting people from the second-hand smoke generated by a smoker.
- Protecting people under the same insurance plan from higher premiums generated by someone causing damage to themselves.
- Protecting the public from the cost of emergency room care for uninsured people engaging in damaging behavior.
- Protecting people from being exposed to the results of an accident (non-helmeted motorcyclist getting splattered, for example).
In the name of such protections, is there any restriction which is too onerous? If so, what?
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I disagree. Jewish is not a race, it is a religion. It is not biologically inherited, you can be born to jewish parents and not be jewish. You can change your name to 'Smith' and go to Catholic church and no one would ever know your parents were jewish. You cannot be born to black parents and not be black.
What is the famous Supreme Court Justice quote? Something like "Your right to punch your fist ends at my nose"? You can do whatever you want, until it affects someone else. If smoking had no effect on other people, then I bet there would be no bans.
Everything anyone does affects other people. Lines must be drawn, or we'd have prisons full of teenage girls arrested for noise complaints. If social welfare programs are considered, almost every poor choice (potentially) negatively affects taxpayers.
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As Staats says, this is at the heart of my question. Any dietary or health or exercise choice someone makes for themselves (to better or worsen their health) has an impact on other people, through cost of healthcare, or insurance premiums, or a hospital bed taken up, or passing on problems to their children, etc.
So, given this, is there any food or healthcare choice that should not be subject to government control for the public good?
I want to reiterate that this is an honest, probing question: I'm trying to figure out where a limit should be, if any, and what the impact on society will be if we take this "until it effects someone else" philosophy literally. If we don't take it literally, then what are the limits?
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Here's my problem with the government's whole protection argument: If they were truly concerned about eliminating tobacco's potentially harmful effects on people, they would ban it, not tax it higher than nearly any other product while also telling smokers they're bad people. They'll never do that though because as "bad" as those smokers are, they also generate boatloads of tax money. And every time some more quit, they raise the taxes higher to keep the revenue levels the same from those that remain. It's hypocrisy defined. If a government is that concerned, then they need to ban it or shut the Hell up and let people live how they choose. I'm pretty sure that's what freedom means. And as Deadron said, everything people do has potentially negative effects on other people, some of which are more wide-reaching and more detrimental that cigarette smoke. Unless we want government running out lives and literally banning everything we enjoy, they we need to accept that there are things in the world we won't like or start living in bubbles. I don't smoke, never have and I don't particularly like cigarette smoke. I also do think there are certain public places it shouldn't be allowed but a private property owner should be free to do what he wants and let his customers decide whether its OK. Whether or not you accept the presented evidence on second-hand effects (which I still consider questionable but I know most don't), it's only the current thing to hate and while all attention remains focused on that, a number of other detrimental things are ignored.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
The limits can be determined by a cost-benefits analysis. Smoking clearly costs both the smoker and others in pretty serious ways, everything from the cost of the cigarettes themselves to medical care. As you go down to things like lead solder in cans, transmission of TB and influenza by spitting, fake medicines and quack treatments, lead paint removal, stuff like that, you can see that there's a balance between the severity and distribution of the threat with the cost of mitigation. Eventually you get down to things like trans-fat bans in restaurants. I can see it in packaged snacks, since there are alternatives, but restaurants? I don't know about that. Seems like it's more trouble than it's worth.
So the limits are defined by comparing the prevalence of the problem, the cost of response to it if left in place, the cost of remediation (including social responses) and the benefits of remediation. Your question implies that government never does this analysis, but that's absolutely not true. Look at how long it's taken to get cigarette bans in public places and you'll see it's an issue that's been considered and debated for decades, despite the obvious and pervasive health effects.
Put another way, if it were some kind of knee-jerk attack on personal rights, there'd have been no debate.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
I'd like to reiterate this probably under-considered aspect of the argument: When we choose to better our own health, it is possible we are having a negative impact on others. At the extreme, if I get a life-saving liver transplant, that's one less liver available for you. If in response to people who believe that organic food is healthier, farms convert from high-yield crops to low-yield crops, that increases the cost of food for everyone else.
So it's important in this debate to remove the "bad people" aspect from the calculation. It's not whether the perpetrators are bad people (as we all know those awful smokers must be), it's what to do when a person's personal decisions have a potentially negative impact on others, and when and where we decide the limits are.
To reverse the usual thinking and add another angle to this: When should the government be able to keep you from improving your health because it has a negative impact on others?
If it's dead, it's probably me.
If it's my blog, it's probably here.
I'm not attempting to imply that at all. I'm wondering what people feel are the limits. What are the assumptions in the cost/benefit analysis?
Is it pure number of lives saved?
If it's dead, it's probably me.
If it's my blog, it's probably here.
That's just off the top of my head, but I think it's a start.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
As a practical example, consider eating raw oysters. Should companies be required to take steps to detect and eliminate Vibrio infected oysters, or is that not really a public health concern? Here's the FDA's study on that, complete with risk analysis and explanation of all the steps.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Okay, but that's very vague for me. Let's try to get to some specifics.
Given that definition, do you feel the removal of the drug Pemoline (known as Cylert) from availability falls under this cost/benefit analysis? This drug helped narcoleptics, but thanks to the efforts of Ralph Nader it was removed.
Here is a summary from Wikipedia:
In some patients Pemoline is suspected of causing hepatotoxicity, so regular liver tests are performed on those treated with it. Since receiving FDA approval in 1975, it has been linked with 21 cases of liver failure, of which 13 resulted in liver replacement or death. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) withdrew approval for pemoline due to pressure from certain public advocacy groups, including Public Citizen. The patient support group "Narcolepsy Network"[2] tried to persuade the FDA not to ban it, on the grounds that some patients find all other treatments ineffective or to have debilitating side effects. The medication was used by an estimated 10,000 Americans afflicted with narcolepsy. A more potent analogue of pemoline, 4-methylaminorex has appeared as a black market drug with abuse potential similar to methamphetamine.
In March 2005, Abbott Laboratories (Cylert marketer) had discontinued the production of Cylert arguing economic reasons.
Is 21 cases of liver failure sufficient such that the government should prevent narcolepsy sufferers from improving their lives?
I know about this because a friend of friends, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden, is directly impacted.
As for raw oysters, I have no issue with having some standards for food that a company provides, such that it doesn't poison people, as long as it isn't taken to an extreme (which also happens and I can look up examples if necessary). I'm more interested in more direct cases of government intervention in people's lives and when that is or isn't appropriate.
If it's dead, it's probably me.
If it's my blog, it's probably here.