Comments on: Huchabee: Federal Smoking Ban?

By: Aubrey

Aubrey — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:22:09 +0000

Paul Walter,

When I started smoking, I did so of my own, fully informed, volition. That might make me more ignorant for doing so; but, I made the decision to do something dumb. I wasn’t duped into it or suckered. It was also my choice to quit smoking and correct the mistake.

As for the crack, dope, and speed type drugs…I’m not entirely sure of my opinion on this one. If there were no welfare, no gov’t subsidized rehabs or clinics, etc….why not legalize these drugs? I am a believer in the survival of the fittest…maybe we should let users have the freedom to choose to do any drug they want IF we are free to let them pay the piper.

By: Aubrey

Aubrey — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:11:31 +0000

Jan Paul,

Yes, of course. Freedom of choice, freedom from dictated liberties. I absolutely believe in the Republic; issues like abortion should also be banned or allowed a the state level.

By: paul walter

paul walter — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 04:05:06 +0000

Aubrey where is “freedom”, when the precondition of access to the appropriate material for an informed choice is denied?
Smoking was actually endorsed by corrupt elements in control able to “manufacture consent”,for several generations.
The doco I told you about offered examples from the ‘fifties involving Lucky Strike and Philip Morris claiming cigarettes wee actually GOOD for your health. And this AFTER the first scientific doubts about smokes and health were presented in private to them.
Since that time we know the tobacc oindustry has worked overtime using big money to lobby government to steer clear of allowing a presentation of facts or take responsible action over what is demonstrably a poison in need of regulation rather than a harmless pastime.
If you see your kid in her crib playing with a big spider, do you remove her from harms way or allow her her “freedom”, until the bastard bites her?
When I took up smoking it was on a lie. I wasn’t sold the product it was claimed by the vendor I was buying.
I do not trust the tobacco industry. I am forced by their bad faith into the default of self defence mode for my own well being until I know other wise and if that means joining with others to set up places where I can breathe fresh air; so be it!
So you stay on your property and smoke yourself silly; you are free to do that.
Likewise, I am free to choose not to smoke and associate with others also interested in their own and their communities health, so in the end
everyone’s freedom is attended to.
A thought. What if we extended the basic “freedoms” enjoyed by alcohol consumers and tobacco smokers to crack smokers, dope smokers, speed freaks and junkies”?

By: JohnKonop

JohnKonop — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:29:55 +0000

SgtMac

PRO KILLING KIDS VIA SECOND HAND SMOKE!

By: Jan Paul

Jan Paul — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:21:47 +0000

Freedom from what?

If you want freedom from federal government intervention, great.

However, since all societies, especially self-governing societies have to have government, shouldn’t the people of that society (as local as possible to infringe on the fewest as possible) have the freedom to have the type of government they want?

That way, the people of “Podunk” can be as liberal or as conservative as they want without forcing “Dufusville,” to be the same. The people in each community have “freedom of choice” as to the kind of place they will live in and, the people in and around those communities will have the “freedom of choice,” as to which of those communities they will live in.

That was what our founders created. They knew you can never be “fair” to all people but, the more choices they have, the freer they are to be able to choose who they live among. While one will choose “Podunk” another will choose “Dufusville.” Both have been able to exercise their freedom to choose and live how they want to live.

Thus, we have “zoning” in cities where some businesses or some structures aren’t allowed while in the very same city, other zones allow them. Again, freedom of choice has to be at the level closest to the people in each area. That is why our founders feared a centralized government so much. It tends toward a “one-size-fits-all” society that ends up being “unfair,” to more than not.

By: Aubrey

Aubrey — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:09:32 +0000

Paul and Jan (Walter and Paul, respectively [ha ha]),

Like was earlier stated, it is not govt’s job. I’m a former smoker and I HATE the smell of cigarette smoke now; but, it is not my nor the govt’s place to tell where you can or cannot smoke. Or even if you can, for that matter. (Australia may be different, of course.)

To me, the issue here isn’t about health so much as it is about freedoms.

By: SgtMac

SgtMac — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:38:16 +0000

Jan Paul - LOL!!

Oddly, you’re probably right about needing MORE smokers. If we let our illustrious legislators pass SCHIP, people will give up smoking in droves, thereby eliminating the funding source of their socialist plan.

The REAL answer to all of these issues are free markets and personal responsibility.

Everyone knows smoking and “second hand” smoke is unhealthy. We don’t need government sticking its big nose in our business.

Every time they enact another law, we lose a little freedom. It’s precisely what the Founders warned against!

VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM IN ANY FORM! VOTE FOR PATRIOTS LIKW CHIP ROGERS!

By: Jan Paul

Jan Paul — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:12:14 +0000

Suppose you had a collapsing social security and Medicare system and people were going to live for 35 years on average (that is the current projection for “boomers” approaching retirement. (due to child mortality rates no longer applying to that group)

Ending “cigarettes” and “2nd hand smoke,” may mean 45 years, not 35 years that they draw from the systems.

No the solution is get everybody smoking and dying sooner. Somebody needs to get kids in grade schools a “smoking room” so they can smoke and die sooner. We can’t have all these people living for 35 years and longer off our trust funds.

The hospitals, clinics, drug manufacturers will all be overloaded with old fogies if we don’t stop trying to end smoking and 2nd hand smoke. Funeral homes will go out of business with not enough people dying to keep them all busy.

Nope, more, not less smoking is needed.

By: paul walter

paul walter — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:59:56 +0000

Aubrey, people have been saying that up till a decade or few years ago and quite rightly. From the day I took up smokes behind the sheds at school, in defiance of the teachers back in the Marlboro Man era, I was glad to tell do-gooders where to get off, too.
But as a Canadian doco I saw on TV tonight ( yep, fair dink! ) made clear, since the ‘fifties there has been a problem in getting the truth out about tobacco addictiveness and toxicity, right down to the very here and now.
Momentum has swung against the thing not only as socially acceptable but as a pastime that has much legal future at all in advanced countries- can’t smoke’em anywhere where its fun anymore!
As the doco made clear, clamp downs on cigarettes are occuring not just Stateside but everywhere in the West. In my own city of Adelaide, Australia, they just bought in a stack of new laws last week further limiting where they can be sold and smoked here, too.
Rather, the tobacco giants now know that market growth occurs in the Third World and no longer expect an easy life in the advanced countries.
But if we collectively and individually want to survive in the real world after recent decades of extravagance, we have to do make do without uneconomic and toxic luxuries and punt for growth and learn to make do with the satisfactions that accomplishing things might bring us, if we care. Because it might be the price of freedom ( as opposed to luxury ) and survival in a new world.

By: SgtMac

SgtMac — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 16:20:50 +0000

John the Constitutionalist - As usual, your cut and past ability is far better than your facts.

I know this may difficult for you, but please provide the death numbers I asked for on both points. I know you have difficulty staying on point, so I’ll give you another chance. Please don’t cut and paste more “estimates of this and that” by different organizations.

It may interest you to know that I DON’T smoke. Of course I shouldn’t have expected you to pick up on the obvious sarcasm regarding “my cigars.”

Let me see if I understand your Konopian Logic; on the one hand, you support SCHIP, a clealy UNConstitutional piece of legislation, but you don’t support the very means by which your socialist pals plan to fund it - Tobacco sales. That leads to an interesting question John the Constitutionalist, how do you propose we fund the UNConstitutional legislation if you plan to put further taxes and restrictions on your funding source? Hmmm……Your logic is THE perfect example of your socialist (Read: Konopian) logic.

VOTE AGAINST SOCIALISM!