How exactly does a student smoking on the opposite side of a street bordering the campus make the campus healthy,
That's easy.......then none of the "healthy" (read weak immune and hypochondriac) kidlets won't have to "smell" the smoke. Remember, just the smell alone will have them dropping dead.........the Surgeon General told them so (so do you most of the time).
And it's going too far because it has lost its grounding in science.
Your movement was never really "grounded" in science. You all just claimed it was. The rest of us living, breathing souls were/are living proof of your lack of "science".
Moreover, it appears to have lost any semblance of reason as well.
ANY semblance of reason that your movement MAY have had was thrown out the window at least 30 years ago.
Give it up Doc, face the facts that TC and public health are nothing more than bad jokes now. And you have no one to blame but yourselves.
Mike complains that "the anti-smoking movement is going too far" because an administrator at Montogemery College wrote (in a letter) that "it took immediate action after talking with neighbors," which Mike claims "is stupidity."
But Mike fails to explain what aspect of this situation that he perceives to be a problem, or to offer any suggestions to resolve whatever problem he perceives.
In the 1990's when I and others successfully campaigned for campus wide smokefree policies for K-12 schools, students similarly moved to adjacent sidewalks (across the street or school property line) to smoke.
These policy changes (along with some disrespectful smokers) resulted in affected neighbors complaining that students were trespassing on, and littering their lawns, with cigarette butts.
Others, who didn't like seeing a group of youths smoking across the street from schools, then joined forces with the tobacco industry in lobbying for laws to criminalize youth for possessing or using tobacco. In contrast, I was the most outspoken opponent of criminalizing youth for possessing or using tobacco (and was interviewed on CBS NEWS 60 Minutes about the issue in 1999).
During the past decade when healthcare facilities adopted campus wide smoking policies, employees and visitors similarly walk across the street to smoke.
The most effective way to resolve the problem of smokers trespassing and littering is to enforce existing laws against trespassing and littering.
And the most effective way to reduce the number of smokers going across the street to smoke on an adjacent public sidewalk is to raise taxes on cigarettes (which reduces demand for cigarettes) and to inform those smokers that far less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine products alternatives can be used anywhere anytime in the privacy of one's mouth.
Dr. Siegel: “It's not exactly clear to me how the Montgomery College becomes a healthy campus environment because the smokers who attend the college smoke on Mannakee Street or Rockville Pike rather than within the campus borders.”
Why, Doc, that’s a no brainer. The campus becomes healthy because they no longer have to worry about the accumulation of third hand smoke on the green, green grass of home. You know how these college kids are with grass.
Matt,
I am well past LOL with your post. I love your humor! I just picked myself up off the floor and with my cold, it hurts to laugh like that.
You know, there is only one answer to the college campus and the neighborhood's problem. Leave them alone. These are young adults. They are old enough to smoke, go to war and I bet they already have their alcohol stashed under their beds or packed away in their closets. It isn't hard for them to find someone to buy them their Bud Lite. The campus could start slow by giving them a smoking shelter and placing ashtrays out there for their use. Maybe a nice little sign suggesting that they empty ashtray before or after using would eliminate janitorial cleanup. These young adults are not stupid and they don't like being told what and when and where to do what they want to do. Chances are, this is their game, in hopes of the neighborhood getting so riled up they will insist that the campus allows smoking again.
This is not a problem for only smokefree campus's or hospitals either. I had the same problem in the neighborhood I live in now. We built in a new neighborhood complex and our house was the 3rd on the street to be completed. About a year after, I started finding butts in my front yard, down where the yard meets the end of the driveway and sidewalk. As a smoker, I was getting ticked with having to clean them up everyday. My husband blamed the construction workers and builders, but I wasn't so sure of that. One day while working in the yard, a man who had moved into his new home a few months earlier came walking down and stopped, introduced himself and we chatted about our new beautiful neighborhood. I remarked that it could be more beautiful if whoever was throwing their butts in my yard would stop as I as a smoker was getting tired of cleaning up after them. He told me that he "use" to smoke, but his wife made him quit and is insisting that he looses 30 pounds, which is why he goes out for several walks everyday. I looked down towards his house and judged the distance and the time that it would take to walk to my house and decided that he hadn't really quit smoking and the only reason he walks so many times a day was so to have a cigarette without his wife knowing what he was doing. I didn't accuse him, but instead I told him that I had no idea who was doing this but when I finished I would go get an ashtray and leave it on the front porch and I would hope that whoever would see it and use that instead of my yard. The ashtray was never used, but that was the last time I ever found a butt in the yard.
I wish butts were the only thing I found in my yard though. Last month, while preparing to hang the Christmas lights, we found an empty case of Bud lite hidden behind our air conditioner unit. I say empty, but the cans were all neatly put back in, after having been emptied. My guess is that some neighborhood kids got someone to buy them their beer and they walked the streets drinking them. Once they were gone they had to find someplace to get rid of them, after all, they couldn't very well hide them in mom and dad's recyclables! I didn't really mind, but I was sort of ticked that they didn't leave at least one full one for me, in payment for covering up for them!
Smoker control really doesn't care what human relations they destroy. Almost makes you want to cry.
But then, perhaps Dr. McCarthy moonlights as a divorce attorney.
http://www.parenting.com/article...hird-hand-
Smoke
On Call: Babies and Thirdhand Smoke
By Dr. Claire McCarthy, Parenting
Q. My father, brother, and husband all smoke. They don't do it in the house or anywhere near my 3-month-old, but you can still smell it on them and in the car. Could this hurt the baby?
A. I'm afraid so. The harmful chemicals in smoke seep into hair, skin, and clothes (which is what makes them smell so bad). This means that your baby can breathe in those toxins when, say, his dad cuddles him, or even when he's simply been where smoke has been. Chemicals that have gotten into furniture or car upholstery, which isn't often washed, may linger there for months, then be rereleased into the air for your child to inhale. Though scientists aren't sure how damaging these traces of toxic chemicals can be, even these small amounts seem to have the same effect as a low dose of secondhand smoke.
To minimize the risks, tell your husband to wash his hands as soon as he comes into the house after smoking -- in a perfect world, he'd shower and change, too. Ask your brother and father to bathe and put on clean clothes before they visit, and make sure they wash their hands before holding the baby.
I'm glad your family's not smoking around the baby, because that would be far worse for his health. Really, though, the only way for there to be zero risk to your baby is to make sure there are no smokers around him, period. Of course, this is easier said than done. But what better incentive to stop smoking than to keep their own child or grandchild healthy? Point out that quitting smoking sets a good example for your child down the road -- and greatly increases their chances of living long enough to see him grow up.
More good news for reducing youth smoking, as Onondaga (NY) County Council overrode the County Executive's veto of an ordinance that increases the minimum age for tobacco sales to 19 years.
http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/...bA.cspx?
rss=112
Amazingly and hypocritically, the groups that constantly complain about youth smoking (CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA)
still won't support laws that prohibit cigarette sales to high school seniors (and some juniors) who are 18.
The most effective way to resolve the problem of smokers trespassing and littering is to enforce existing laws against trespassing and littering.
And the most effective way to reduce the number of smokers going across the street to smoke on an adjacent public sidewalk is to raise taxes on cigarettes (which reduces demand for cigarettes) and to inform those smokers that far less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine products alternatives can be used anywhere anytime in the privacy of one's mouth.
Bill, you were doing well up to this point, and you wrap it up with the old call for...more oppression.
"Smokers trespassing and littering" makes it sound like smokers are trespassers. You know it isn't, but it puts it out there.
I see this as a lot like the 15- or 25-foot rules that would kick smokers out onto the street if followed to the letter. Anti-smokers are letting them get away with breaking the law for now, but it must be noted that they are not complying fully, and this should be taken into account when further bans are pushed for.
To minimize the risks, tell your husband to wash his hands as soon as he comes into the house after smoking -- in a perfect world, he'd shower and change, too. Ask your brother and father to bathe and put on clean clothes before they visit, and make sure they wash their hands before holding the baby.
Paranoia run amok? Severe hypochondria perhaps? They can't be serious!!!
Can anyone imagine taking a shower after every cigarette now? Seriously... third-hand-smoke THAT dangerous now, all of a sudden?
Unbelievable!
This has been mentioned several times, Godshall, but if a kid is old enough to get his ass blown off fighting for his country, then why is he to be denied the right to smoke? Answer that one simple question and I'll put a gold star on your forehead.
Harry,
Oddly -- if he IS in danger of getting his ass blown off -- he's exempt (re: Bill's link). Hmm... small price to pay for a smoke, I suppose...
"Active members of the military are exempt from the law"
********
Bill,
"Amazingly"? The last thing the Pharma-whores want is for people NOT to start smoking. Where's the profit in that?
The idea is for people to be in a never-ending round of smoking/quitting smoking. That way you alternate the tax profits and the NRT profits. Win-win -- right?
Sheesh! You and Michael sometimes act as if you don't know how the game is played.
"More good news for reducing youth smoking, as Onondaga (NY) County Council ...."
What's good for you in these news, Bill? How does this affect your life? Are you any happier now?
"... still won't support laws that prohibit cigarette sales to high school seniors (and some juniors) who are 18."
At what age will YOU reach maturity, Bill and take care of yourself instead of taking care of others. You really have nothing to brag about.
One of my fondest memories is of cuddling on my Grand-Pop's lap as he cut off chunks of smoked sausages, drank beer, smoked his pipe and told stories about "the old days". BTW- He lived to cuddle his first 8 great-grandchildren as well.
I often wonder about people who dislike the smell of tobacco smoke (or the smell of smoked sausage and beer). Did they not have nice Grand-pops?
"Mike complains that "the anti-smoking movement is going too far" because an administrator at Montogemery College wrote (in a letter) that 'it took immediate action after talking with neighbors,' which Mike claims 'is stupidity.'"
Checking that against what Dr. Siegel has actually written, I have to ask: Are you a complete illiterate, Godshall? You must be, because your level of comprehension seems to be on the level of a first-grader. You know, that doesn't go along very well with a third-rate mind.
"But Mike fails to explain what aspect of this situation that he perceives to be a problem, or to offer any suggestions to resolve whatever problem he perceives."
What problem? No problem. Just a bunch of crypto-fascist idiots playing TC war games.
Your mother should never have let you graduate out of short pants, Godshall.
.
We can disagree with Bill Godshall without having to issue a paragraph of sarcastic inults.
wow, second hand smoke--third hand smoke? if this is the case. Then why on earth are we debating why students have to move off campus to smoke. I think they should just stick all the students in the auditorium, and just make them all light up. They have to get their daily intake of plutonium 210 somehow!
I can't believe some of you buy into this crap, you might as well just mail your paycheck to the pharmaceutical companies.
There is absolutely no credible data to suggest that second hand smoke (LET ALONE 3rd) is dangerous.
What next, if i shook the hand of a smoker, and then go home and lay in bed, the person i'm laying next to could go into a coma!
This is crazy,
Tom Wing
President ShipSmokeOut
"Creating a peaceful coexistence between smokers and non-smokers"
Funny, many people have(had) fond memories of the smell of smoke on a loved one.
I frankly never noticed it. I was certainly aware that my mother smoked because I liked the package (non-filter camels). Once, at a train station, I actually noticed her smoking and made fun of her when she blew some out of her nose - giggled and told her she looked like a dragon. When my grandfather visited, I noticed he smoked the same brand but what really impressed me was funny clucking noises he could make to amuse me.
In college, if you got a roommate assigned, the smoking question was asked. I had several non-smoking roommates where apparently it was such a non-issue I never, ever had to "feel guilty." My best friend and I finally roomed together - she a reluctant non-smoker - now we know she had a "defective gene." She had a rug on loan from a relative, so I was requested not to spill anything that stained on it or accidentally burn a hole. This can often lead to bringing on an event, but in my case I succeeded (altho it was a pretty ugly rug).
My biggest problem as a smoker was people, not friends but acquaintances, who were saving money to get married, which was supposed to justify them bumming off of me.
Here's a copy of what I wrote at the end of another thread - sorry to those who saw it there.
"
Thank you Lynda for giving me something to actually do, voting for junkfoodscience (which I came upon through your blog a while ago and have been reading since).
I'm right now in almost a catatonic state of fury and frustration. The third-hand smoke propaganda and then finding out that the SCHIP bill includes (info from MJM) not only what we already knew but an 814% increase on loose tobacco. Apparently, that hasn't been given much attention since "only" 3% of smokers in the U.S. roll their own.
My sister thanked me a few days ago - she came upon her first pack of really vile readymades and remembered I'd warned her about something some time ago. So she called me to ask what it was I'd said - I also looked it up. Yes, FSCs are now in Okla. along with a few other states, merrily trying to punish and/or poison smokers one way or another. She still had 3 packs of pre-FSC to savor as a real treat from time to time. She's not great with online stuff, so I'll try to find out if there's any way to order.
And then - aside from the absurdity of funding children's healthcare from a theoretically diminishing source - What do we know about government's ideas of healthcare?
Forced mega-vaccinations, inoculations, Ritanolizations, psychotropizations, out-of-date nutritional advice, soon statinization, obesity patches, and more that I've blocked out. Of course, there will be the mandated bubble suit at some point.
I'm going to copy this over to the latest thread since I always seem to be the last commenter on an article and nobody reads it.
"
You call our quarrel with a guy who wants to tax us until we bleed to get us to quit smoking or squeeze us into some kind of smoking ghetto a "disagreement"?
Oh, is that what it is ...
.
Nice to see Tom Wing here. Many of us have been following your work and the work of others at other colleges in PA.
You might find this hard to believe but I can do you one better and I have the research to back me up.
First hand smoke is perfectly safe for healthy tobacco consumers.
Just for the record no one here, even those who are opposed to tobacco consumption, is buying the third hand smoke joke.
As I previewed this post I realized that you might not understand my sign off.
CASH is the Campaign Against Smoker Harassment
The smoke you can't smell deal is an asinine statement made by some Tobacco Control goof in Canada. To me it is descriptive of the loss of scientific credibility and integrity of the anti-smoker cartel.
Einstein really was a very heavy smoker and that fact puts the lie to the anti-smoker cartels contention that smokers are dumb.
Advocate for CASH
It's the smoke you can't smell that is the most dangerous.
Harry wrote:
"This has been mentioned several times, Godshall, but if a kid is old enough to get his ass blown off fighting for his country, then why is he to be denied the right to smoke?"
According to the news article I cited, folks in military service are exempt from the ordinance.
benpal wrote:
"What's good for you in these news, Bill?"
For the past 2 decades, I've been the most outspoken advocate for raising the minimum age for cigarette sales to 19, 20 or 21 years to reduce cigarette sales to high school students, who often resell them to younger high school students.
When the legal age for alcohol sales was increased to 21, alcohol consumption and drunk driving fatalities among youth declined significantly.
Since the vast majority of smokers become addicted when they are youth, raising the minimum age for cigarette sales above 18 can significantly reduce youth smoking.
diane wrote:
"This is not a problem for only smokefree campus's or hospitals either. I had the same problem in the neighborhood I live in now."
By littering, trespassing and exposing others to tobacco smoke pollution, it appears that a significant percentage of cigarette smokers have little or no respect for the rights of others.
Can anyone explain this?
It boggles my mind that Bill or even people in Syracuse thinks that anyone under 18 has no connections to anyone over the age of 19 who would be more than happy to purchase cigarettes for them. First of all, I had no problems getting them when I was 16 if I wanted them. Second, 16 year olds has no problems finding someone over 21 to buy their beer. The age for me to drink was 18 and I had a fake ID when I was 16. Third, this really is going to throw a wrench in those numbers when reporting youth smoking rates. Or is this really just a ploy so to say that they reduced the youth smoking rate? Bill, I wouldn't waste that lonely mind of yours, if I was you.
I just chalk it up to a wife who demands that her husband doesn't smoke. She is lucky she doesn't live with me as I would be telling her that as long as I pay the bills, then she knows what part of the body she can kiss! Still Bill, you didn't acknowledge my generosity of sitting an ashtray out on the porch for anyone to use!
"'This has been mentioned several times, Godshall, but if a kid is old enough to get his ass blown off fighting for his country, then why is he to be denied the right to smoke?'
"According to the news article I cited, folks in military service are exempt from the ordinance."
That’s a non sequitur.
“For the past 2 decades, I've been the most outspoken advocate for raising the minimum age for cigarette sales to 19, 20 or 21 years to reduce cigarette sales to high school students, who often resell them to younger high school students.”
Since when has that been a sufficient reason to deprive a person of his rights? That he MIGHT resell them to younger high school students? And high school students don’t seem to have any problem getting marijuana when they want it; do you really think that raising the age is going to have any effect at all in the case of a product as easily available as cigarettes? That’s just silly.
.
Amazingly and hypocritically, the groups that constantly complain about youth smoking (CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA)
still won't support laws that prohibit cigarette sales to high school seniors (and some juniors) who are 18.
No Bill, what's really hypocritical is your not wanting 18 year olds to make their own choices, but don't complain about sending them off to war to seriously chance being injured or killed.
IF you don't mind them picking up a gun to fight, then you have NO right to demand they not be allowed to buy a legal product.
YOU ARE the hypocrite.
Glaxo is building a huge new vaccine production facility in the middle of nowhere.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
b...accine_hub.html
It just happens to be a 30 minute drive away from the Hershey Medical Center.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
Could this be related to the clinical trials of the AAV-2 virus as a cure for cancer?
http://www.hmc.psu.edu/microbiol...y/AAV2/
AAV2.doc
"Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Six days is all it takes for a common, non-disease-causing virus to kill cervical, breast, prostate and squamous cell cancer cells in laboratory cultures, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.
“Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2), which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,” said Craig Meyers, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology, Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. “We believe that AAV2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent.”
Although not mentioned in this link at the time of this press release the AAV-2 virus had killed 6 different kinds of cancer cells 50 times in a row.
There are good reasons to keep this work very low profile. The initial press release resulted in a flood of inquiries from cancer patients and their families. And all I offer here is speculation.
But it is nice to speculate that the scourge of our age, cancer, may be easily cured in our lifetime.
Advocate for CASH
It's the smoke you can't smell that is the most dangerous.
We can disagree with Bill Godshall without having to issue a paragraph of sarcastic inults.
Yes, we could Stephen. BUT, where's the fun in that? I think we've all been rather polite and patient for years, and now we are pushed into a wall and you still expect we should say "thank you"?
While I agree with you, I also agree with Harry.
Godshall sits here insulting us on a regular basis. Just because he does it subtly and sneakily doesn't make it any less insulting, but I've yet to see you scold him.
Godshall sits here insulting us on a regular basis. Just because he does it subtly and sneakily doesn't make it any less insulting, but I've yet to see you scold him.
The way I look at it is, Bill enables other people to insult us. Heck, we read of transcripts of insults towards people in the supposedly civil confines of state legislatures. "I agree smoking is stupid, but people still have the right..."/"No, they don't have the right to endanger others recklessly."
Then everyday people can say "Why do they still smoke if... ...that's kind of stupid." But he can't *really* control them. He just influences public policy to turn against smokers and lets the truth take hold, or something.
Then, after his hard work he realizes...he deserves a little fun for himself! Good clean smoker-pollution-bashing fun!
It seems like the politeness equivalent of skimming off the top. He's forced smokers to be relatively politer, so if he gives a little impoliteness back, well, he's earned it. And I think that's incredibly demeaning of him to think that way.
That's what I see us as opposing. I wouldn't be surprised if he enjoys some of the less civil retorts. I know I try to think twice before posting. But the needling and insulting-without-insulting--well, sometimes we need to respond to it WRONG before we respond to it the right way. And so many people, out of politeness, don't bother with the wrong way, with no confidence it'll lead to something better.
That's enough for me to say, Bill is worth pushing back against. I recognize others may do so differently than myself.
A bit ranty and not sure whom I agree more with ultimately, you or Stephen or Harry, but maybe this rings a bell with some people.
"advocate for raising the minimum age for cigarette sales to 19, 20 or 21 years"
Bill, try harder, like 25, 30, 40 years, ...
What's in it for you? How does that improve your life, make your life happier?
"By littering, trespassing and exposing others to tobacco smoke pollution, it appears that a significant percentage of cigarette smokers have little or no respect for the rights of others.
Can anyone explain this?" - Bill.
Bill,
I can it's quite easy really.
It centres around the word pollution.
Take two Pubs I used to know before the UK smoking ban.
One proir to the ban was completly smoke free. It's called The Dorset. Now if I had
smoked in this pub prior to the ban, I would have polluted because I had no business smoking there. I also
would have littered because there were no ash trays anywhere and arguably these two actions would have counted as trespassing.
So far so good. However, this did not matter because before the ban I could walk for five minutes up the road to my favourite pub of all time
The Snowdrop. The Snowdrop had a small
non-smoking area and the rest of it was for smoking - it was a very popular Pub, a little gold mine. If I smoked in The Snowdrop, this would not count as pollution,trespass or littering because
I would be allowed to smoke, use ash trays and so did many other people - - it used to be a packed Pub It used to be
before this "Health" Act 2006, this act of trespass, this act of vandalism,this act of pollution made it change hands three times in the space of a year. Bill you
can buy this pub for a mere £475,000 which is less than half of its worth prior to the Ban. So if you fancy throwing your money down the drain , why not buy it?
So you see Bill I hope this explanation will suffice.
The Snowdrop, a pub that has given so many happy times to so many people and it is one of many reasons that I am going to spend the rest of my life decoupling Tobacco Control from the organs of the state.
And if my actions put people out of work - so be it.
They showed no mercy and no compromise, so I shall return the favour.
It's fair enough really.
It will take a long time but I have patience by the bucket load.
Harry inquired:
"Since when has that been a sufficient reason to deprive a person of his rights?"
Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke, nobody's rights are being deprived by establishing a minimum cigarette sales age of 19, 20 or 21.
More good news, as article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal cited Henry Waxman as saying that the US House is planning to vote on the SCHIP legislation next week.
The legislation might be on Obama's desk by the time sworn in.
Bill,
would that be the real or fake Obama?
Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke...
~Bill Godshall
Oh for goodness sakes. There's no constitutional right to blow your nose, either. Did you think the Founding Fathers would write in every little detail? Nearly all of them smoked, and if they knew what you & TC would be up to now, the right to smoke would be in there more than one, and persons who smoke would be a protected class.
Amendment IX.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Per Bill, "Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke... "
It is legal to grow your own tobacco for personal use.
http://www.ttb.gov/tobacco/
faq_a...swers.shtml#t11
"T16: If I grow tobacco, do I need a license or permit from the TTB?
TTB does not license, or require a permit for, growing tobacco."
The University of Florida is happy to help people learn how to grow their own tobacco.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AA260
"Many homeowners wish to grow a few plants of tobacco in their yard or garden for ornamental purposes or for personal use. Tobacco plants are usually no more difficult to grow than many other garden plants, but it is difficult to cure, age, and process tobacco without specialized facilities. As a result of federal legislation in late 2005, restrictions of commercial tobacco production to quota holders are no longer in effect."
You can buy tobacco seeds online here.
http://www.seedman.com/Tobacco.htm
The right to consume tobacco is an unenumerated right and it's existance can be clearly seen in the other unenumerated right to grow your own tobacco.
The government, at many levels, can make rules, enact ordinances, and pass laws to restrict where and when tobacco can be consumed but until they enact a total prohibition, like they did on alcohol, all citizens enjoy the legal right to grow and consume tobacco.
Advocate for CASH
It's the smoke you can't smell that is the most dangerous.
back to the third-hand smoke crap. maybe these questions have already been asked on another thread, but i haven't seen them. when a fireman has fought the fire, is the fireman covered with toxic third-hand smoke? should he/she be banished from society? what about sitting in front of a fireplace or camp fire? wouldn't i be covered in third-hand smoke? what about a chef in a kitchen cooking on a wood stove? i'm just curious. are these people toxic too?
brandz
Going back to the age limit to purchase cigarettes. Bill obviously thinks that upstate New York is just one big county. Sorry to inform you that any kid or young adult can drive less than half an hour in either direction and be out of that county and can purchase as many packs or cartons of cigs that they want. I haven't heard yet that store owners has to install GPS on their cash registers and check the buyers address before selling them. All it takes is $2 worth of gas and a joy ride in Dad's car! What an idiot! Sorry Stephen, but I call them as I see them!
I suspect Godshall has a little button he pushes (or perhaps someone pushes that little button lodged in his back), that vomits out in a squeaky voice, "There is no constitutional or legal right to smoke" whenever he's confronted with a question put to him by free citizens of a free republic trying to exercise their right to make free choices.
Ladyteal is exactly right. The Ninth Amendment was put in there to cover unenumerated rights when the fear of the framers was that if certain rights WERE enumerated in the Constituion (as was done in the Amendments), then other rights – all those many rights not unenumerated but that everybody took for granted -- would either have no value or be discounted. And that was the purpose of the Ninth Amemdment.
Or as Kayci wrote: " There's no constitutional right to blow your nose, either," which would allow Godshall, as executive director of “Citizens Against Nose-Blowing,” to champion a law forbidding the practice on the grounds that it wasn’t covered in the Constitution. (Maybe his next mission.)
We've been through this all before, and all Godshall is ever able to come up with is the same dim-witted response that you can teach the family parrot.
But here’s an interesting quote: “... there were those like Bill Godshall, whose rhetoric was filled with vitriol and hate.” – M. Pertschuk
Hard to believe, coming from a nice guy like Godshall.
.
Last time, Godshall:
My State Attorney General said everything that was legal prior to statehood, we have a right to do today (unless it's been outlawed). We have the (implied) right to smoke...and hunt and fish.
On cigarette butt litter:
My guess is it's a carryover from the filterless days when grinding out a cigarette on the ground eliminated the litter.
On you saying you're not for prohibition:
Raising the age to 19, 20, 21...; Exorbitant taxes; Smoking bans. All in the name to keep people from smoking. If you had your way, only old rich people who own their own homes would be able to smoke. And in time you'd come up with something for them.
And you're not a lobbyist either.
“It is unfortunate that a small number of students have created problems by smoking, hanging out and littering on or near neighbors' properties. When the college first became aware of this issue, it took immediate action after talking with neighbors."
By this statement it appears Montgomery College had little if any problems related to smoking and litter, prior to the ban on campus.
The college can easily solve the neighbors concerns about litter, by allowing litter free smoking to resume on campus.
Dr. Siegel: How exactly does a student smoking on the opposite side of a street bordering the campus make the campus healthy, when if that same student smoked on the near side of the street, the campus would no longer be healthy?
Answer: It's the IMAGE of being "healthy." Just look to the explanation that comes from hospitals who have banned it on their grounds. They all say (in addition to requisite SHS sound bite) that they can't have smoking in a place where "people come to be healthy." IMAGE.
Bill: The most effective way to resolve the problem of smokers trespassing and littering is to enforce existing laws against trespassing and littering. And the most effective way to reduce the number of smokers going across the street to smoke on an adjacent public sidewalk is to raise taxes on cigarettes (which reduces demand for cigarettes)
So when one solution to the "problem" (smoking on school property) causes the need for another solution to the "problem" (standing in front of other people's homes which is, for effect's sake, called "trespassing") it calls for a side solution (tax increase) to help the other solutions along. And when all that fails to work (even if only not completely) you -- as you are programmed to do -- will suggest another solution to the fix the problems the initial solution caused. Bill, there's no denying that you will solve the problem, in as many increments as it takes, to the point of tickets and arrests for non-compliers. And when that solution fails, your track record can only suggest smoker camps.
Bill: ...and to inform those smokers that far less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine products alternatives can be used anywhere anytime in the privacy of one's mouth.
You can't be serious. "Anywhere and anytime" my rear end. Stunning that you fail to admit that even those products have been banned in places like the floors of legislatures or parks.
More Bill: Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke, nobody's rights are being deprived by establishing a minimum cigarette sales age of 19, 20 or 21.
Others having covered (again) Bill's Constitutional perversion I'll move over an inch. Bill, you either respect the fundamental notion of adulthood or you don't. There's NO age at which someone says "it begins here." That line will forever move. Perhaps no one below 60 can buy alcohol because of the chance that youngsters (now defined as 25?) will still reside in the house and have access to it. 18 is the accepted historical age in the U.S. considered adult. You propose revoking adulthood and its autonomy at YOUR whim. Nevermind what you advance "constitutionally," how about possessing a modicum of RESPECT... for consistency and for others.
Einstein
Nice post!
Here is a rather lovely seed catalogue with pictures.
I wanted to know what the various varieties looked like.
Beautiful plants and they flower profusely.
http://www.newhopeseed.com/
tobac...d_varieties.htm
Bill;
"The most effective way to resolve the problem of smokers trespassing and littering is to enforce existing laws against trespassing and littering.
And the most effective way to reduce the number of smokers going across the street to smoke on an adjacent public sidewalk is to raise taxes on cigarettes (which reduces demand for cigarettes) and to inform those smokers that far less hazardous smokefree tobacco/nicotine products alternatives can be used anywhere anytime in the privacy of one's mouth."
I have to wonder how you determined policies which consistently fail, when dealing with other nuisance laws would somehow magically find different results when dealing with smoking.
The constant pressure to harass hookers in order to end their presence in one neighborhood always results in the move to another.
Drug dealers may be arrested only to be replaced in minutes when they outnumber the police. In many areas it becomes an impossible task to arrest them all, so they practice moving them to areas where fewer people complain.
The reality is if you hope to make it inconvenient to smoke to the point people will actually quit, in compliance with your harassment you will soon find people simply moving along to avoid you. Did your mindset stop anyone from smoking pot? As the college and others who follow in a fad motivated lockstep will find, students will [as smoking or not] prefer to be in a place which is less critical of their individuality and more interested in their abilities.
The effect of universities acting as overbearing or neo-conservative paternalists, will be seen in the attendance decline and in the talented students preferring more progressive surroundings with accommodation for everyone.
Many people today who vote for what is advertised as liberal or progressive ideologies, are in fact promoting neo-conservative candidates, regardless of what is advertised on the posters.
People are constantly let down by their candidates after the elections, by their choice of leaders who never get it quite right. Which explains the decades old desire for change.
Most on both sides of the heath scare debate would prefer to avoid partisan or political language. Divided thinking and pessimism as always, we have a problem dealing with the obvious wedge issue which should be defining party politics, as opposed to allowing poll sitters in government to jump on any issue and make it their own.
A point of division for politicians and rejoining of communities, which should be obvious to anyone who rightly believes politicians are all crooks and none deserve our support.
When you abandon traditional "party first" mindsets and really look; the move of all parties to the center leaves them wide open to embarrassment for abandoning party values.
When Liberals support partnership with old money industries and use taxes to sell their products, how can a liberal claim they are liberal.
Alternately can a conservative deny they have gone back to the motivations of failed corporatist policies? Demanding presumptions of guilt, in shoot first ask questions later, among their many mistakes of the past?
When either party promotes protectionist policies such as smoking bans or fat taxes, serving old money bottom lines, large government and the banging of tambourines, they all find themselves in neo-conservative territory.
Promoting only higher crime rates by punishing the innocent, who would prefer to be left alone.
Lyndon Johnson selling cholesterol in eggs all over again...
If we recognize that communities are no longer motivated by confidence, learned traditional values and intelligence.
They now have to be pushed by the constantly adjusted and always inconsistent overbearing moralist values of the state, entitled substantially by promoted fear, divisions and exclusions.
The problem lies in lost confidence. In ourselves, our systems of government and the level of intelligence guiding them.
I wish my local news station would post all the stories they cover so that I can show them to you, but it seems that some stories just can't make it to print. The ones I am talking about are the new anti smoking studies. They give the segment a whole 20 second spot and that is the last we hear of it from them. Anyway, there was what some might say an interesting study reported last night. It seems that all it takes for a person to become a smoker is to see someone smoking. Yep, there is this little thing going on in the brain that makes you take a cigarette and light it and smoke it after only seeing someone else do it first! Seems to me that if this were true, smoking would be enjoyed by 100% of the population as I am sure that there is not one person who hasn't seen someone smoking. These studies gets more ridiculous with each day, but the best part of the segment was a guy from Breathe California who was quoted as saying that it would be much easier not to smoke if he didn't see so many people lighting up themselves. I liked this guy because I felt I knew him, but realized it was because he was the same guy who was interviewed on New Years Day when they reported a new smoking ordinance in a town called Flower Mound that was going into effect that day. In that segment, he was sitting outside a restaurant and said, "Well, I think this new law will be helpful in getting me to quit. My New Years resolution was to quit smoking so this will help me." Um, same guy, right down to the same earring. So, does he live in Texas, or is it California or is he the one in Oregon who loves the new law so he can quit there too?
Cigarette litter is indeed a problem and smokers should be more cosiderate. I believe part of the problem is that persons of lower socio-economic classes smoke more and it is my observation that they tend to litter more in general.
Bill doesn't seem to have a clue about the concept of the constitution. When the first settlers set foot on American territory, they didn't have a constitution nor did they need one. In fact, most of them fled oppressive nations to look for a better life and individual freedom.
Only when they saw the need to create a union to defend themselves against foreign force and influence did they decide to set the rules for this union in form of a constitution. The purpose was clearly to harmonize the interaction between the different States and to create a common defense. Along with this came the need for a representative government body and hence taxation.
Needless to say that there had to be some basic and commonly agreed to rules. The purpose of the constitution was clearly not to restrict the individual rights of the citizens but to protect them against external influences. The purpose was to protect the individual rights those settlers had acquired under difficult circumstances.
In his arguments, Bill uses the Constitution as a weapon against individual rights when it suits him.
Isn't it amazing that it takes an individual from a European Country to understand and explain the United States Constitution to those who should have learned it in school or by everyday life. Thankyou BenPal for getting it right. Unfortunately, throughout the years, there has been individuals who seems to think the Constitution was fought for and written just for them.
Hog wash Stephen. It has been my observation that there is no socio-economic distinction between anyone who litters, whether it be cigarette butts or McDonald wrappers from their Big Mac. Those signs dotting highways telling what the fine for littering is for everyone. It doesn't matter if you are driving a 2009 BMW or a 1979 Ford Pinto. I for one have seen men in 3 piece business suits, talking on their cell phones in front of an airport, standing right next to an ashtray, throwing their butts to the ground and putting their foot over it so to hide it from view. I have also seen soda cans coming from windows of those BMW's on the highways. I do believe though that most littering is done unconsciously. People are so wrapped up into their own little worlds, they litter without thinking what it was they just did.
Godshall, - "raising the minimum age for cigarette sales above 18 can significantly reduce youth smoking."
So would enforcing existing laws that prohibit the sale of tobacco to underage persons. (whatever that legal age may be on a state by state basis)
There is no need for additional laws, but punishing all adult smokers for the ineptitude of local law enforcement or presiding judicial entities is simply easier for TC to incorporate into their mantra.
If adults didn't do it, the TC thinking goes, then adolescents wouldnt want to either.
Are all TC proponents Quakers?,..or Mormons?,..or just out of touch with reality altogether?
There is also nothing in the Constitution that states that I must prohibit you from smoking on MY property becuse your smoking may annoy one of my other guests, .....that also VOLUNTARILY entered MY property.
You are FREE to leave, ..or better still, make a good decision for yourself, and NEVER accept the invitation, or job offer.
No matter how hard you try to obscure the basic truth, you can't.
You don't have to accept the invitation to be a patron, or an employee in a venue that allows smoking. Property rights protect individual liberty.
A concept that it seems you are completely unfamiliar with, or would prefer simply didn't exist,.....for our own good of course.
Stalin would be so proud of you.
Thanks, diane 
Cigarette litter is indeed a problem and smokers should be more cosiderate.
We tolerated segragation and now outright discrimination, we take it outside where YOU wanted it....and forced us......so tell me why so many cities, towns, businesses also removed all the ashtrays that were OUTSIDE BEFORE THE BANS?
They did that here in Arizona, THEN started bitching about the butts.
You throw the smokers out to the streets to smoke and at the same time remove the ashtrays that used to be outside for smokers to dispose their butts in, and then you want to bitch about the litter?
I used to be considerate about not littering, even carried a little butt-bin in my purse for just that purpose; upon this new level of stupidity of removing the outdoor ashtrays as you force the smokers outdoors to smoke, I realized my being considerate never mattered, so you all can just KMA for your own idiocy.
You throw the smokers out to the streets to smoke and at the same time remove the ashtrays that used to be outside for smokers to dispose their butts in, and then you want to bitch about the litter?
Weird--when the first wave of the ban came in Chicago, the very first article had a street cleaner saying "With the 15 foot rule the butts aren't all over the place now. They're out in the street. It makes it easier to clean."
It took a while for everyone to consider the obvious downside, it seems...long enough for people to forget the original alleged upside.
Isn't it amazing that it takes an individual from a European Country to understand and explain the United States Constitution to those who should have learned it in school or by everyday life. Thankyou BenPal for getting it right.
They usually do Diane. It's scary citizens of this country can't be bothered learning and knowing their own history. Thank you BenPal for explaining OUR Constitution of one of OUR citizens who claims to be so smart and highly educated.
Unfortunately, throughout the years, there has been individuals who seems to think the Constitution was fought for and written just for them.
Even worse Diane..........having a President who screamed in a meeting "stop throwing the Constitution at me, it's just a god-damned piece of paper".......that would dubya who said that.
LyndaF
Now this is what I don't understand, its a Denormalization Campaign!
Now what part of the denormalization of decent, upstanding citizens and their legal everyday habits is meant to be reasonable or fair?
They took the ashtrays away to make sure there was something to complain about loudly in all the papers.Don't give them the satisfaction.
They took away the inside smoking areas to make sure that you had to stand in public view looking like a street walker, feeling most uncomfortable and open to insult and assault.
Think of all those gloating stories about shivering smokers huddled miserably in doorways.They couldn't write them if people didn't do it.
I will believe that ventilation doesn't work when I see patients with contageous diseases laid out on trolleys in the hospital carparks.
Always try to step nimbly over the tripwires.
"It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.
And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways"
http://www.constitution.org/mac/...ac/
prince19.htm
Wise words
Harry wrote:
"There is no constitutional or legal right to smoke" whenever he's confronted with a question put to him by free citizens of a free republic trying to exercise their right to make free choices."
Wrong again. I was correcting another inaccurate claim (as I do daily on this blog) asserting that buying/smoking cigarettes is a constitutionally protected right.
The fraud of the right-to-smoke claim (and of those who repeat that silly slogan as an excuse to rationalize their addiction to cigarettes) is that it blatently misrepresents federal and state constitutional law.
Smokers have the same constitutional rights as everyone else, but smoking cigarettes is not among them.
"Ridiculing anti-tobacco activists was also outlawed"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant..._note-NWC204-
39
Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke...
~Bill Godshall
Can I ask a question?
Is there a constitutional or legal right to NOT smoke?
(Apart from underage "kids" of 18 or 19, that is).
Or, is there a constitutional or legal right to drive? To fly on airplanes? Ski? Swim? Eat burgers?
You get the gist....
To deny anyone the right to make smoke is denying the human race the right to use fire, they are inseparable,wether they choose to inhale it, cook with it or keep themselves warm.
That is such a basic human right, I doubt that anyone has ever dreamt of having to write it down.
LightningBoy wrote:
"So would enforcing existing laws that prohibit the sale of tobacco to underage persons. (whatever that legal age may be on a state by state basis)"
I agree, as I was the most outspoken advocate urging enforcement of the these laws, which resulted in US Congress enacting the Synar law in 1992, which required all 50 states to sharply increase enforcement of laws prohibiting tobacco sales to minors.
Unfortunately, tobacco manufacturers, distributors and retailers agressively lobbied against these measures, which resulted in lots of enforcement and penalty loopholes that basically shifted the legal responsibility (for not selling tobacco to minors) away from the retailers and onto their minimum wage employees (who have an average two month turnover).
That way, retailers can continue selling to minors, but can avoid prosecution or loss of tobacco retail licenses.
But some progress has occurred, as fewer retailers sell tobacco youth (20 years ago about 90% of retailers sold tobacco to 12 year olds).
Smokers have the same constitutional rights as everyone else, but smoking cigarettes is not among them.
Then it is safe to say that since you are so insistent that a "right to smoke" is NOT enumerated in the Constitution; that driving, swimming, playing sports, climbing mountains, burning candles/incense, wearing clothes, barbequeing are also NOT enumerated that NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO DO THOSE THINGS.
THAT is what you are saying, correct?
Or will you suddenly claim the "unspoken" but INALIENABLE rights of ALL individuals to FREE CHOICE?
Surely you have a right to use anything that it is legal to purchase?
This could get quite silly, do I have a right to sneeze?
Unexpectedly sneezing in an enclosed public space could cause harm to a member of the public by giving them a cold, if I had one.
Or what if I walk round a corner and accidentally surprise someone and they have a heart attack.
Perhaps we don't have a right to walk round corners.
You could go quite mad wondering if all those little unspoken rights didn't really exist.
I can't believe that gloating self serving diatribe of yours Godshall. You must be so proud of yourself in your quest to keep the little kiddies from getting access to evil tobacco that you don't give a rat's rear end about inconveniencing anyone else.
At damned near 50 years old I've been of age to purchase alcohol and tobacco for quite a number of years, don't you think? But thanks to the likes of you and the rest of your anal-retentive moronic colleagues I can buy a case of beer without question, yet the same person who sold me the beer is required to see my ID for a purchase of tobacco. Pretty stupid, don't you think?
If you are going to gloat over all your activities, I suggest you get used to being called the arses that you and your kind actually are.
Actually I quite like that one.
No one has a right to be in a confined public space that at I, at some point, might wish to enter,if they have any contageous diseases ( colds,flu etc )
Again: “Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke, nobody's rights are being deprived by establishing a minimum cigarette sales age of 19, 20 or 21.”
You seem incapable, Godshall, of seeing how fatuous that statement is. Just re-write it to read: Since there is no constitutional or legal right to smoke, nobody’s rights are being deprived by passing laws that prohibit the smoking of cigarettes. (Or taking snuff, for that matter.) Kayci nailed how damned silly that statement is when, with some exasperation, she wrote: “Oh for goodness sakes. There's no constitutional right to blow your nose, either.”
You know, Godshall, even the 18th Amendment, that pious attempt to save citizens from the evils of drink (and even though Jesus was a wine bibber), didn’t outlaw the drinking of alcoholic beverages. And, I suspect, because it would have come across as taking away one of those unenumerated rights that the 9th Amendment sought to cover. As, blowing one’s nose.
And now: “I was correcting another inaccurate claim (as I do daily on this blog) asserting that buying/smoking cigarettes is a constitutionally protected right.”
I may be wrong, but I’m not aware that anyone here ever made the claim that buying/smoking cigarettes is a constitutionally protected right IN THE SENSE THAT YOU MEAN IT. No, it is NOT one of the enumerated rights. It is a right – as blowing one’s nose – that only a fool would think wasn’t a right, or isn’t what the 9th Amendment had in mind when it was written.
No? Then do you really believe that the Framers would have said that smoking was NOT a right? When it’s exactly that sort of thing that they were most worried about when they stuck the 9th Amendment in there – that if you enumerated certain rights, then all those unenumerated rights everyone took for granted could be subject to the evil will and nonsense of legislators.
Still – bright spot – I’m sure we all appreciate your correcting on a daily basis all of the inaccurate claims made on this blog. Taking into account, of course, the many times your ears have been slapped back in the rebuttals.
.
Of course, this is the problem with intelligent people, because some things are so obvious that you shouldn't have to write them down, they forget to cater for the halfwits
Bill, help me understand what's driving you. It never crossed my mind, in my whole life, to try to force my views of a lifestyle onto others, not even our daughter. We never forbid her to smoke (she doesn't), to drink (she doesn't, except for an occasional sip), to hang out with friends of her choice.
So why have you been spending the better part of your life trying not only to convince others, but to force your idea of the "right and only" lifestyle onto others, against their will? Why is the lifestyle of others so important to you, since you don't even have to share your life with these people?
Aren't you afraid that one late day, too late maybe, you might wake up and recognize that you have spent your whole life controlling the lives of others and have forgotten to live your own life? Won't it be frustrating to recognize at the end that all you did had no positive effect on humanity and that nobody even notice what you did, nobody will thank you for all your efforts, not even those whose lives you "saved". Life will continue after you, without you, people will choose their own lifestyles as if you had never existed. Isn't it be frustrating to think that all you did will go down the drain, including everything you were not able to do because you were too busy living the lives of others?
Honestly, I would like to understand what drives and motivates people like you, apart from a missionary urge. I just can't fathom why you take pride and pleasure in trying to control other peoples lives.
benpal, that's the 64 million dollar question.
And Harry, verrrrry well put.
Stephen Helfer wrote:
"Cigarette litter is indeed a problem...I believe part of the problem is that persons of lower socio-economic classes smoke more...tend to litter more in general."
Yeah, right. So what's the other part of the problem? Middle and upper class litter too?
Smoking has been made a class issue to humiliate smokers into quitting.
benpal-amen!
I don't smoke cigarettes, but enjoy an occasional cigar a couple times of week. I too don't tell my kids not to smoke, drink or who to hang out with (how can you in these days anyways, unless I lock them in the house). Neither have found the need to do either, even though they see Dad have a cigar.
My question to Bill and the good doctor, have you ever considered that there are those of us who don't want your help. I would just as soon you leave me the hell alone and I'll leave you alone. Why is that so hard for the TC movement to get through their thick skulls.
Jerry S.
"My question to Bill and the good doctor, have you ever considered that there are those of us who don't want your help."
Yes, I've consider that often. But its never been my intent to help Jerry or others who don't want my help. Rather, its alwasy been my intent to help the majority of people.
(who appreciate my efforts).
BTW Smoking a few cigars per week (especially if they aren't inhaled) poses far fewer health risks than does daily cigarette smoking. But tobacco smoke pollution from cigars and cigarettes pose similar health risks.
"Yes, I've consider that often. But its never been my intent to help Jerry or others who don't want my help. Rather, its alwasy been my intent to help the majority of people.
(who appreciate my efforts)."
Bill,
Why only the "majority of people", why not seek to help as many people as possible to be healthy AND happy?
Why set your sights so low - merely the majority?
Yes, I've consider that often. But its never been my intent to help Jerry or others who don't want my help. Rather, its alwasy been my intent to help the majority of people.
(who appreciate my efforts).
The problem comes when you start to think that more people want your efforts than admit it. Picture the polls of x% of smokers wanting to quit, when there is a stigma against smoking--or because taxes are raised too high. Or if the effects of sidestream smoke are exaggerated, so people feel guilt tripped into quitting. Or if there are people that cannot quit, but you keep lobbying to raise taxes on them.
You can make a plausible argument that people will WANT to believe that you are helping them, but you are not really. Eventually you run out of people that you are really helping--lumping in those you may've already helped doesn't count, just as past smoking restrictions don't count when you go to the legislature and ask for more.
I agree that risk from sidestream smoke from cigars and cigarettes is similar--in a wide open, or properly ventilated area, it is negligible.
There is NO enumeration in the Constitution for the right to clean air. Does this mean that there is NO right to clean air?
According to Bill, yes, it does mean there is NO right to clean air.
"Yes, I've consider that often. But its never been my intent to help Jerry or others who don't want my help. Rather, its alwasy been my intent to help the majority of people.
(who appreciate my efforts)."
Then why do you spend so much time here?
Anyway, I'd appreciate your efforts quite a bit more if you could manage to spell your words correctly, properly write the contraction for "it is," and not mess up your verb tenses all the time.
Maybe it's just me, but I find it almost impossible to accept condescension from someone who has yet to master 3rd grade English.
Bill,
I think Andrew is right
"The problem comes when you start to think that more people want your efforts than admit it".
Say it is said that 70% of people who engage in the healthy activity of smoking wish to quit this healthy activity.
What could have caused this "wish"?
How could this "wish" be precipitated?
Judy,
I think it's a bit mean of you to have a go at Bill about his writing. I find it a very, very hard to write words and have a primitive understanding of mathematics, I really do, I find numbers and words very confusing. I am much,much worse than Bill. It tires me just writing a short sentence such as this one. I am a senior software architect, I can't do words and numbers very well, In my job I am not asked to write - I am expected to do “other” stuff.
"But its never been my intent to help Jerry or others who don't want my help. Rather, its always been my intent to help the majority of people."
Boy, all of that beggars belief!
First of all, you egotistical overinflated balloon, who in hell are you to set youself up as a pious dispenser of help to ANYONE? Did you get a miracle call from God one night after you quit smoking 3 packs a day?
Second, if it's not your intention to help those who don't want your help, then why in the hell are you advocating such things as increased cigarette taxes to FORCE people to quit? Or are you getting spirit messages on your suppository from the silent army of smokers asking that you please, please help them, using every method that you can conjure up, to stop polluting themselves? What damned impertinence!
I repeat what Mencken said: "It has been my firm belief that all persons who devote themselves to forcing virtue on their fellow man deserve nothing better than kicks in the pants." But no, sorry, you don't FORCE virtue on your fellow man; you just raise their taxes.
Personally, in lieu of kicks in the pants, I'd like to see you put in the stocks for a week to see whether that would improve your behavior.
And incidentally, are you making a living by these good deeds? Or are you just an unpaid volunteer in the tobacco wars, doing God's work?
.
The right to ferment a variety of growing things and then drink the results was presumed to be an unenumerated right and therefore (and only therefore) a constitutional amendment was required to ban its production and use, at least on the federal level.
In recent jurisprudence, the 14th Amendment-- the part about privileges and immunities-- has been presumed to override state legislation that violates this clause.
Of course states have been known to legislate all kinds of ungodly encroachments on a citizen's unenumerated rights and privileges. Two that come to mind are (were) CT's ban on the use of contraceptives and TX's on adult consenting homosex. So Bill, do you believe that these rights, since not enunerated, are legislative playthings? If you're intellectually consistent, you'd have to say Yes. So what'll it be, Mr. Bill. Cuz it's either all or nothing.
Standing on a public sidewalk, btw, is not "trespassing." And tossing a butt on the sidewalk to which one has been banished, is not exactly class-specific littering. In NYC, I find the concept that a butt is offensive litter more than funny. Not only are the sidewalks littered with every styrofoam remnant of fast food, but, by law, tons of odorous black-bagged and out-of-the bag garbage lies piled on the street corners for 1-2 days awaiting city collection. And you're bothered by a butt?
Finally, Kevin, what the hell do you mean when you define progressives-gone-Nanny as "neo-conservatives"? You seem to imply that conservatives (neo or basic) are inately nannies and that when progressives are nannies, they're not really progressives but must be conservatives. Sorry, but you can't save your busybody liberals by saying they're not liberals, or by mischaracterizing conservatism. True conservatism is, in terms of its approach to liberties, closer to Libertarianism, which is what Liberalism used to mean (dictionary def: " favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms") before it turned Nanny. Conservatism merely wants to hold onto what Liberalism once was. Suggested reading: Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism." It'll blow your mind.
:
"But its never been my intent to help Jerry or others who don't want my help. Rather, its alwasy been my intent to help the majority of people."
Bill, what kind of help is that? treating 18, 20, 21 year olds as kids? Increasing the cost of goods by piling up taxes? Excluding a "majority" of people from some of their social playgrounds? Denying a "majority" the right to have or foster children? Denying hospitality owners to cater for their usual clients?
If you really want to help a majority which NEEDS your help, BEGS for your help, look no further than to the homeless in your country who suffer from the cold, or look further to some other countries where people (especially children) die like flies, by the second, from starvation, Malaria, lack of clean water.
I reiterate might question (and will continue to do so until I get the answer): what is your motivation, what's in it for you?
From you last answer, I conclude that all you get out of your activism is the same thing as when peeing in a dark suit: It get's you a warm feeling but nobody notices it.
Judy wrote:
"Then why do you spend so much time here?"
To expose and correct some of the massive amount of misinformation posted on this blog, and to help Mike expose misrepresentations of scientific evidence.
Unfortunately, some right-to-smoke ideologues are more addicted to misrepresenting facts and slandering others than they are to smoking cigarettes.
Andrew wrote:
"Eventually you run out of people that you are really helping"
Agreed, but that will likely take several more years or decades. Although I'd prefer helping them sooner, rather than later, most posters on this blog want those folks to continue suffering daily (from cigarette addiction or from tobacco smoke pollution) until they die.
folks to continue suffering daily (from cigarette addiction
You know Bill.............IF someone REALLY wanted to quit smoking they not only would, but could. People do it every day, and have for centuries - without your help I might add.
Your position that they need and want your help is insulting at the least, and damned arrogant too. You assume someone who really wants to quit won't know how OR be too freekin stupid to ask their doctor or even friends.
Tell me Bill, how did you quit smoking your 3-packs a day? Was there someone just like you are now bullying you into it with all kinds of unwanted advice and you just gave in? Or were you actually man enough with a strong spine to just put down the smokes and quit because that is what you wanted to do?
My father is not a man I admire, actually he's not a man I even like, but I will give him credit for 2 things: 1. He had a high tolerance to alcohol and never got drunk; 2. as a 3+ pack a day smoker, I've watched him put out a cigarette, leave half a pack on the table and not smoke again for 2 years; start smoking again for a year, then stop the same way. He's done it all his life. The only reason he ever went back to smoking was that he liked to smoke and when he did he was a chimney............but when he stopped enjoying it, he'd quit. He seemed to enjoy those 2 year breaks too.
So, please tell us again that it can't be done without your holy help.
Funny thing is I never started to smoke until I was in my 40's. I actually started becasue of a holier than thou person. And I agree with Lynda, I could quit smoking tomorrow if I wanted to. I just got back from Florida today, spent a week and never had a cigar even though I brought a few with me.
Bill - Do you actually believe anything you say? We will all die, sorry to disappoint any TC'ers out there. And who says that smokers are suffering. The only suffering we do is from holier than thou people who want to force us to stop through taxes and trying to make smokers pariahs. But as the good doctor is noticing, the TC movement has lost its way and more and more people are smoking.
“Judy wrote:
“‘Then why do you spend so much time here?’
“To expose and correct some of the massive amount of misinformation posted on this blog, and to help Mike expose misrepresentations of scientific evidence.”
Where to begin with crap like that? Except for a few peripheral questions, you've lived your whole life on this blog by avoiding basic questions -- and some not so basic. Just who in the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed world do you think you're kidding?
When, for example, have you ever addressed on this blog, with any seriousness, the question of the supposed harm of secondhand smoke?
When, for example, have you ever here addressed the fact that 80 percent of the epidemiological studies show only a weak or statistically insignificant relationship between secondhand smoke and either lung cancer or heart disease?
When, for example, have you ever confronted here a statement by world-class epidemiologist Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and her Council of 380 scientists that “The link between secondhand smoke and premature death is a real stretch”?
When, for example, have you ever here confronted the enormous significance of this statement in the Zion article in Skeptic magazine: “Every lung specialist and cardiologist I questioned across the years scoffed at the story that secondhand smoke caused death. ‘But don’t quote me, or I’ll be dead.’”
When, for example have you ever here confronted the Osteen decision, except to say, like the true shyster you are, that the decision was overturned on a technicality?
When, for example, have you ever here confronted two of the largest studies ever made, the 1998 WHO study and Enstrom/Kabat of 2003, both of which showed only a weak or statistically insignificant relationship between secondhand smoke and either lung cancer or heart disease?
When, for example have you ever here confronted the DOE study (Jenkins et al.), which concluded that inhalation of secondhand smoke by nonsmoking bartenders and waiters was so low as to render health hazards negligible to improbable?
When, for example, have you ever here confronted PELs?
When, for example, have you ever here confronted statements such as the statement of chest and vascular surgeon Robert Madden, MD, former president of the New York Cancer Society, that the 2006 Surgeon General’s reports was “nothing but junk science”?
When, for example, have you here ever taken the doctor to task for claiming a harm to staff waiting tables on outdoor patios? Or is there some “scientific evidence” available to convince us, on the contrary, that, along with yourself, the doctor himself isn’t a scientific fraud?
When, for example, have you ever here confronted the statement by Dr. Siegel that “there is not convincing evidence that ... childhood exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease and lung cancer” (we’re talking about 18+ years here!)? Again, all you can do is repeat like a robot, secondhand smoke POLLUTION.
Are all of those “misrepresentations of scientific evidence”? If so, please “expose and correct” any or all of them.
Moreover, until you come clean and tell us how you make a living – as any honest person in your position must (full disclosure) – then why in hell shouldn’t we look upon you as anything but a thoroughly dishonest and despicable crap-peddler who makes a living off the blood of smokers?
Meanwhile, by all means hang on to your security blanket, the brainless secondhand smoke POLLUTION. What would you ever do without it?
And this:
“Unfortunately, some right-to-smoke ideologues are more addicted to misrepresenting facts and slandering others than they are to smoking cigarettes.”
First of all, to “slander” has to do with false charges and misrepresentations. Second, it’s typical of your own particular brand of blinkered reality that people who value the freedom of the individual and want to be left along are somehow “ideologues.” There are ideologues here, but it’s not usually the posters. And if anyone here is "addicted" to misrepresenting the facts, give us those persons names, because we're all ears.
.
(tossing roses at Harry's feet)
(joining JustTheFacts with roses for Harry) (and bowing down
Joining JustTheFacts and Kayce (and blowing kisses)
Harry, that was top-notch brilliant!!
I've often wondered how some people make it through life, always expecting a bogeyman to jump out and get them.
What was it that PJ O'Rourke said, Puritans just can't stand that someone, somewhere might be having fun.
Joining JustTheFacts, Kayci and Lynda
Harry, You Go Guy!
Just to be an offensive pedant, it was Mencken who said it, tho O'Rourke might have quoted him. Mencken defined Puritanism as "the terrible haunting fear that somebody somewhere might be happy."
:
"Although I'd prefer helping them sooner, rather than later, ..."
Bill, there are thousands of people needing your help in this world. Help them before it's too late. They need something to eat and to drink ...
They need something to eat and to drink ...
They also need SAFE shelter. The girls and women need protection from insecure, arrogant males who feel raping them is a good thing.
There are far more serious issues you could be focusing on Bill. But typical of bullies.......they always go after the easy targets, because they haven't the strength to tackle the really big ones.
Let me add congratulations to Harry on a good post.
"Eventually you run out of people that you are really helping"
Agreed, but that will likely take several more years or decades...
Actually, my first post was in error--It should have read *net* good. I think it's an important amendment to make, because the eventually is not as "eventually" as you claim. When you say you're neutral towards the people you're not helping...actually, you are penalizing them for not being the sort of people you want to help.
So at some point, you cross the line from helping people more than you hurt them. You may already have done so and be running on fumes. It's hard for people to remember the distinction between helping anyone and actually doing a net amount of good. In the case of raising tobacco taxes and increasing smoking restrictions, there's an increased diminishing returns to scale, as in any economic/social transaction.
Well, your one-off comment helped me express my thoughts a bit more clearly, so that was help of a sort.
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