Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
smoking,goverment,profits,all with a heavy goverment tax/duty going straight into goverment coffers.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
As Bern says, it's alright to kill you for profit, but not to treat you and make you better!
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Well hopefully it won't be too long before confectionery is locked behind shop counters. The damage done to children's health is beyond belief. Rotten teeth, obesity to name but two severe problems associated with sweets and chocolate.
Of course those who deny the medical evidence are probably shareholders in major food companies and try to deny the facts but the overwhelming evidence is there for all to see.
Millions of children are affected by sweet consumption every year and it is a problem for us all. Those whose parents ate sweets and chocolate are at most risk.
To those who try to disprove the evidence that children are addicted to this awful malaise I suggest they try to take away the sweets that children are eating and witness the results. It's truly horrifying.
Ha and Ha. The sad thing is you may or may not have witnessed the real suffering caused by the smoking addiction but you are trivialising it for a cheap laugh. Sad.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Bern, you draw people's attention to the suffering caused by smoking but others choose to draw attention to the infinite pleasures of smoking. What's is more important, in many respects, are the issues of personal freedom which arise.
I suspect that you would think that keeping alcohol or food high in salt or fat or even confectionery as a state intervention too far but it would be wrong to, in fact immoral, having given your blessing to the measures brought in already with cigarette displays.
I've witnessed real suffering upon people caused by other things beside smoking and yet nobody in their right mind is calling for the banning of cars, trains, junk food, and ending to air travel in fact a million different things which one can quite easily associate with risk.
Smoking is the bad guy but apparently drinking alcohol is perfectly fine.
Bizarre.
Risk is one thing and makes the world go around. Selling stuff that is proven to kill and create ill health, cynically, solely for profit, and targeting kids is another. Not bizarre at all.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I enjoy the freedom of not having to endure your smoking activity in a pub and restaurant. Your 'infinite pleasure' used to make my clothes stink disgustingly, throat sore and eyes water. You are of course free to participate in your 'infinite pleasure' as long as you do not inflict it on others Philip. One cigarette is enough to cause discomfort to those near a smoker while a single pint of beer has no such impact.
So yes, the smoking ban is all about freedom. Smoker's have brought it on themselves because of their inconsiderate use of tobacco infringing on other's freedoms.
What you do not allow for Philip - is that smoking is not in any way necessary. You can live, indeed live longer and healthier, without ever smoking a cigarette. It is a vice that lacks any kind of redeeming features that can benefit society. You mention cars - they are very useful and essential to the economy, junk food is a choice we have but it is one that only affects the person who eats too much of it, air travel is very useful too, etc etc.
Smoking is indeed the bad guy because quite simply it is a smelly, indiscriminate in who it effects, disgusting, unhealthy drug habit. It is not necessary and has nothing at all to redeem it.
I find it bizarre that smokers seem to go into denial over the impact it has on others, not to mention themselves. Well, I suppose someone who can disregard the cancer and heart attack risk to themselves cannot be expected to consider the discomfort to others and impingement upon the freedom it use causes in enclosed spaces.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Barry I wish you would stop beating about the bush.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
Nobody needs to drink alcohol but somehow you seem to think that alcohol is somehow exempt from the affect it has on others because YOU like to have a drink. I expect you won't be calling for restrictions on the display of alcohol any time soon.
The same can be said of car travel. Millions of people don't need to drive a car but do and cause immeasurable suffering through pollution and accidents. How about banning uneccessary journeys and making car showrooms whitewash their windows so that we don't see these evil iron leviathans?
Nobody needs chocolate and sweets to live but we have to protect citizens from themselves just as you suggest we have to protect citizens from the perils of smoking.
As for the perils of cancer and heart attacks that's my business and nobody else's really.
For a conservative libertarian there is a certain element of liberalist socialism in your arguments.
It is almost unbelievable that you can make those statements without chortling out loud! Surely you can see the differences? I can certainly smell the differences! Those other "perils" that you mention at least have some benefits - the car gets people to work and leisure, we have to eat food, even the less healthy variety, and at least that provides energy. If I sit and have a glass of wine it does not blow all over your food or make your clothes stink and increase your risk of heart disease/stroke/cancer. It can also aid digestion. Smoking has no such benefit, and furthermore is peddled to kids cynically and with the full support of Governments. So, your rather sad little defence of smoking is nakedly rather silly, I am afraid.
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
Very well put Bern
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Philip - you really have a blind spot when it comes to seeing the truth about tobacco. Re-read what I have said and Bern has said slowly and take it it., inhale perhaps!!!!
You are not unusual amongst people with a tobacco addiction.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
no more an addiction than drinking real ale and bushmills.it boils down to alcoholisem which is allso an addiction.which in turn is an health concern.
Having a drink is not alcoholism. Most smokers are addicts.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
never realised it was an addiction over to you philip.
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
I'll gladly take up the baton Howard.
The thing is that this subject is so emotive (words like disgusting etc.) and is guaranteed to highlight the highly illiberal tendencies in people who were unaware they existed in themselves.
So let's kick one myth into touch eh? Smoking isn't necessarily an addiction. It's a habit and I must say a very enjoyable one to boot. There is nothing finer than eating breakfast (healthy porridge with sultanas, raw cane sugar and banana with two cups of tea) rather than the junk most people eat coated in dangerous amounts of sugar and comes in a box with added vitamins.
Those who pretend they stand for freedom, freedom of thought and freedom to live one's life in the way that one wishes to and yet mount their high horse in order to pontificate on the "evils" of a pursuit which is perfectly legal but clashes with their version of living a healthy and worthy lifestyle are deluding themselves.
They are the Victorians, the neo-temperance movement, the puritans who whilst pontificating on the lives of others keep to themselves guilty secrets about how they live their lives. The guilt they carry must be immense and I feel sorry for them.
They are the curtain twitchers and wholeheartedly embrace draconian laws which strangle the freedoms of others whose private lives they disapprove of.
And yet as soon as they, themselves, are impacted by this self same legislation which might impact on their lives they bemoan the big state.
I'm happy to smoke. I never encourage others to do so and live my life to the fullest possible extent within the confines of the law of the land.
But I am a smoker of tobacco and it appears that I should be treated as second class.
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
some good points there philip.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
From a very early age I was subjected to my parents' smoking habit. Year after year I spent time in hospital or off school at home for bronchitis and/or pneumonia. My early childhood was a misery as a result. When I went to boarding school the illness went away and only came back during the holidays. To this day I am violently allergic to tobacco smoke and will not remain in a room where someone is smoking. It causes blisters in my windpipe which burst when I cough, causing me to spray blood over other people on occasions. So now I avoid smokers like the plague. Even smelling someone's breath after they have smoked makes my throat tighten and my eyes water. But most smokers just don't give a toss and say I should keep out of their way. However it is their right to kill themselves if they wish to, just don't involve me in your antisocial behaviour, please. And why do smokers not realise that the detritus they drop in the street is litter?
Rant over. Back to my beer.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson