The Great American Smokeout Is Here, Quit Smoking!
On June 30th, 2001, at midnight, I quit a forty year, three-pack-a-day cigarette addiction cold turkey.
I’ve been over the cravings for a long time, but if the health issues of smoking could be satisfactorily resolved, I’d light up in an instant. I really enjoyed smoking.
And one of the most off-putting aspects of the anti-tobacco crusades is the utter unlikeability of its proponents. Their dishonesty and hysteria (second-hand smoke kills!), their condescending smugness (smokers are idiots), their ignorance, (well, just quit - how hard can it be?), their statism (ban it!), their greed and hypocrisy (sue them, we need the money to fund other programs) all combined to make me regard their entire movement with suspicion and loathing.
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I’ve never smoked, but I absolutely cannot stomach the anti-smoking jackboots. While I find the smell repellent, I also believe that, in a free country, adults should be free to engage in such an activity. Far too many people that I know seem to be okay with the government forcing PRIVATE businesses to ban smoking, because they simply hate smoking. I detest it too, but I’m familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons, so I figure that people should have that right, regardless of how I personally feel about it. Sadly, my point of view appears to be going the way of the dodo.
One final thought: a friend of mine used to go outside with the smokers when they took their smoke break. He didn’t smoke, but he enjoyed the company and conversation and simply couldn’t abide the whiny little bastards inside bitching about the “cancer patients” outside.
The anti-smoking folks would have no moral argument if they weren’t paying the medical bills of the smokers.
You can hate the anti-smoking nannies all you want, just be sure to hate the ones who don’t pay for their own healthcare (and the ones who vote for the government to pay for smoking maladies) more. Those bastards not only cost you money, but they enable the nannies!
There are worse things in life than being an anti-smoking zealot.
Bullshit, wch. Show me any proof that non smokers pay the medical bills of smokers. I’ll save you the trouble. It doesn’t exist.
I don’t hate those that try to educate people on the dangers of smoking. But I hate, with a passion, the statists that wish to regulate every damn aspect of every life.
Every healthy person pays more for insurance than every sick person - this is the definition of insurance. Whether I pay for it through higher life insurance, health insurance, medicare taxes, or additional costs baked into the products I buy (from companies who pay these costs), it is by definition going on.
When someone has the choice to be healthy and does not, I pay for it. Society, by definition. If there are those in society try to curb such excesses, I won’t hate them. I won’t like them much, but I won’t hate them.
Prove to me that I’m not paying for it, please.
You’re making a very common sequence of errors, that of assuming that, by definition, smokers are a) inherently ill (or at least inherently in greater need of medical care, due to their smoking, than are non-smokers) and b) a greater per-capita burden, therefore, upon the health insurance benefit-payment side than are non-smokers, purely on a voluntary life-choice basis.
None of that is clearly true.
You are asking for proof of a negative, which is very nearly an impossibility. If you choose to expound upon a personal viewpoint, the burden of proof is upon you - otherwise, we’ll simply figure your statements are coming from that famous seventh planet from the Sun.
Actually, the statistics suggest that smokers live shorter lives, and as such are less of a drain on insurance, social security, and governmental funded benefits than are non-smokers. To balance the budget the government should be promoting smoking for everyone over the age of 50.
(Sorry I can’t cite the site where this was discussed.)
Sure, right after you prove you’re not inhabited by space aliens.
Show us your assertion is correct.
By the same logic, smokers pay the medical bills of the obese, excessive drinkers, bad drivers, people with genetic disposition towards various diseases including cancer and heart disease, and morons who might wander into heavy traffic, like you.
There are indeed people worse than anti-smoking zealots, chief among them people who require that everyone must rigorously adhere to their definition of a “healthy lifestyle.”
Skiing is dangerous too, and I was never any good at it, so I don’t like it. Ban it now, please.
Had no idea I became a troll all of a sudden.
I know what happens to them, but I’ll try to answer comments anyway.
J.S. Bridges - I will not prove that the sick pay less than the healthy - their use of medical services is well founded, and it exceeds their payment of insurance. And I will not prove that the smokers are more sick than the non-smokers. Search the internet for an opposing view, and if you find it, lemme know. Sounds like a cop-out, but I work for a living.
Haverwilde - I am willing to believe your assertions about smokers, when dead, save society money. I will not comment on their impact while alive.
Barry - ask Bill why he quit.
Nemo - You are correct that the smokers pay for the unhealthy, be they obese or drinkers. They have the right to complain, too. Every one who pays for the voluntarily unhealthy has a right to complain, and they may also be hypocritical.
I am not a nanny, so i don’t need to defend them. I just think they aren’t all wrong. I don’t ask that folks adhere rigorously to a healthy lifestyle - that would be hypocritical. Healthy is better than not, no matter who cheerleads for it or against it. Lastly, I will ignore the moron comment if you excuse the bastard comment by me. Not necessary in a polite conversation.
Mike - Love your website, when I am in a “cold fury” mood. I did not advocate banning everything dangerous. I would look at the incidence of risky outcomes versus the benefits derived to establish its worth. And I ski.
To all: I did not condone the anti-smoking zealots actions. I believe that their actions are inefficient.
Depends on if they seem to have a sense of humour. Trolls are often welcome on DP, if not outright encouraged.
Dumbasses are distinguished from trolls by their actual belief in the BS they’re pushing. They, too, are often welcome on DP, though they may not be feelin’ the love after being beaten, chewed on, and charred into crispy critters.
The question is whether you, or any newcomer who espouses risible nonsense, are a troll, a dumbass, or simply someone who phrased something badly.
Regards,
The House Troll
wch, go ahead with your logic. Maybe the Health Nazis will come for you last.
Anyway, the government has already added huge taxes to tobacco to “pay for all the health care costs.” Then they stabbed the tobacco companies with the MSA for billions to “pay for all the health care costs.” Then they refused to calculate in how much money was saved in SSI and MediCare by smokers dying early. So they’ve inflated the costs, then paid for them twice. Smokers are paying for your health care, not the other way around.
Further, according to both the Lancet and the JAMA, 1 in 6 smokers (or 1 in 7, they disagree slightly) suffers no significant health effects over their lifetime.
Finally, if you look at the statistics correctly (I was talking about this the other day), using the data from the groundbreaking Doll and Hill study of lung cancer, the nonsmoker vs. smoker has a nonsmoking survival factor of only 0.998 (or, to state it another way, the smoker has 99.8% of the nonsmoker’s chance of NOT dying from lung cancer.)
But the antis act as if as soon as you finish that first cig, the cancer begins fulminating in your lungs. Let’s not even discuss the idiocy of ETS (if you must, go here first).
As I’ve pointed out to people, anything that you have to do all day every day for 20+ years before it has a chance of killing you hardly qualifies as “dangerous.”
wch, insurance companies give discounts to non-smokers.
Yeah, I hear ya. I mean, look at what I do for a living. I’m pretty much a culinary Josef Mengele; just about every dish I turn out on a fine dining dinner service will kill your ass dead with enough time and repetition.
We even joke about it in the kitchen. When I’m mounting butter into some shrimp and andouille to be set over some creamy - that’s heavy cream, kids! - grits, my waitron Sandy mutters, “heartattackheartattackheartattack…” while I do the deed.
There’s not a damn thing that us humans do that is not risky to our health. It all evens out in the end. Slagging on smokers? You have an obligation to think about all the other risk factors that people are presented with and evaluate them. Then you should pretty much STFU about it, ’cause it you aren’t just paying for the smokers. Look, if you end up in a wreck - not your fault, mind you - we’re helping to pick up the tab, regardless. This whole “blame the smokers” meme amounts to way too much of that truly bogus dorm room bong fueled “butterfly effect” crap.
Jeez, wch, I don’t have to ask Bill why he quit. I did not make a case for smoking being healthy. So, it’s your contention that Bill quit because he didn’t want non smokers to pay for his health care? That is your assertion, one you cite no evidence for.
I have a better idea. You decide what you want to do and I’ll decide what I want to do. I will not stop you from sliding down snow covered slopes and having a drink and cigar afterwards and you don’t tell me not to drive race cars and have a drink or three afterwards.
That would be a reasonable explanation. As not only a white man but a former business owner, Bill is automatically in the financial top tier and should be doing more to pay his fair share. Awareness of his debt to society would have kept him from freeloading on the non-smokers.
All is forgiven, wch. I admire your grace and tolerance.
A few notes:
First, I believe wch has been around here for a while. He’s not a driveby.
Second, while he is in error about “the healthy subsiding smokers,” because he doesn’t examine the entire picture, his error is a common one, often held by intelligent though ignorant (on this particular issue) people.
Third, I believe his reference to me was to indicate that I quit because of health concerns (which I did) and that in turn demonstrates that I understand my smoking was a less healthy habit (and therefore a greater drain on the health insurance system) than not smoking.
That is obvious, but as I just demonstrated, it is irrelevant to the entire picture. I, as a smoker, would be equally justified in demanding the wch kill himself at the age of 68, so that I am not unfairly subsidizing his retirement and his nursing home stays. Or…
The pro-smoking folks would have no moral argument for demanding non-smokers commit early suicide if they weren’t paying the pension and nursing home bills of non-smokers.
In other words, wch’s argument is, well, a bit silly. And based on some false assumptions.
Thanks for the thoughts guys. I have often deleted things that I’ve wanted to say, figuring it’s not worth mentioning. You have taken the time to regard my words, and that does show some respect.
Toren, I was not in favor of taxing cigarettes. If it’s true that smokers pay for my insurance, then they may smoke all they want. It may lessen my load immorally, but I’m paying for it somewhere else I’m sure.
As I stated multiple times, I am not defending the anti-smoking zealots actions. I mentioned their moral argument for their opinion, not for their forcing others’ behavior. They cross the line in my book when they use their opinions to curb others’ actions.
I do not force others to change their behavior, unless it harms my person or my property. Unlike trolls, I’m more than happy to change my opinion of smokers if Toren’s evidence (that the unhealthy may be subsidizing my life) seems plausible. As Barry said earlier, (and I should have agreed with at that time,) it’s not the ones who talk about the dangers of smoking when asked. The problems stem from the ones who try to tell you what to do, and what not to do. Look above: I have never condoned that.
In other words, you choose to espouse a viewpoint which - as has clearly been demonstrated by many hereabouts - is highly arguable, quite likely insupportable and tends to align your views with those of the anti-smoking zealots (even though you say you don’t agree with said zealotry). However, when called upon to offer something to support this view…you refuse. You even make further unsupported (and arguable) assertions.
How…disappointing. Though rather unsurprising.
It’s not for me to do the research here, ace - you’re the one producing unsupported statements.
I work for a living, too - apparently, I’m at least a bit better at it than you, as well, since I’m not given to making assertions upon arguable points without offering some sort of useful backing for the views I espouse. Yes, that’s a cop-out by you, and a pretty weak one, as well. If you can’t - or won’t - back what you say with something, don’t say it.
You attempted to self-identify as a troll - sorry, you’re not up to that level, not even by half. You’re simply ignorant, and that plus your personal prejudice is making you stupid in this area.
Probably something you should watch out for in other areas, too, right?…