New cigarette warning labels: What is wrong with our country

Don't you read? I don't smoke anymore. I used to (smoke a few cigs a day, never once smoked a pack in a day) and now I don't anymore. Open your eyes and READ before you lash out like you're the FDA's cronie.

If cigarettes can be sold in this country, legally, and people buy them, then people like you and Longtime can't complain. Personally, I find the morbidly obese far more objectionable than someone lighting up a smoke. When you live in a country where people are buying two seats on an airplane because they HAVE to, that is pretty sad. There comes a point when you look in a mirror at all the fat hanging off and say, "Damn, I've lost control of myself." Or maybe not, and you join the Biggest Loser.

I don't know why you're bitching about it. There will ALWAYS be smokers, somewhere, indulging what they enjoy. Just like you probably enjoy eating shit fast food a couple days a week, or drinking empty calories associated with beer. And in terms of healthcare, why should smokers be rejected but fat people be welcomed for gastric bypass? That seems hypocritical to me.

I apologize for my opinion in believing that this whole branding of cigarettes is a charade. And what, do you stand next to smokers all day long or something? I've quit and I don't get all hot and bothered like some of you. It's LEGAL, and unless you are constantly next to someone who smokes, odds are you probably won't keel over anytime soon. And with the smoking ban in place in most states nowadays, where is all the second-hand smoke coming from of which you so passionately complain?

 

Smokers are not being targeted. The product is.

The other part of this rant is mere nonsense.

 

Mark Steyn once said that once you have government-run healthcare, the relationship between citizen and government goes to being one between junkie and pusher -- we feed off the government and we have to rely on them or they just pull the plug.

One of the biggest fears I had with ObamaCare was the trap door it was going to provide to a host of new regulations. Essentially, anything a segment of the public doesn't like becomes a "public health care problem" that the bureaucratic state has to take care of, and therefore ban (or overtax, since we as a society are now comfortable with using tax policy to regulate behavior). Smoking has been a target for a long time, but once the war on smoking is won, there is a host of new targets. The War on McDonald's and the War on Coke have both been ramping up, and vegetarians have always been touting the environmental and public health benefits of not eating meat.

I personally don't smoke, and go out of my way to avoid establishments that allow smoking. But I do drive quite a bit, eat fast food, pizza and drink soda, and I'm very concerned that well-meaning do-gooders in the government are going to try to take those away in the rush to "promote public health."

I have an idea. Why not let people make their own decisions? If they want to screw up their own lives, let 'em. We don't need a bureaucratic administrative nanny state to save us from ourselves.

 

With all due respect... and I mean that, you seem like a normal person... but the 'pariah' ship has sailed, and it's not coming back in the other direction.

You think you feel that way now? Wait 5 years. You're lucky to still have a designated smoke place at work. That's going bye bye very soon.

I had a professor in college who worked for Koop when he started trying to convince everyone smoking was bad for you. He had everything and everyone against him... except for the science. And once the floodgates opened and the facts got out, Koop won.

The same thing is going to happen with regard to secondhand smoke. Smoking X number of feet away from a pregnant woman or a child will never be enough once the science gets out there.

Remember when we thought having designated smoking sections on airplanes would help? Yah.

Again... we're evolving.

 

The British version of socialized medicine has proposed doing exactly that.

 

I'll trade you three tracheotomy cards for one "zipper" corpse morgue card.

 

Crimsonace, you are probably the most thoughtful, insightful conservative on this board when you wade into politics. However, it seems to me here that you are perpetuating a Republican health care myth that gets repeated ad nauseum: Namely, that health care mustn't be "rationed" the way it is in nations with "socialized medicine" (actually socialized insurance).

News for you: Health care was, is, and always will be rationed. It's unavoidable. There are a finite group of resources to devote to health care. In America, we ration by shutting out the uninsured, which include young men and women who opt out by choice, as well as working and unemployed poor who don't qualify for Medicaid (as well as those who do and just don't sign up - a staggering number). In Britain, they ration treatment. They don't get as many hip replacements, for example, as we do. Or they propose not to treat smokers.

But don't kid yourself. We ration, too. We just ration differently. And it doesn't generally affect the people with political clout, namely educated, employed voters, so we just obliviously pretend that it doesn't happen here.

 

ANY second-hand smoke is detrimental. Again, try actually understanding the science.

The comparison to obesity is bullshit. You can't be harmed by second-hand fat.

 

I don't disagree with the fact that it's rationed. Right now, it's rationed to those who can afford to pay, while those who can't still do have options -- free clinics, Medicaid, et al.

I also have been on record in supporting Medicaid because those who desperately need care need to have access to it. My biggest issue has been with the third-party payer system and the lack of tort reform. When third parties (e.g., insurance companies or the government) pay all of the bills -- even for routine care -- then prices will necessarily skyrocket because one has to support several extra unnecessary positions.

I don't trust when politicians or bureaucrats are the ones making the decisions as to who does or doesn't get care. At least in a private system, we have some choice over the matter if we get turned down for care -- find a different insurance company, find a different doctor, pay for it yourself. In a public system, there are no other options. If the bureaucrat doling out the care says your life is not worth living, then you get to die a slow, painful death.

But the biggest issue, to me, (and getting back to the original point) is the ability to use "public health" to attempt to control behavior. Smoking is one case -- secondhand smoke can screw people up. I have respiratory problems because one of my parents smoked like a chimney. However, my eating of McDonald's once a week or the fact that I drink a Coke a couple of times a week shouldn't brand me as a pariah, or lead to me being denied medical treatment in the future, which is what could happen in a bureaucratic/administrative state when those things become "enemies of public health."

The libertarian attitude of "you have the full ability to screw up your own life and don't expect me to stop you" goes hand-in-hand with a belief that doctors and patients should be able to work out payment for routine care themselves, with insurance *only* for extreme cases (coupled with tort reform to bring the costs of malpractice insurance down) and a system of charitable clinics to care for those in need, which would make it more affordable and get the government out of things altogether.

 

Just so I get this completely, Crimsonace, you are perfectly fine with the government stepping in and limiting the amount of financial compensation a victim can receive but are completely against the government stepping in to curtail smoking. Is this correct?