Smokers, Anti Smokers, Extremism, Propoganda and The "Nanny State"

This was originally written in response to an article and comment thread in a national paper in Cayman but was too long for publication on the site. I like it though so I thought I would publish it here on QuickScrib in the hope that it makes a few readers spend a little time on reflection wherever they happen to live.

To some of the commentators here, I would say, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

My position on a blanket smoking ban is neither here nor there, but it does seem to me that people nowadays are only too willing to be led by the nose, propagandized at every turn far to willing to cede their very thoughts to aptly named "nanny states".

Anyone who has seen the development of the "nanny state" in a given country may have a clue of where I'm going. The UK is a good example. Don't you ever wonder why people are so willing to surrender all manner of rights, freedoms and control to the state nowadays? How many would rather abdicate all personal responsibilities and self reliance to faceless governmental personnel and departments?

Banning smoking indoors in public places is reasonable enough and I'm not opposed to it personally - turning on smokers and treating them as if they are not fit to walk the same earth as you is another matter entirely, and quite frankly is an ignorant and offensive way to behave. Those among you who do act that way and type venomous and unsubstantiated crap, typify the abdication of personal responsibility and decency, believing that the state or anyone else has given you some kind of mandate to be discriminatory and judgemental of others by filling you with statistics and fuelling your righteous self indignation and antagonism. Maybe a little perspective should be introduced.

It puzzles me how people can be conditioned so easily, told it is wrong to attack someone based on race or religious belief or sexual preference to the point where they will not utter one word for fear of being "labelled" as something themselves and yet somehow are convinced that it is OK to spit venom at other people's lifestyle choices just because you don't happen to agree with them, because you are conditioned to believe it is acceptable. Selective political correctness and indoctrination at work there, don't you think? It is both cowardly and stupid to have your personal beliefs dictated to you, but it's easier to be on the right side when you are told what the right side is huh?

Remember that governments in all those so called "civilized countries" as one anti-smoking advocate referred to them here, took decades to tackle smoking and tobacco laws in any meaningful way, dragging their heels while they collected huge duties on tobacco products. Yet now, people are happy to believe that those same interests are now on their side and harbour real concern for the health of the general public. This is why the nanny state mentality is so dangerous and why steady and deliberate dumbing down of populations is so effective. As it goes on, it becomes easier to direct and manipulate public opinion with propaganda and at the same time make people believe they have a real stake in the lies and that they (the government) have only the population's best interests at heart.

Those who use the medical expenses argument to defend their rights to abuse smokers, people who are overweight etc etc are invariably blinded by statistics and propaganda and rarely think much for themselves. They prefer a nanny state that tells them exactly what to believe, how to react, behave, live and die. Bravo for you guys.

Consider a couple of points here, because the days of blaming all those horrible uncaring and vile people who ever put a cigarette, cigar or pipe in their mouths cannot go on, they cannot be scapegoats forever. Neither can those who you perceive to have eaten too much junk food, or have not drunk enough water, imbibed more than the state's recommended daily units of alcohol, neglected to adopt a healthy lifestyle plan (as defined by everyone and their cat it seems) or who have chosen Coke over Pepsi...I mean, where do you draw the line? At what point do you say "enough interference in our lives"? What on earth is the matter with you all? Where do these attitudes come from?

The big C - always a great argument to use against those who have ever consumed a tobacco product, is on the rise, worldwide - all kinds of cancers too. Yet government statistics always proudly claim how the fight against tobacco is being won, that the war being waged is finally turning the tide, smokers are an endangered species blah blah blah. You have to conclude therefore that whilst smoking may well cause cancer and other unpleasant respiratory diseases, if the proportion of smokers has decreased so drastically, how long can you go on laying the blame at their door for their own deaths and those of all those who have been subjected to second hand tobacco smoke? One thing I personally find most unpalatable is the willingness of some who resort to gloating over "horrible and painful deaths" in that smug lecturing way or resorting to accusing people of killing their children with their hysterical anecdotal ranting and yet never seem to have any facts or proof to back up their views because they are just based on opinions or what someone else says - are such people really ignorant enough to believe they will never find themselves the victim of the self same disease at some point? Like I said, perspective folks. It will serve you better than hateful and spiteful recriminations.

It's called having your cake and eating it where I was raised. Here we are in the 21st century, with all our medical advances and enforcement of healthy lifestyles and constant bombardment by all the "live right - live our way" nazis and yet cancer deaths continue to accelerate. Don't you ever stop and wonder why? All the anti alcohol, anti tobacco voices shout louder and louder while people still continue to fall to the same old diseases and yet in greater numbers year on year. Don't you even care or wonder why that is? Don't you think it's just a little strange and maybe worthy of asking yourself a few questions? Couldn't it be possible, just maybe, that there are far more harmful toxins, in far greater doses, that might be affecting the scourge of cancer and that you might be exposed to on a regular basis?

I mean, when you walk along the sidewalk by a heavily trafficked road, don't you think that you might be breathing in some pretty obnoxious poisons? Do you know the makeup of a gallon of gasoline? Do you know the elements that make up the exhaust gases? I don't, but I do wonder. When the UK banned lead in petrol they replaced it with Benzine, one of the most carcinogenic chemicals known to man. If you worked with it you had to wear a hazchem suit, but Joe Public was free to stand by a gas pump and breathe it in to his heart's content and then drive around spewing the waste into the streets for everyone else to enjoy. Did many people care or complain? No, because they were not informed, even though Benzine had been banned in the US for years. I have no idea if its use has since been discontinued but it remains germain to what I am arguing here. Did you ever hear the concerns over catalytic converters many years ago? There were some serious questions that remained unanswered if I recall correctly and yet they became standard fitment almost everywhere. Do you ever wonder, or question, why some authorities in some countries feel it is appropriate to put toxic waste from phosphate fertilizer production into people's water supplies and call it flouridation? Waste deemed too toxic to dispose of in oceans or rivers but is somehow OK for people to drink? Are you informed about everything you ingest? Are you aware of food safety issues and concerns over what is done to much of our food in the name of increased profits? Even milk, which consumers believe is one of the most hearty and healthy staples of our diets and that of our children has been called into question in the US where the use of RBST continues.The list goes on and on.

Before shouting at someone defending their right to smoke that they are killing your kids, take a breath, and think about just how many other things could be killing your kids, and indeed you, and then ask yourself; do I really care enough about my children to inform myself better on those self same issues or is it just easier to accept what I'm told and use that as justification for saying such things? Do I just apportion indiscriminate blame on a small section of society because as part of the righteous majority I have every right to do so and I need not fear criticism from anyone because the moral high ground is ours? Maybe if you do that, you will gain some insight into why accusations of hypocrisy are often forthcoming and why your invective is less effective as a result and perhaps you will begin to appreciate that there are many much greater threats than someone sitting at a bar or on the beach enjoying a smoke. Feel free to consider him foolish for his addiction, by all means don't sit near him but try to understand he really isn't the boogeyman without regard for you or others and who has only your destruction at heart. Then, when you go and buy your next jug of milk for your kids, read the label after you understand what you are looking for, and buy a product that you know, to the best of your ability is as safe and nutritious as you have been led to believe it always has been. The alternative is something else entirely, but hey, if corporations sell it with government approval it must be OK right and you really care about your kids so why bother questioning what any official source says, they would never lie to you, they love you and want to take care of you, protect you from yourself.

Do you really want to abdicate all your trust, your health and your well being into the hands of someone else in the belief that they can never have anything but your best interests at heart?

As I said at the outset, this is not just about smokers and non smokers and neither is it a pro smoking or anti smoking sermon, it's just a call to ask people to think for themselves and to try and gain a little perspective and balance. Smokers are not your enemy, smokers are not mass murderers, child killers or destroyers of healthcare systems. They may have a habit that you do not like and do not wish to share when you go out to dinner, and that's fair enough, but seriously, listen to yourselves and think about where your views really come from, not just on this topic but on many others, and say to yourself, maybe I should do some investigation and some thinking for myself before accepting some things and acting upon them. I'm not claiming that the anti smoking crowd do not have valid arguments, nor am I disputing medical evidence or suggesting that tobacco is actually a health food. I'm just saying that arguments are one thing, attitudes are another and that if someone gives you information it should not automatically be taken as tacit approval for you to suspend all rational and reasonable behavior towards others.

If you can't grasp the parallells I'm drawing here I apologize, so let's be really extreme - when the nanny state that you help create tells you "People who do not follow our state mandated diet and exercise program will not be eligible for healthcare of any kind" or perhaps, something a little closer in the future "those who fail to abide by environmental protection laws and exceed the permitted use of resources or emissions controls will be subject to fines and detention". Laughable? Totally off topic? Well, the US are already putting environmental police in place, with the right to enter any premises for "inspection" purposes, for which the owner of said property will be liable to pay for, so maybe it's not as lunatic as you think. Millions of people in Europe and the US are being lined up for hundreds of new taxes based on climate change/global warming lies and the majority are willingly being led down the path of what could well amount to a return to feudalism. Why? Because they are blinded by propaganda and are too lazy, stupid or selfish to do go looking for alternative views or counter arguments, they have surrendered their fate to the nanny state and suspended all independent thought completely, preferring to accept and believe everything that they are spoon fed by those in power. That does not mean that valid counter arguments are not out there, they are, but you won't find them unless you look because the global warming religion is being pushed by interests that control the majority of the corporate media in the west.

Of all the trillions that have probably been spent on man made global warming, do you not wonder why more immediate issues are ignored? Why, right now, millions die from starvation and easily preventable diseases like diarrhea? Why 2 billion people on this planet, a third of the world's population have no electricity? Why millions have no reliable clean water supply? Think about this and think about it seriously. You are told that global warming is a huge threat to mankind, to the world, that these issues are vital to survival at some indeterminate point in the future, that this is all about saving the world and mankind. Seems to me, if the people behind it, the ones holding the world ransom to unsubstantiated fear, were to spend a fraction of the money on problems that millions of people are facing right now, they could save a hell of a lot more lives. Funny that these self procalimed saviours and caring environmentalists don't do so isn't it?

When the smoking laws come into effect,you have chalked up your score, and you find yourselves looking for another cause, be sure of your motives and understand the truth about whatever you choose, because some bandwagons really are not what they seem. If you advocate and dumbly accept greater and greater government interference in your daily lives, most will will happily oblige, so think carefully before signing away what little autonomy, freedom of choice and self determination you have left. You might well find yourself becoming the next smokers. Once a nanny state decides what is and isn't good for you, what you are and/or are not capable of making a decision on, what is best for you, they have the power to alter public opinion very easily when they decide to create fear and introduce you to the next public enemy. Think about that. Orwellian paranoia? Don't be so sure. Relinquish all to the state and people pave the way for tyranny and abuse.

Let's finish with three quotes from a very evil man who understood exactly how propaganda and mass control of populations works;

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it"

"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach"

"How fortunate for leaders that men do not think".

That man's name was Hitler but most megolomaniacs hold exactly the same theories close to their hearts.

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