Monday, November 12, 2007
No Smoking In Your Home
Other bars and restaurants have seen drastic drops in their customer base since the No-Smoking Nazis helped force the entire state of Minnesota to institute a state-wide draconian no-smoking policy this past October 1.
So it comes as no surprise that a front page story in the Sunday, Minneapolis Red Star North Korean Tribune (MRSNKT), is that the Militant No-Smoking Nazi's next target is to ban cigarette smoking in your very own home. The MRSNKT may require you to register for a free subscription to read the story, but you can find it doing a basic search via Google; the story is titled: "Smoke-free crusaders may now be at your door," and written by Mark Brunswick and Curt Brown. MSNBC is running what appears to be a mirror of the story.
One anti-smoking group will kick-start a campaign this week to encourage landlords to outlaw smoking in their buildings.
[...]
...Condos and apartments appear to be the next battleground in the state's smoking wars.
It's part of a national trend aimed at snuffing out those who light up.
"We're getting a lot of calls from tenants saying that they are getting second-hand smoke getting into the living unit from somewhere else in the apartment building," said Brittany McFadden, director of the Live Smoke Free campaign. "They are not letting anyone smoke in their unit but smoke is drifting in from other people's units, balconies or patios. They are getting sick from their own living space and there's not a lot they can do to protect themselves."
By the way, Ms. "McFatten", I've seen you appear on the local news and it looks like you have a decent double-chin forming, you look a bit chubby. I know the camera can add 10 pounds, but you look like you're more than that. I searched for an image of you to include in this posting, but alas, I could not find one. If you'd like to submit a photo of yourself that I can include in this story, by all means let me know.
Can I enter your home, take a look in your refrigerator and kitchen and see if you're eating unhealthy fatty foods, Ms. "McFatten"? And if so, can I throw those foods out and insist your change your eating habits? A recent scientific study - The Foresight Report - showed that being overweight is more harmful to one's health than cigarette smoking. So, Ms. "McFatten", when may I impose my "thin is better than fat" ideology upon you? Let me know, I'm sure you wouldn't have any objection to my investigating the unhealthy foods you are consuming.
"Some resident [of the Talheim Apartment complex] have complained, 'What's next?' But one person told me he's so glad because he's been trying for years to quit and this might help," said Shelia Knox, Talheim's apartment manager. "I'll be out sniffing in the hallways."
The story notes that Talheim Apartments is a 58-unit complex. Well, Sheila, you just march up and down those hallways all day and all night sniffing for those cigarette smoking scofflaws. Make sure you do the Hitler goose-step while on hallway patrol. Add a little black mustache too, a small one, no longer in length than the area immediately below your nose. Listen to Wagner on your iPod while on hallway "sniffing" patrol. All these things will only add to your enjoying a fascist and self-righteous experience.
No No-Smoking Nazi story would be complete without the interfering Queen Bee of Social Engineering, Jeanne Weigum, the executive director of
"I think we are really short-sighted if we think that we just crossed the finish line. The smoking rate in Minnesota didn't go down because we passed a law. Anybody that looks at this as anything except another important step along the way is really missing the point," [said Weigum].
What happened when Big Tobacco was sued is that a huge redistribution of wealth took place. A redistribution of wealth from companies that produce a legal and taxed product. Their money was seized and given to - given to! - all the self-righteous, propagandizing little organizations that embarked on a "no-smoking" mission. It became their only reason to exist.
How many of the people who run these Hitler-esque organizations earn very good salaries because their paychecks are funded by money seized from companies that make a legal product? If you think this is right, if you think this is how the free market is supposed to operate, if you think this is how private property rights is supposed to work - then you need a remedial course on the workings of free enterprise and free markets, preferably pounded into your skull with a ball-peen hammer.
What's your salary, Ms. "McFatten"? What's you salary, Ms.
Here's the lowdown on second hand smoke, from the Heartland Institute, published November 1, 2007.
The article is titled, "Where's the Consensus on Secondhand Smoke?" - by Joseph Bast.
The fact is, there is no scientific consensus on any so-called harmful effects from second-hand smoke. While it may be an irritant - and who isn't irritated by something - to say second-hand smoke is a health hazard is blatantly hyperbolic, exaggerated and egregiously overstated by the Militant Non-Smoking Hitler Crowd.
Some astounding excerpts, (emphasis mine):
More than a year has passed since U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said, "The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard."
At the time, Carmona released a seemingly impressive 727-page report on secondhand smoke, the introduction of which claims secondhand smoke killed approximately 50,000 nonsmoking adults and children in 2005.
Carmona's report stated the new orthodoxy in the anti-smoking establishment: There is a "consensus" on the dangers of secondhand smoke. But did his report actually make the case?
[...]
... the Reference Manual states, "the threshold for concluding that an agent was more likely than not the cause of an individual's disease is a relative risk greater than 2.0." Few of the studies Carmona cites found relative risks this large, and most found risks in a range that included 1.0, which means exposure to secondhand smoke had no effect on the incidence of disease. In the world of real science, that's a knockout blow.
Most of the research Carmona cites was rejected by a federal judge in 1993, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first tried to classify secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen. The judge said EPA cherry-picked studies to support its position, misrepresented the most important findings, and failed to honor scientific standards. Carmona's report relies on the same studies and makes the same claims EPA did a decade ago.
[...]
Did Carmona and coauthors cherry-pick the data? Absolutely. They ignore the largest and most credible study ever conducted on spouses of smokers, by Enstrom and Kabat, published in the May 12, 2003 issue of the British Medical Journal. The authors found:
"The results do not support a causal relationship between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco-related mortality. The association between tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."
[...]
A 2002 analysis of 48 studies, also published in the British Medical Journal, found only seven showed a relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and lung cancer, while 41 did not.
A 1998 World Health Organization (WHO) study covering seven countries over seven years actually showed a statistically significant reduced risk for children of smokers and no increase for spouses and coworkers of smokers.
[...]
Far from being the last word on the health effects of secondhand smoke, Carmona's report and its uncritical acceptance by frequent commentators on smoking raise questions about bias, error, and the deliberate orchestration of public opinion. The commentators who echo the Surgeon General's claim fall into one or more of five groups:
* Liberal advocacy groups such as the Center for Tobacco Free Kids, American Cancer Society, and American Legacy Foundation, which clearly profit from increased public attention to secondhand smoke.
* Government agencies, including the Office of the Surgeon General, the Department of Health and Human Services, and EPA, which exist largely for the purpose of discovering and publicizing health risks, even if they are backed by dubious research.
* Some corporations--notably Johnson & Johnson, which makes smoking-cessation aids--which give liberal advocacy groups hundreds of millions of dollars to demonize smoking and compel more consumers to use their products.
* The news media, which simply publish the news releases from the first three groups.
* Politicians, who read the newspaper stories and hear from the advocacy groups and rationally calculate their odds of being reelected improve if they proclaim deep concern over secondhand smoke and propose solutions that will cost taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars annually.
Heavy-Handed Government
The idea that smokers and nonsmokers might solve this problem voluntarily is dismissed out of hand by those who claim secondhand-smoke exposure is a public health crisis. The "solutions" they want all require bigger government: higher taxes on cigarettes, bans on smoking in public, restrictions on advertising and health claims, etc.
Oddly, these solutions all work to advance the self-interest and agendas of the five groups that repeat Carmona's claim of "consensus." What are the odds this correlation is coincidental?
Here's my disclaimer, which I've noted in the past: I smoke about a half-pack of cigarettes a day. I don't care that 15 cigarettes a day may shorten my lifespan by 3-5 years (if that); it is inconsequential to me. I personally have an amazing amount of willpower when I choose to exercise it and I could quit smoking if I wanted to at the snap of my fingers without any help from any no-smoking organization. That said, I also possess an amazing amount of personal objectivity and I would oppose the objectives and goals of what the no-smoking nannies are doing as enthusiastically if I were a non-smoker.
As with bar and restaurant owners, if smoke-free apartment buildings and condominiums are such a great idea, one that will enrich the wallets of private investors, why not let the free market build those smoke-free apartments and condos? I would think that if there is such a high market demand for smoke-free living quarters that this "problem" would be solved; that non-smokers would be falling all over each other making a bee-line to occupy no-smoking housing and the landlords and property owners would be making a profit and providing a public need that so many people claim they want. Or is this "need" simply exaggerated by the grandstanding no-smoking Nazis? You bet it is.
The website of Initiative for Smoke-Free Apartments (ISFA) admits as much - that their goal is to create an artificial demand, writing:
Whereas only a very small percentage of renters (around 2%) enjoy a smoke-free environment, nearly half of those renting apartments in Minnesota would prefer to live in smoke-free units. ISFA's goals are to:
[...]
Empower renters who want smoke-free apartments and thereby create demand for smoke-free rentals.
Much like "smoke-free" bars in the free market had no chance of survivability on their own - no one patronized them - letting the free market settle the smoke-free apartment and condo living issue takes away the power and control from Little Eichmanns like "McFatten" and Weigum. Plenty of business men and women spent their money opening "no-smoking" bars and nightclubs. Most of them had a very short lifespan because they lacked customers.
"McFatten" and Weigum aren't satisfied allowing the free market to solve this because it diminishes and restricts their primary cause of social engineering and butting into the business, private lives and private property rights of others. "McFatten", Weigum and other like-minded do-gooders in their power-hungry cabal are people who, for whatever reason, were ignored by their family, friends, co-workers and others during their lifetimes. No one paid them any attention. Now, they've latched on to a cause, one that gets them attention and recognition, and by god they love it and will not let go of their grasp.
Ms. "McFatten", let me know a good time when I can stop by your residence and inspect and evaluate your groceries and eating habits. I want to help you shed yourself from that developing double chin. It's for your own best interests and your own good.
Ms. Hitler, perhaps you should make your medical records public. Surely you must have some maladies - high cholesterol, high blood pressure, poor circulation - that the rest of us can judge and insert our biased opinions, telling you how you should live. This too is only for your own best interests and your own good.
Banning outdoor patio smoking at bars, nightclubs and restaurants will be coming up as an issue in Minnesota's next legislative session in 2008, as will this absurd intrusion into individual privacy and the rights of private property owners of apartments and condominiums.
The "McFattens" and the Weigums of the world must be stopped. They know no bounds and have no sense of common decency, let alone respect the rights of anyone but those within the scope of their own narrow minds. We must stop them, we must stop them now.
©2007
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Labels: No Smoking
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