By Walter E. Williams

Down through the years, I've attempted to warn my fellow Americans about the tyrannical precedent and template for further tyranny set by anti-tobacco zealots. The point of this column is not to rekindle the smoking debate. That train has left the station. Instead, let's examine the template.

In the early stages of the anti-tobacco campaign, there were calls for "reasonable" measures such as non-smoking sections on airplanes and health warnings on cigarette packs. In the 1970s, no one would have ever believed such measures would have evolved into today's level of attack on smokers, which includes confiscatory cigarette taxes and bans on outdoor smoking.

The door was opened, and the zealots took over. Much of the attack was justified by an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) secondhand smoke study that used statistical techniques, if used by an academic researcher, would lead to condemnation if not expulsion. Let's say that you support the attack on smokers. Are you ready for the next round of tyranny using tactics so successful for the anti-tobacco zealots?

According to a June 2 Associated Press report, "Those heaping portions at restaurants -- and doggie bags for the leftovers -- may be a thing of the past, if health officials get their way." The story pertains to a report, funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) titled, "Keystone Forum on Away-From-Home Foods: Opportunities for Preventing Weight Gain and Obesity." The FDA says the report could help the American restaurant industry and consumers take important steps to successfully combat the nation's obesity problem. Among the report's recommendations for restaurants are: list calorie-content on menus, serve smaller portions, and add more fruits and vegetables and nuts. Both the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA accept the findings of the report.

Right now, the FDA doesn't have the authority to require restaurants to label the number of calories, set portion sizes on menus or prohibit allowing customers from taking home a doggie bag. That's for right now, but recall that cigarette warning labels were the anti-tobacco zealots' first steps. There are zealots like the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest who've for a long time attacked Chinese and Mexican restaurants for serving customers too much food. They also say, "Caffeine is the only drug that is widely added to the food supply." They've called for caffeine warning labels, and they don't stop there. The Center's director said, "We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses and meat." Visions of higher taxes are music to politicians' ears.

How many Americans would like to go to a restaurant and have the waiter tell you, based on calories, what you might have for dinner? How would you like the waiter to tell you, "According to government regulations, we cannot give you a doggie bag"? What about a Burger King cashier refusing to sell french fries to overweight people? You say, "Williams, that's preposterous! It would never come to that."

I'm betting that would have been the same response during the 1970s had someone said the day would come when cities, such as Calabasas, Calif., and Friendship Heights, Md., would write ordinances banning outdoor smoking. Tyrants always start out with small measures that appear reasonable. Revealing their complete agenda from the start would encounter too much resistance.

Diet decisions that people make are none of anybody else's business. Yes, there are untoward health outcomes from unwise dietary habits, and because of socialism, taxpayers have to pick up the bill. But if we allow untoward health outcomes from choices to be our guide for government intervention, then we're calling for government to intervene in virtually every aspect of our lives. Eight hours' sleep, regular exercise and moderate alcohol consumption are important for good health. Should government regulate those decisions?


(townhall.com)

Smoking Bans have changed the bar business. They have effectively curtailed consumption. there is no fun left in it.

It would seem the zeelots want to kill the entire concept of entertainment venues by removing any reason to visit them.

Why have a drink when a pill will suffice?
Why eat when a pill will provide you with all your necessary nutrients?
Why spend time with friends and family, work, sleep, take your pills, produce, produce, produce, so you can buy all those overpriced pills made available by our sponsors.

quote:

It would seem the zeelots want to kill the entire concept of entertainment venues by removing any reason to visit them.

Of course they do.......they abhor the idea that someone, somewhere, may actually be enjoying themselves.

With the emphasis of smoking bans on entertainment venues, is it any wonder most of believe the goal is a back door to prohibition?
It didn't work in the early 20th century, however I still think that is part of the plan - by shutting down th venues, people are limited in where they may consume legal products.

quote:

It didn't work in the early 20th century, however I still think that is part of the plan

True, prohibition did not work. But the temperance movement never pretended to have a scientific justification for banning booze the way the current public health fanatics do. However, at around the same time of prohibition, another group was quite successful at pushing their agenda in the name of science and public health, the eugenecists. Most supporters of eugenics were considered progressive members of society's elite and were well connected with politicians and the media. They were also able to shower grant money on institutions that would "prove" that the feeble minded diminished the fitness of the gene pool. Hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions were sterilized and it would take the holocaust for this to fall out of favor, though the retarded were sterilized in some states up until the 70s, as were native americans in Canada, and non-blondes in Sweden (seriously!).
My point is that the self proclaimed public health activists of today are the heirs of this mindset. That people's unhealthy lifestyles, rather than lack of good genes, make them less human and in need of being controlled and regulated.

quote:

My point is that the self proclaimed public health activists of today are the heirs of this mindset. That people's unhealthy lifestyles, rather than lack of good genes, make them less human and in need of being controlled and regulated.

OUCH.........it's a simple word, but it sums it all up, doesn't it.

Universal Health Care is another push against smokers. Currently a lot of the conversation is smokers are less healthy than non-smokers so the immediate concliusion is smokers need to pay dearly for their habit.

At the same time, the medical profession is in a bind, their are very overpriced and this has caused the uninsured to avoid them. How do you get customers in the door to look at buying a space shuttle if they never travel across town?

I guess they could relocate grocery stores on the moon. If you want to eat you need a space shuttle to get there and back.

For we the uninsured, health care is not an option we can afford. At the same time if you look at the cost of insurance, it too does not take into account for the fact that few of us ever use it. Why pay a hundred dollars a month for something that carries a deductibe of fifty or a hundred dollars? Over a workers lifetime they will work forty years and pay forty eight thousand dollars for heallth insurance. If they never avail themselves of health care services the insurance company has made $48,000.

If they do need care their expenses are subtracted from that figure. If their care costs more than that then the premiums of others are eused to pay it. If there are one hundred and fifty million people paying premiums of a hundred dollars a month that is a pool of $ 7,200,000,000,000. This pool allows for the care of children born prematurely and others to replace their hearts, kidneys, livers, a few broken bones, colds, and cases of the flu.

Transplant patients remain on a series of drugs for the balance of their lives to impair their immune systems from rejecting the foreign tissue. Premature children typically have breathing problems because their lungs have not developed sufficiently before leaving the womb.
As a caring people we want babies to survive and we want people with broken organs to get replacements where possible. We are felt to believe that we and are loved one may one day require the ssame and we want to provide that they get what they need.

All of this makes us feel better about ourselves and our society. But if the patient was an animal a cost benefit analysis would be done first. The medical community still gets paid regardless of outcome. If you build they will come. If there is money to spend they will spend it. If there is money to earn they will earn it.

The opposite is also true. If there is no money in it for the medical community the patient will be ignored. The only thing that will bring down the cost of health care is eliminating the ocean of money made available to the health care community.

Universal Health Care is just a euphamism for socialized medicine.........it doesn't work.

I'm not real crazy about the current system we've got either, but it is a bit better, insofar as a doctor and patient who has no insurance can, and do, negotiate a price for service.

Because we have a young child, my husband has a big chunk of his paycheck deducted every payday for our family insurance coverage........guess what, it's still far from perfect. I'm going rounds with the insurance company and a collection agency right now due to surgery I had last year. The insurance company paid everything related to it, from Xrays, ER visit and pain pills to physical therapy..........but they declined to pay the SURGEON.

And, BTW - for the anti-smokers that love to lurk here and take our comments out of context - a broken ankle has absolutely NOTHING to do with smoking..........

:Gabz:
And, BTW - for the anti-smokers that love to lurk here and take our comments out of context - a broken ankle has absolutely NOTHING to do with smoking..........


:Zombie:
Smoking weakened your bonessss.....
:/Zombie:

ROFL!!!!!!!