If the U.S made it illegal to smoke, drink alcalholic beverages, have sex, eat meat, using salt, drinking soda, and cussing, I would rather die than to follow those stupid and anti bible laws (except for soda). I really don't see how you could enforce such stupid laws.
Slimer! That was my clean uniform!" Winston Real Ghostbusters Episode Lost and foundry
"If the U.S made it illegal to smoke, drink alcalholic beverages, have sex, eat meat, using salt, drinking soda, and cussing, I would rather die than to follow those stupid and anti bible laws (except for soda). I really don't see how you could enforce such stupid laws.
"
First of all, they are not laws. They are acts + statutes. Legal and lawful are COMPLETELY different things (though most people don't know it, they have been indoctrinated to think it's the same thing).
Illegal is not necessarily unlawful. And vice versa. It's illegal not to pay taxes - but it's not unlawful. It's unlawful to murder, but it's not illegal (otherwise there'd be no militaries and wars).
Back to the point;
I wouldn't mind never having to breathe polluted air and second-hand cigarette-smoke (which is too common these days), to be harrassed by hobos and drunkards or to suffer from every-weekend "way too loud party way into the night"-behaviour from neighbourgs, having to smell brutally murdered innocent animals flesh being burned or see people eat that flesh and think that's normal, to poison the body with salt, or to ever have another drink from a metallic can of some kind of 'synthetic chemicals + sugar + water'-combination - or even hearing all kinds of cuss words all over the place.
I wouldn't really mind all that.
What I do mind is the political correctness, the restrictions on individual freedom, having to use seashells instead of toiler paper, having sex using some virtual stuff although the other horny party is right there, people who think they are civilized when they are just another bunch of apes, trying to 'act' in a way that the "society" perceives 'civilized', while still being dumb apes as far as attitudes and philosophy goes. I would also hate such a 'social life' where you are expected to constantly act and talk in a certain, moronic manner, and punished immediately if you say or do the wrong thing in a moment of heat.
I mean, cursing is pretty irrelevant - I don't like it, and I do not enjoy listening someone doing it constantly, but limiting the freedom of speech is the much bigger evil of the two. And I tend to have cursed sometimes when I've been really angry, and I reckon' everyone should be able to, because there ARE situations in life where you really need stronger words than "fudge". If everyone only cursed when they -really- needed to, I would have only good things to say about cussing. But using it in a regular conversation as a filler-word is somehow a little creepy.
As far as "you'd rather die"-statement goes - don't worry, you WILL die anyway. We all will. Anything that borns, also dies. Then again, it's not really YOU that dies, it's only your body - you won't be any more dead after your body dies than you were before your body was born.
The point of this movie, I suppose, is, that people have changed their liberty (means freedom from the government's tyranny, basically) and freedom (to excercise their rights - much like most people have in today's world) for safety and comfort, 'security', luxuries, perks, benefits and so on, and it might not be a satisfactory solution to someone less indoctrinated by that very society that urges people to do so (just like 'our' "society" does and has done for decades - anyone with a driver's license, a bank card, birth certificate or child's registration has already done so, voluntarily).
The whole point of the movie is that the audience would react exactly the way you are. Which is sad, because it only means that the makers of the movie think the people of this planet are nothing but air-and-lung polluting, selfish and barbaric flesh-eaters who love to mess their body with all kinds of dangerous chemicals, get drunk, succumb always to their most primal and animalistic urges and desires, destroy their tastebuds and pump unhealthy chemical concoctions inside their body while swearing and basically acting against the Universe and the natural laws.
And the makers of this movie may be right in that assumption.. hence the sadness.
They were ridiculous laws.
shareI have a tendency to curse so I would be up to my eyeballs in tickets from that stupid machine.
shareI think smoking is a disgusting habit, and I don't understand why people do it, but if it were up to me, I still wouldn't ban it. I don't mind it being illegal indoors, though. The smoke penetrates everything, plus there were too many idiots in nightclubs who'd thoughtlessly hold their fags at arm's length while
dancing, utterly unconcerned by the possibility that they might burn someone.
Given the current HIV situation, screening for diseases might be a good thing, as might embryo selection and artificial wombs. I'm not too sure about the virtual sex, though.
All the other stuff like cussing, eating meat, etc are just dumb.
"Why do you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it?"
I would gladly allow Bob Gunton (the tall,bald Chief of Police)to arrest me. ;)
I would use every foul word in the book!
Marry me,Bob Gunton!
[deleted]
Humans cannot be allowed to live the lives they want. When you give someone freedom to do what they want, some minor life choice becomes a large issue to someone of a counter choice. So, someone living an openly gay lifestyle offends someone who wants to live a life according to a certain belief that is against that lifestyle. Someone who wants to enjoy a smoke anywhere will conflict with someone who hates smoking. Small disagreements become major conflicts where the majority will dominate the will of others. Life becomes a prison for the minority.
Even the biblical sense of heaven is absent of humanity. No human would willing chose a 'perfect' life where you live forever but enjoy nothing that we do today. No sports, no video games, no sex, no eating, no movies no animals. Just a beautiful world where everyone sings and worships.
So, humanity has one of two destinations; anarchy or fascism. Fascism would result in a society that advances quickly and lives in harmony but where every choice is regulated and controlled to better suit society not the individual. Anarchy results in people living for themselves with no authority. The society suffers and nothing is ever achieved but there is no greater level of freedom.
The society that we have today is a middle ground that is headed for the Fascist world of tomorrow.
So, someone living an openly gay lifestyle offends someone who wants to live a life according to a certain belief that is against that lifestyle. Someone who wants to enjoy a smoke anywhere will conflict with someone who hates smoking. Small disagreements become major conflicts where the majority will dominate the will of others. Life becomes a prison for the minority.I have to admit, those are some messed-up scenarios you used to make your argument. So if an asthmatic or an emphysema sufferer should be in the area of the freedom-craving smoker, it's the non-smoker who's infringing on the smoker's rights? Do I have that right?
The same way a strict Muslim may want to protect their children from cleavage and women in short skirts. People have beliefs that conflict with personal expression. Just because it seems trivial to you means nothing- just as a smoker sees their smoking as trivial. Just as a homosexual or scantly clad women can say to look away so to a smoker can say go away. Can't go away? Oh well, personal problem. Is that right? No. But with freedom comes conflict. No matter what choice you make it will upset someone. That someone becomes a mob that becomes a political movement that becomes legislation which pushes for restrictions and regulations. Someone's freedom to live as they want is then taken. For the better of whom? If you are to illegalize smoking then you step onto a path that will never reach its end. Anything that is bad for you becomes the target of public scrutiny.
We humans see things on a small, petty scale that is measured in our life times. We see climate change and in our arrogance think that we are the perpetrators. We fail to realize that this planet has spun for billions of years and in that time there has never been such a thing as a constant climate. It is always changing and life is always being eradicated and reborn. Humanity itself has been on the verge of extinction on multiply occasions as evident by our lack of genetic diversity. The Earth will change again and we as a society will again be thrown back into a life before written language. Until the end of our sun we will always repeat this cycle and always will we war with opposing choices because the only choice that is important to us is our own.
If you are to illegalize smoking then you step onto a path that will never reach its end. Anything that is bad for you becomes the target of public scrutiny.But nobody illegalized smoking. You go to a public place, and it's an issue of business policy that prevents you from smoking there. A restaurant telling you you can't smoke inside isn't the same as robbing you of any freedom; you're still free to smoke outside. If it's been proven that smoking causes lung cancer, then wouldn't the smoker be infringing (read: endangering) the health of those around him/her?
Yes, we are going that path. Look at New York city which is also working to control people's diets. Everything in the modern world is restricted and regulated. As our population encroaches on the unsustainable it is necessary and I'm in favor of it. That does not change the fact that one hundred years from now red meat, smoking, alcohol, salt and so much more will be illegal in America. Especially under a federal healthcare system that is responsible for the well being of everyone.
You're focusing on the smoking for some reason. Stop thinking in terms of what you've seen in your lifetime and start looking at your parents and their parents lifetimes.
Yes, we are going that path. Look at New York city which is also working to control people's diets. Everything in the modern world is restricted and regulated. As our population encroaches on the unsustainable it is necessary and I'm in favor of it. That does not change the fact that one hundred years from now red meat, smoking, alcohol, salt and so much more will be illegal in America. Especially under a federal healthcare system that is responsible for the well being of everyone.But look at the public's reaction to Bloomberg's soda ban. No one's in favor of it. Even Jon Stewart devoted time on "The Daily Show" to showing the misguided ways he's going about it. I think even you can agree that we're not there yet as a society. Bloomberg became national news and immediately became a punchline.
You're focusing on the smoking for some reason. Stop thinking in terms of what you've seen in your lifetime and start looking at your parents and their parents lifetimes.I focused on the smoking because you used it as an incredibly specious example that smokers are losing their freedoms (they're not). So let's step away from that for a second. Tell me what it is about our parents' and their parents' lifetimes that would suggest our freedoms are under attack.
Our grandparents didn't need a license to fish or hunt, weren't required to immunize their kids, could discipline how they saw fit, could drive without insurance.
Their grandparents could commercial fish without a license and regulations did not exist, they hunted animals to extinction, they could drive without a license, could smoke where ever they wanted, could discipline/raise their kids however they wanted, could use gold as currency. People lived unhealthy, reckless lives and married whoever they wanted as long as they were white and at least 13. Minorities and females were second class citizens and homosexuals hide from public.
Their grandparents could claim land by being the first one there, could smoke whatever they wanted, drink whatever they wanted, do whatever they wanted . The strong forced their will on the weak. The minority was the target of the majority. People of opposing beliefs hid their views.
Basically, as time goes on basic human rights are redistributed from the strong to the weak (Majority to minority) while liberties are taken in exchange. Which sounds wonderful and in most cases is, until you consider that this is the first step towards a society that has already created the life you will live.
Imagine the early years of man as a tree with many branches, each branch is a life choice that he can make. As we get closer to the top (Metaphor for time passing and society creating more restrictions on living) those branches thin out until we are left with just the trunk.
Eventually, hundreds of years from now we will all eat the same nutritious meals, work at our assigned posting, watch the same shows and carry on with a life that we consider fulfilling. Negative forms of communication are considered criminal (Bullying, teasing, offensive language, anything not politically correct). To us today it seems ridiculous, but just look at the above examples and imagine someone from hundreds of years ago trying to adapt to a modern world.
Again, if humanity is to survive, I'm in favor of a lobotomized society of worker bees that live for the greater good. There would be no war or violence because decisions would be removed from our control. A society built on a slow, gradual process of minor restrictions and regulations that results in a population brought up in a world where life is a preordained path. For humanity to survive, people cannot dictate their own lives.
I would kill myself in such society.
I rather live in disorganized FREE chaos than an organized "heaven" where i dont have personal freedom.
What si the purpouse living a life without choices? The social pressure to conform and to live a life predetermined to what people thik it is fit for your age is already annoying enough. Imagine a STATAl pressure to live a life in some way what a terrible bore it would be.
Gosh...i am not even kidding, people like you should be muted by force what you are defending is just absurdly ludicrous.
Mr Fusion,
While I do agree that some smokers do jump the gun when it comes to claiming any smoking ban is equal to Jews being hunted by the Nazis, I would disagree with your claim that smokers are not losing their rights.
For example a number of anti-smoking groups have successfully lobbied various local governments to bar smokers from employment. Another example will be Stanton Glantz's Smokefree Movies campaign that wants to raise the rating of any movie that depicts any tobacco use and to also censor smoking from existing movies. A number of anti-smoking groups have lobbied for smokers to be denied medical care in hospitals (mostly in the UK and Australia). Oh, and Simon Chapman (an Australian anti-smoking activist who also praises America's experiment with Prohibition) is campaigning for tobacco to be illegal in 20 or so years.
Yes, there is actually a movement out there to discriminate, "denormalize" (their own term not mine), and criminalize smokers.
I should also point out that the anti-soda, anti-salt, anti-alcohol, anti-fat, and anti-sugar people and the same as the anti-tobacco people. I mean that literally. Look up a major activist in any of those camps and most of the time you will see that they got their start in Tobacco Control. Kelly Brownell was an anti-smoking activist and now primarily works as an anti-obesity activist. John Banzhaf used to sue tobacco companies and now he is trying to sue fast food chains and has compared Ronald McDonald to Joe Camel. The various groups and activists opposing countless activities always compare the threat of X with smoking and whenever people say, "Oh, they won't ever restrict/tax/ban _______" those activists will reply with a smirk, "That's what they used to say about smoking".
Interesting stuff.
I guess it makes them (Stanton Glantz, Simon Chapman, Kelly Brownell, John Banzhaf) feel like a leader, a guru, a messiah.
I can also throw in people who try to ban certain video games. They are just idiots who think video games make a kid go to school with a gun and shoot his classmates. Why not stop going to war? Why not ban the news?
Re;(But nobody illegalized smoking. You go to a public place, and it's an issue of business policy that prevents you from smoking there. A restaurant telling you you can't smoke inside isn't the same as robbing you of any freedom)
This is completely inaccurate. It is not a business policy, it was a mandate by the government that forced establishments to enforce a no smoking policy under penalty of fine. Many businesses (bars, restaurants, night clubs) even had to close down due to lack of business when the no smoking was ordered. If you asked business owners of restaurants and nightclubs if they were given the option of smoking or nonsmoking, 80% percent would have said no to non smoking. But they were not given the option. This is truly what infuriates me. It doesn't matter what I believe or want , it doesn't matter what you believe or want, the only thing that should have mattered, is what the owner of the establishment wanted. To be told how to run your own business by the government, sounds like a futuristic movie to me.
But they did. If every owner was given the decision to run their own restaurant or bar the way they saw fit, i would have felt much better. Then we as citizens get to decide which place we would like to visit. If you don't like smoking then you don't go to an establishment that allows it,, and vice versa, , this way everybody is happy. One of the biggest problems with the anti-smoking laws in bars and restaurants was that the loudest voice was shouted by people who don't even frequent these establishments.
People that only want to force their opinions on other people.
Never interrupt silence unless you're
going to improve it
''Most of you are brainwashed cretins, who've been spoon-fed nothing but state propoganda.
Cigarettes are not a public health issues, infact out in the open they're pretty much close to harmless. Gas-run vechiles and most industry in the West are the biggest public health risk there is. Somehow I doubt you'll give up your car. Infact I'm sure you have no gripes with car owners who are poisoning you and your children. But then again, the State hasn't been waging anti-driver propoganda. ''
this.
2/3 of all smokers never get any kind of cancer. Second hand smoking causing cancer is just BOLLOCKS
I HATE to sound like an anti-smoker, but smoking is very unhealthy.
Now, I agree with secondhand smoke. The studies aren't exactly the best quality to begin with, a large minority (about 40%) of secondhand smoke studies show a no-risk or even reduced risk, and the increase in risk of heart disease and lung cancer suggest by studies that show an increase in risk due to exposure to secondhand smoke are estimated to be about 20% for each when epidemiology usually prefer increases of around 100% (or at least 50%) because smaller increases in risk can be due to small sample size, underestimated or unrecognized confounders, or bias. Plus tobacco smoke is mostly made up of well known and well understood chemicals and they virtually never (by the OSHA's admission) reach levels that considered unsafe or unhealthy by OSHA standards.
So secondhand smoke is more a political tactic than a strict scientific stance. Because if those studies regarding the risks of those illnesses were from anything non-tobacco related the stance would be "Some studies suggest and increase in risk, but no conclusive results. Further study is required." Oh, and "Thirdhand Smoke" is ugga-bugga ugga-bugga territory.
Now, that I have got my anti-anti-smoking cred out of the way. Smoking is indeed very unhealthy. It is tied to a number of illnesses and health conditions ranging from minor to almost certainly fatal and the increases in risk vary between relatively small to F--KING MASSIVE. Heart disease, lung cancer, throat cancer, oral cancer, strokes, poor circulation, acute and chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and so on. While many smoking death statistics may be inflated on the basis that majority of smoking related deaths are caused by heart disease (which has many common contributors like diet, alcohol consumption, genetics, stress, depression, and other factors some of which increase the risk of heart disease as much or than smoking and there is bound to be overlap), it would still run into the hundreds of thousands in the US. Most types of lung cancer are very closely correlated to cigarette smoking (between 800-2,600% increase in risk over a non-smoker which works out to a 2-8% lifetime risk of getting lung cancer which kills 93% of the people who get it). There are very few things that cause an increase in lung cancer the way the smoking does and the few that do (some forms of mining and exposure to certain chemicals) are very rare and it is extremely unlikely that those risks .
My take is that the claims about the health effects of cigarette smoking are real (although they do leave out some important information like the majority of people who die of tobacco related illnesses are over 70), but secondhand smoke is bulls--t. I think it reflects the periods that these studies were conducted. Back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s the health effects of cigarette smoking were just starting to be discovered and scientists and doctors studying the risks were very careful with their conclusions for several reasons. They knew the tobacco companies were wealthy and they wanted to make sure there evidence was solid before accusing a major consumer product of being very risky and unhealthy, they were also starting to experience the scrutiny and they had an incentive to be honest as possible because they would be called out on making wild claims, they were also experiencing the dishonesty of tobacco companies and wanted to be honest and clear in comparison and beyond reproach, and many of those scientists smoked and were a bit more reluctant to admit without good evidence that they might die because of their habit. Now, the people who study tobacco are mostly explicitly anti-smoking and anti-smoker. Many of them are involved in anti-smoking groups (ASH, Smokefree Movies, Americans for Non-Smokers Rights, etc.) that actively lobby businesses to fire smokers, landlords to evict smokers, remove smoking from existing movies and artwork, and have never seen a smoking ban they haven't liked.
I love smoking.
Now that I have my coffee, I'm ready to watch radar.
if bloomberg had his way this is how it would be
shareGive me liberty or give me death.
Now that I have my coffee, I'm ready to watch radar.
Every once in awhile some egomaniac, @$$hole with a god complex comes along and thinks he/she knows what is best for everybody.
Now that I have my coffee, I'm ready to watch radar.