Posted on 02/06/2005 3:44:20 AM PST by MisterRepublican
In last year's remake of the 1970s classic science fiction file, "The Stepford Wives," a group of techno-weirdos set out to transform imperfect women into perfect wives. Of course, the plan fails because of... well, a lot of reasons.
But the point is, the world remains as full of weirdos today seeking to create the perfect person as when Pygmalion tried many centuries ago. Now, the "Stepford Search" has come to corporate America.
Weyco Inc., a Michigan company, has decided to fire any employee who smokes. Not just any employee who smokes on the job. Any employee who smokes anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Why? To help the employees make healthful life choices and become better persons; to help the employees "manage their health care."
How does the company ensure its employees remain truly and permanently "smoke free?" Mandatory "drug" tests. If traces of the "devil weed" tobacco are found, the hapless employee who thought he or she lived in a free country — one in which a citizen could practice such horrible habits as lighting up a cigarette or cigar in the "privacy" of his or her home — is summarily fired.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the decades of my misspent youth, we harbored the illusion such menaces as nuclear war or communist invasion were the real enemies of freedom. How wrong we were. The good folks running America just four or five decades later, including the Weyco Gestapo, know the real enemy of man is not the trivial nuclear holocaust, but smoking. And they will leave no freedom unturned in their zeal to root it out wherever it might still lurk.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Yawn. Go back and read my posts.
I'm for keeping the government out of telling businesses who they can hire and fire. Period.
Well said, Mr. Crab.
I changed my mind about Weyco. This is part of a much larger agenda than a business' requiring employees to adhere to certain policies.
The land of the fleas and the home of the sheep.
See post #81.
There are other treacherous forces at work..
Sorry. Make that #181.
I am surprised that no one here has posted that employers may one day require a DNA sample from new hires and not hire anyone with a genetic predisposition to cancer (or other things). The concept of health insurance is at the root of the problem. Initially insurance was supposed to cover so many that the few who caught serious illness would be covered by the vast number of insureds who were healthy. Now one company seeks to create a favorable statistical sub group and benefit from this. This could be the downfall of all health insurance, (and that may or may not be a bad thing depending on your view.)
It used to be that some got sick and some did not. The healthy owed nothing to the sick who either paid for their own care or died. We may be heading back to this ideal, because ultimately the wealthy can afford what the poor cannot.
As for this foolish company, their policy reflects the thinking of a small company which will not grow much more. For the reasons posted here, the company does not honor the freedom of their employees, and employees will leave when and if they can for better employers. The remaining people will be healthy, have cheaper health insurance, and not much enjoyment in life.
I agree with you; I think it would be absurd to outlaw the consumption of alcohol. However, it was at one time...and as sweetliberty has already mentioned, outlawing/forbidding one thing only leads to the "invention" of doing something else, perhaps more illegal and destructive. We know, for instance, bootleggers "evolved" because of Prohibition. I, in fact, know people who bootlegged for the Mafia....yes...the Mafia, during Prohibition. It was a lucrative trade for the Mafia to become involved in the illegal production/sale of alcohol.
And one would have to be quite naive to believe that nothing else more illegal occurred during this new Mafia business of illegal trade of manufacturing/selling of alcohol.
That is exactly right. Personally, I can't stand busybodies who think they sit on a throne and have a right to dictate to other people (people in glass houses and all). I feel for the Weyco employees as well, especially the older ones. The younger ones have grown up in the nanny-of-everything society. But those of us who are over 40......
Amen to that....
Actually, I think that was Rush's idea. Ever heard the "commercial" on his show? Its called "Lucky Butts". LBMFT. Lucky Butts Means Fine Tobacco. LOL
"Shotgun sized"suppository?Ouch!Have u test marketed yet?
I really think this company in question is really just against smoking and they can get by with it because of political correctness. They wouldn't even try to implement rules against all those other things. Its just smoking. They just hate it. Its like an obsession with some people and they know no one will care if they persecute their employees over smoking but there would be outrage over firing gays or obese people, etc. Its all about political correctness.
There's the key point that everybody is missing. They're not really trying to control costs or improve life through better "health choices," merely through the choices that match their personal (liberal) preferences. I'm normally a very free-market kinda guy and almost extremist in my belief that an employer has the right to make tough employee decisions since it's his money in play. I've been in business for myself for 25 years and understand the issues. But this is different. This is an insidious attempt to shove their POLITICAL beliefs down the throats of their employees. If they were concerned about "health," any moron knows homosexuality is what, ten times more deadly than tobacco, a hundred times, what?
I suspect nothing's gonna happen and it will proceed unfettered, but that's a huge mistake.
MM
ping
Unfortunately, the rising cost of medicine is a huge problem in this country. To some degree, this is inevitable, with the rising percentage of aged and chronically and terminately ill people in the population. One way to deal with the problem is to return to the original system that only covered the big ticket items. That's the way it was until the 1970s. There is no reason why insurance should cover the most mundane medical visits and minor costs. Perhaps patients could pay more for their care. That would benefit me, who very rarely goes to the doctor, but may force people to be more careful with their own lives and not squander medical resources, as well. That's another problem -- the patients don't care about racking up big bills because someone else almost certainly picks up most, if not all, of the tab.
There are many issues regarding medical care -- a vast amount of money is spent on the chronically ill and dying. Is it a good idea to keep people alive, no matter what the prognosis is? As a society, can we afford to give people unlimited medical care? Wherever there is some sort of socialized medicine, medical care is rationed and even denied. People with treatable conditions are turned away because they are too old and others wait so long that they suffer and even die in the meantime. HMOs are the American equivalent of the government medical bureaucracy in countries with socialized medicine.
I agree. I just feel like I have been left behind by society sometimes.
You are not alone....I feel like a dinosaur..lol.
The solution is to start taxing health benefits as income which will end the incentive for a company to involve itself in providing insurance which is usually not the focus of the company.
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