Is it a given that I will die a painful death because I smoke? You're asserting that every smoker dies a painful death? What percentage of smokers do you assert die painful deaths- links to studies please.
Also, what if my driving isn't 100% as safe as it could've been and I die a painful death on the street? What if my driving is 100% safe and I still die a painful death on the street? It could have been avoided by not driving. Police officers, firefighters, race car drivers, soldiers etc should never go to work by that logic because there is a statistical possibility that they will die painful deaths in the line of duty.
2) Why should the government pay medical expenses (which comes from taxpayers) to treat a disease you could have avoided?
Socialists don't just jump up in Congress one day and say "let's socialize the country!!!" Often it's not even socialists that socialize the country- it's ordinary people like you who want rebates on prescription drugs and the gov't to pay for your medical expense. Socialized medicine is the best route to implement socialism in a country (this is why Hillary wanted it so badly). When you have social medicine, it gives the gov't the duty to tax "unsafe or unhealthy behaviour". First you get you motorcycle helmet laws. Then your seatbelt laws. Then you have nuts like you saying we shouldn't be allowed to smoke. Or own guns. Or dangerous chemicals. Then we won't be able to eat fat because "Everybody pays for your clogged arteries buddy!". In the end, you won't be able to get your children circumcised if you so desire, because it isn't necessary. If you want the States to become a communist nation- social medicine is the surest ticket.
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
You ever seen a smoker give a fellow smoker a light? Hell, I'll give a fellow a smoke if he ran out. What's that? I certainly consider it thinking of my fellow man. I'm thinking of you every time I go outside to light up. I'm thinking of you every time I don't ash a carpet or put my butt on the floor or I don't throw it in a urinal. I'm thinking of you every time I can't smoke in a bar. I'm thinking of you every time I look at that ridiculously expensive tax stamp that's affixed to every parcel of tobacco I purchase.
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
Why do car drivers think they have the right to pollute the air that non car drivers breathe? That is a legitimate question. Why do people feel like they have the right not to wear deodorant if they're going in public? Why do people feel like they have the right to use electricity that comes from a coal fired plant? Why do people feel like they have a right to use a computer when the plastic housing that surrounds the monitor you're looking in right now is made from dangerous chemicals that pollute the environment- you're polluting my environment right now as you read! Why do people feel like they have a right to exist past the age of 40 dude? You're like- taking up oxygen and stuff that us smokers could be breathing.
Eating is a pretty selfish act as well wouldn't you say? So is looking for a well paying job. Or buying a really comfortable kingsized bed. Or drinking a cold beer on a hot day. Or just eating more ribs than you should. I know you don't do anything like that do you?
Everytime you invest some of your money in a 401K or put it in a mutual fund that is selfish as hell, don't you think? Didn't you pass some homeless person somewhere out there who needed your money worse than you?
Go ahead and lecture us man, the thing is, if you have a right to lecture, ALL of us have a right to lecture and if we want to get silly about it refer to any of the items above- I demand you quit polluting the environment with your car. I demand no alcohol be served in any resturaunt- better yet, I demand only skinny people be allowed into resturaunts. By the way, the next time you get a good whiff of obnoxious second hand smoke- think of me please, and remember, the second hand smoke is worse than what I get when I suck greedily on the end of my cigarette.
I've seen people die from emphesema, copd, heart attack, stroke, car wreck, drowning, SIDS, AIDS, gunshot (.22, 38, .357, .45 12 ga), falls, drug od's, head stomped, stabbed, etc.
I will state this flatly, and you can quote me: The best way in the world to die still sucks.
So, yes. Every smoker will die a painful "boy this SUCKS!" death. It just may not have anything to do with his smoking. The other thing that bugs me about the whole smoking thing is that the death rate has stayed fairly constant at one per person. Smoking causes some health problems, fer sure, but I doubt it will change this ratio.
It's a funny thing. I walk over a traffic-congested bridge with a Liberal who complains about my cigarette smoke, who caims that she is allergic to tobacco smoke.
Yet the cars and unregulated deisel trucks seem to have no effect. Go figure!
Traffic pollution, now that I find offensive!
Actually, it no longer makes ANY difference how you die.
The smoke-Nazis have jiggled the statistics--so that, for example, if you drive into a freeway abutment at 100 mph and die (duh...) but have a pack of cigarettes in the car, IT'S SMOKING RELATED DEATH.
Yup.
Prodigal Son, I just want to SLAP someone when they make the above statement about non smokers paying for OUR health care! This is directed to mrfixit514:
Starting from the top, YOUR taxes do no such thing. In fact, MY taxes, and those of every other smoker in this country, pay for YOUR ill-advised habits such as overeating. In 1994, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service spent 22 months and 20 million dollars--at the request of rabid anti Henry Waxman, no less--to determine just how much money smokers cost society. Guess what:
Smokers DO NOT COST SOCIETY. We pay in to the system far more than we ever take out. You should be paying US to smoke, dude. The New England Journal of Medicine concurs, as do economists from Yale and Harvard, and the CRS reiterated that fact in 1999. (I'll be happy to supply you with links to those studies if you like.)
Since your premise is wrong and can be proven wrong, and in fact smokers DO pay 100% of the problems our habit "causes," and since the science of shs is absolute junk and that can be proven as well.
Also, most of us have our OWN health insurance, thank you! And the tobacco settlement money was supposed to pay for any sick smokers on welfare, should there be any, but the states decided they needed to use that money for roads and laptops and little pet programs. So don't tell ME that you are paying OUR health care!