Posted on 10/20/2013 5:43:53 AM PDT by Sam's Army
Many people smoke after they've eaten. Lindell Harvey smokes because he hasn't.
"You smoke out of anxiety because you don't have the food you need," said Harvey, 54, who lives alone in Crum Lynne, Pa. He receives disability checks from the Navy that keep him $2,000 below the poverty line.
Harvey relies on his Newports to see him through his hard days. "In my mind, the smoking becomes a comfort as I try to create ways to get food."
(Excerpt) Read more at theledger.com ...
“...but that wasn’t good enough for people like you...”
Me?
We are taxed more than 55% of our incomes. When someone asks for more we are simply angered about how much we have already given and are dumbfounded as to how could anyone really need anything since we see multigenerational welfare recipients with better TV than we have and wearing expensive sneaker that cost more than our suits.
Frankly, we have NO poverty in this country. None. No one goes hungry.
<.......”The number one reason owners wouldn’t go smoke free was because they would lose business to places that permitted smoking - and you can find that excuse in favor of government interference in news reports in every state the bed wetting anti-smokers descend up to impose their ways”......>
We had a Burger Joint here...years and years in business...a greasy spoon type of place.....but the best Burgers in town! You’d smell like tobacco when you left....but everybody went there.
They actually put picnic tables outside for the “NON-Smokers” ..ha!
When the law demanded nonsmoking establishments they not only eventually lost the business...but their waitresses suffered in their tips as the smokers usually lingered for ahile and generally paid a good tip.
When I was a kid, my friend’s Dad rolled his own Cigarettes.
Back then Cigarettes were .35 cents a pack and he thought that was outrageous. Then again, when Gasoline hit 32.9 cents a Gallon, the customers at my Dad’s Gas Station were complaining.
You can also get a nice package of 4-6 pork steaks for the price of a pack of cigarettes.
No sympathy from me if he would rather burn his money than eat his money.
Welfare is charity...charity belongs with the individual and private organizations!!!
He must have Nightmares of the day those Evil Republican Cigarette Manufacturers broke down his door, tied him to a chair and made him start smoking.
My Mother smoked two packs a day. My Father drank like a fish until he was 78 and quit cold turkey. Somehow, we always had food on our plate and we were poor.
Too bad there wasn’t some do gooder Liberal Newspaper Writer around to chronicle our lives.
Actually it's Communism, as it uses the force of government and is not voluntary.
charity belongs with the individual and private organizations!!!
Exactly...especially the churches.
Welfare is a narcotic.
On a related note, I can’t feed my family this coming week because my Mercedes is in the shop and I need to spend the rest of the money I have to get it out. I am hoping that somebody can feel sorry for me and come to my rescue.
On a personal level, I guess that 40-50% of people I associated with when I was in college smoked; now, it is almost startling to see someone light up -- my path evidently doesn't cross with the 19% very much, because it's a far, far smaller percentage among those I know.
In 1985, visitors to my house, if they smoked, lit up without asking.
In 1990, visitors, if they smoked, asked permission first, fully expecting to be given permission, which they were.
By 1995, it was no longer eccentric to not permit smoking in one's house; smokers stepped outside without asking to smoke inside.
By 2000, no more than 10% of the people I associated with smoked, and it was rare even to have a visitor step outside and light up.
By 2005, even in North Carolina, smoking was not permitted in any interior public area. Almost none of my friends, family, business associates, or casual acquaintances smoked. Smoking was considered a social disadvantage, and certainly a career-killer. I wouldn't hire a smoker, and I of course wasn't alone.
The change has been, if you'll pardon the pun, breathtaking. A generation ago, smokers were, if not always welcomed, at least accommodated. Now, sticking a paper tube full of dry leaves in your face, setting it afire, and spewing smoke everywhere is rightly seen as aberrant, anti-social behavior.
How much sympathy do I have for the guy who spends $14 a day for cigarettes, and complains that he can't buy food? Take a guess.
<.....”we have NO poverty in this country. None. No one goes hungry”.......>
That’s right....there’s a place here I give to that go sends out runners to all the grocery stores for their day old food....and they give it away every Thursday.
I investigated this place before socking money in it...stunning how it operates....even the food that is left over or goes bad is picked up by a farmer who feeds it to his pigs...there is never waste.
They help people down on their luck...but they have to explain to them why that happened. One lady said “Christmas was expensive this year”, when she was asking for rent money...she was declined.
They offer free computer classes and a host of other “Hands up” opportunities for those who ‘want’ to change their situation. .....It is not an open door long term ‘hand out’ organization...you pay your way by helping at the distribution centers.....so people retain a sense of dignity as well.
The place has made a difference in peoples lives and I have no problem contributing there for they get good results. Too bad there aren’t more like it.
Unless of course it is POT! Every leftist and Libertarian out there extoll the virtues of smoking a paper tube with ground up Pot Leaves....even though, depending on where it came from, the processing of said Pot might have involved killings and beheadings by Mexican Cartels!
Please elaborate on your claims of smokers’ actions harming others or putting you at any kind of risk.
“Welfare is charity...charity belongs with the individual and private organizations!!!”
Exactly! I personally would give more if I had more to give and it would be given to those I believe need it and not by polidiots just buying votes.
It shocks me to no end how many so-called conservatives, including you, are so in love with big brother government when it suits your personal preference...........and I say that in the nicest possible way :-)
Well now that socialized medicine is inevitable, now everything you do will be the government’s business.
You’re not going to get an argument out of me on that premise. That so many so-called conservatives prefer the hand of big brother continues to shock me, even though I’ve been on FR long enough to know better.
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