Posted on 08/10/2002 2:29:58 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
The type of response I have been waiting for.
There are some key elements which make this very interesting. First, the majority of smokers are liberals. Second, (as mentioned previously to some extent) corporate sales have been damaged as a result of government's intervention on their rights. Third, investor losses have been the consequence.
My point is that there could be a much larger segment than simply smokers, how many investors are non-smokers? And how many of the investors won't be conservatives? Interesting?
2..... the smokers are paying enough taxes to pay their own and most others medical bills.
3.... When will non-smokers think of someone other than themselves.
4.... Smokers do not pollute anymore than anyone else, as tobacco smoke is far from being the only pollutant in the air we breathe.
Now go back and play nice in your sandbox.
Listen: Unions are useless today. GM in Michigan went totally smoke free the 5th of this month! Where was the UNION then?!
SAPPI paper mills went completely smoke free in July! Where were THEIR UNIONS??!!
Can't even smoke in your vehicle on their lots. Where were the UNIONS to let this happen?!
I believe in a business to do what they want with their own property, but when they stick it to their smoking employees who have worked for their companys years and years, where is the justice? They should have grandfathered this, and still provided a place for their smoking employees.
Even if it's outside. But oh no! Wall-to-wall smoke bans! These corporations got into the pocket of SOMEBODY , you can believe it!
Hey, no biggie, comprehension is half the writer's problem as well- I knew when I put that "corporations run the country" down that it was open for attack in a way.
I just meant that corporations first and foremost provide jobs- that's political weapon number one. But they also make this country. They build the infrastructure, the products we rely upon and the services we use. They have to contribute loads of money to the Congress to have a voice there (the theory being to help prevent anti business laws from being created- in practice it's simple bribery) and they control the media apparatus and the means of defense production. All that equates pretty much to running things.
If the heads of Microsoft, Intel, GE, AT&T, Coca Cola etc ever got together and got on the same sheet of music and said "We're going to do something about this or that" it would get done. If they decided to change the law in this country, that would get done as well. The politicians rely on corporate donations- they think it doesn't matter once they are in the Big House, then they have "Power" (said in a low hiss). But they won't get very far as long as the corporations have a vice grip on their collective scrotums, and I think that's a good thing. It will never be in the interest of Big Business in the end to become socialist or communist. They provide a powerful counter balance against the leftward push in the Congress. I just wish they would do more.
On a side note, here's my problem- I'm long winded. I have to rattle on for a few paragraphs and dance around what I want to say- you cut to the chase in one line by conjuring up an image most Americans can readily identify with- The Boston Tea Party. That is, in a nutshell, what I wanted to say. Cheers.
the death rate has stayed fairly constant at one per person
Bravo, good stuff.
6- How does it avoid the assertion that it is "arbitrary and capricous" if the alternative, making tobacco an illegal substance is available any time?
You're right. :-}
2) Why should the government pay medical expenses (which comes from taxpayers) to treat a disease you could have avoided?
I never asked them them to.
And they "volunteered" to precisely to make that asinine assertion.
3) When will smokers think about someone other than themselves?
Do gooders do it all the time. What's the difference?
4) Why do smokers think they have the right to pollute the air that non-smokers breathe?
They don't.
"second hand" smoke has been proven a fraud over and over and over.
And the foaming anti-smokers' position not to allow or even consider "smoking only" restaurants defines their true controlling twit nature.
These are the questions smokers should be asking themselves. But they are too wrapped up in their own desires. Smoking is foolish and selfish.
Lots of things are foolish and selfish, including needless anti-smoking diatribes.
Still a person can buy cigarettes here and make a handsome profit selling them in places like New York. It is just like probition. I live close to the Kentucky border and travel there one or two days a week. The tax there is 3 cents a pack. That's where I intend to do my grocery shopping from now on, and the Ohio retailers lose out on cigarette sales and groceries. Some people are making money buying cigarettes in bulk and comming to Ohio to sell them for thousands of dollars in profit. Already there has been one case where terrorist fund raisers were black marketing cigarettes across state lines to fund Al Queda.
The politics of cigarette tax will have little or no effect on the rate of smoking and the additional revenue raised by state governments will evaporate once they find out what it costs to enforce the law. Thanks Bob Taft for signing a piece of legislation that was just plain stupid.
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