Why are the cigarette companies still in business?

[thegamerslink]

Originally Posted by JamesF

Ha, brilliant.

I think the short answer to this question is money. Governments make loads of money on tobacco...

The short answer is called Freedom

[StrongInTheArm]

Yeah, to kill! And with impunity.

[Rankenstein]

I bought myself some snouts this morning - I'm unconcernedly propping up Imperial Cancer Industries.

Oh yeah, hi, long time no see, I've been ridiculously busy while being knocked hither and yon by a bunch of life's misfortunes... every niggling incident that could possibly happen to me has happened. I'm not complaining, but it's just been one thing after another.

So, yeah, I'm sucking down the nicotine.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

Yeah, to kill! And with impunity.

To kill one's self with impunity, yes.

[StrongInTheArm]

To kill others with impunity, no!

This post and your's above (post 64) sums up my position exactly.

Rank: Hi dude, sorry to hear of your travails, hope it all comes together soon. Flush the bringer of death man.

[thegamerslink]

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

Yeah, to kill! And with impunity.

Your stance on this one is again a socialist one, assuming the governments job is to prevent the individual from making the choice. Be it a good choice or a bad choice. The choice is still for the individual to make. The governments extent of power should be only to inform. The government should never have the power to make the choice for the individual. When it comes to tobacco, Fast Food, Seat Belts, Trans Fat, Eating Meat, Eating Cherries, Having a Cat in the House.......

All these things and so many more have studies attached to them that offers health detriments. Giving the government the power to take away one of them is giving them the power to take them all away and continuing to do so with anything they find to be in the best interest of the individual.

How can you support that?

[StrongInTheArm]

A governments first priority is to protect its people. Whether that be from outside forces or those peddling death.

[thegamerslink]

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

A governments first priority is to protect its people. Whether that be from outside forces or those peddling death.

There is a common sense factor that must be recognized with that statement. There is a line between protection and removing freedom. Those that don't see the line or feel it should be crossed or the people that support socialist/communist views.

If I smoke, no one sticks the cigarette or cigar in my mouth, holds it there, lights it and makes me inhale. If I own a gun, no one forces me to load the gun, turn the safety off, aim the gun and pull the trigger to kill another person or an animal. Had the seat belt law been in effect when I was 2 years old I would be dead now, as my parents would be as well. In all incidences it doesn't protect you, it should be a personal choice, it effects no else. If I decide to go to Taco Bell or McDonald's for supper, that is a choice I alone make, no one forces me to eat there, if order a Big Mac instead of a salad, that is a personal choice.

This is just a few things there are so many more and every single one of these freedoms that you empower someone else to monitor and control is an opening for them to make every decision for you. What to watch on television, whether you are allowed to have children, whether you're allowed to marry a certain person, whether you're allowed to drive a truck instead of a car, or a motorcycle instead of a car. Whether you are allowed to have grass on your lawn or cut down a tree or plant roses. It's never ending. But you propose that is the road that should be followed in the better interest of the people?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

A governments first priority is to protect its people. Whether that be from outside forces or those peddling death.

No, it's not. The government should exist to serve the social contract, and there is no plausibly valid social contract that would give the government authority to impinge upon the freedom of those who seek to engage in activity that puts the individual in harm's way - whether that be smoking, eating junk food or sky diving.

[thegamerslink]

2.9 million people were injured and over 49,000 people were killed in the United States from car accidents in one year. Following your formula then noone should be allowed to drive or ride in a car. Not to mention the amount of pedestrians that were injured or killed by skateboarders, bycicylists, motorized vehicles and falling debris. So I guess walking on the sidewalks through town should be against the law as well. Then there are the thousands that have suffered sun poisoning, sun burn to the degree it inhibits their ability to work, and skin cancer so I guess going to the public pool, having a pool in the back yard going outside in general while not wearing long sleeve shirt, hat and long pants should also be illegal?

[StrongInTheArm]

Got the rant out of your pants? Good, maybe we can stick to the thread now. BTW somebody can think differently from you without being a communist or even a socialist or can you not see that?

You believe so strongly in personal freedom do you? Would you be favour of legalizing cannabis, in fact why not legalize all drugs, leave it all up to the individual?

[megamoose]

Originally Posted by G10

I actually agree with most you say except this as government statistics show that there is more money in the pot if folk didn't end up being treated by smoking related diseases than there is if we all smoked and paid the tax on a pack and this is in the UK where the tax on a pack is beyond stupid..

They have realised this and is why they offer free NHS service towards helping folk stop..

Yeah, but if you start banning smoking, it's not gona stop people from doing it. Just means people are going to find black market ways of getting them, which guess what mate? You don't pay tax on the black market. Therefore meaning this bot continues to go down and down and down, but the cost of treating people who smoke still stays the same.

Oh, why not ban chocolate. It's bad for you, clogs up your arterys, can make you fat, sluggist, provides little nutritious value and many fat people die from heart attacks and other stuff. The companys who make this stuff are just giving us the choice to do what WE want.

Mark

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

You believe so strongly in personal freedom do you? Would you be favour of legalizing cannabis, in fact why not legalize all drugs, leave it all up to the individual?

Why not? The role of the government is to defend individual freedom, not force one group's morality on others.

I'm very curious to know, SITA, what your social contract looks like. Mind sharing it with the rest of the class?

[fastreplies]

the government is the biggest pusher of tobacco products because:
50,000,000 Americans buy at least 1 pack per day and at $5.00 per pack in taxes put in their packets cool $250,000,000 per day. You do the math how much they are getting per year.

Plus endless lawsuits triple that amount which make me to ask you:
will you kill Golden Goose?

and because only 20% of people who die from lang cancer are smokers, government believes that it's ok to push tobacco and kill people as long as they make money


fastreplies

[thegamerslink]

Originally Posted by fastreplies

the government is the biggest pusher of tobacco products because:
50,000,000 Americans buy at least 1 pack per day and at $5.00 per pack in taxes put in their packets cool $250,000,000 per day. You do the math how much they are getting per year.

Plus endless lawsuits triple that amount which make me to ask you:
will you kill Golden Goose?

and because only 20% of people who die from lang cancer are smokers, government believes that it's ok to push tobacco and kill people as long as they make money


fastreplies

Could you point this out to me? I don't remember the last time I saw the government sponsored commercial prompting me to go by tobacco products.

[StrongInTheArm]

Originally Posted by fastreplies

the government is the biggest pusher of tobacco products because:
50,000,000 Americans buy at least 1 pack per day and at $5.00 per pack in taxes put in their packets cool $250,000,000 per day. You do the math how much they are getting per year.
...

I don't know about your figures, perhaps that may be the case in the USA, but in the UK the NHS changes the dynamic. All medical expenses are paid for out of government coffers, they of course raise funds from general taxes as well as VAT. We don't have to pay our own medical expenses unless we go 'private'. This means you can smoke yourself sick in the knowledge that you will receive medical treatment. (I don't begrudge a sick man treatment btw.)

It is perhaps fair to say that the tax a smoker pays in a life time goes towards covering his 'health insurance' provided by the government. I don't know enough about the figures to say if their is a balance between tax and cost in this respect. But I don't think you could make the same claim over in the UK.

John: What is a social contract and what is its relevance to this thread? Curiosity killed the cat remember. I'm surprised you should even ask, you usually just assume, I have been lead to believe that I'm a commie/socialist/liberal, at least according to a number of the crazy right wingers that lurk around these parts.

[thegamerslink]

That is an argument against national health care, it allows for people to say since I am helping you pay your health bill I get to have a say in what you do.

[fastreplies]

@thegamerslink

What is your point?
My is: - they don’t have to.
Street Corner drug dealer doesn’t wear sigh that says you have to buy drugs to make me reach because he’s don’t have to so does the government.

Further, more government bring all kind of rules and regulations NOT to protect public (we all know how much they care about us) but to satisfy their greed for more easy money. By allowing product that kills, they are wearing that Street Corner drug dealer sign.
Just open your eyes and you see it


@StrongInTheArm

Here in Canada only 5% of billions of dollars government collects in Tobacco Taxes goes for medical treatments and the rest in packets of political prostitutes who are raising those taxes


fastreplies

[thegamerslink]

Your views, and this is my opinion, are absurd. You're stating that since the government doesn't outlaw something on the basis that it's deemed some place harmful to someone that they are only allowing it to put money in their own coffers?

That has to be the most perturbed view of life I've heard, and I hear that a lot in this forum by some. It is not the governments job or position to outlaw anything on the basis that it may be not in your best interest to use it or have access to it. To give them such power is to give them the power to determine anything and everything that you do.

And SITA my telling you that your views are socialist views are not because they are different than mine. You are entitled to not see the world as I do or to interpret something a little different. You have to admit though that when you are suggesting that the government should dictate to the individual what they can or can not do in the name of their own well being that is in fact socialism/communism, not a free society or a democracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism
In other words, no more individuality. Everyone owns a piece of everyone and a say on what anyone does.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

What is a social contract and what is its relevance to this thread?

I'm sure you know what a social contract is. And it's relevant to the thread because the nature of the social contract determines the sphere of authority and scope of the government.

The only social contracts which would grant authority to the government to ban cigarettes are totalitarian collectivist (socialist and communist) social contracts.

Originally Posted by StrongInTheArm

I'm surprised you should even ask, you usually just assume, I have been lead to believe that I'm a commie/socialist/liberal, at least according to a number of the crazy right wingers that lurk around these parts.

No, SITA, there is a difference between assuming and deducing.

Let me demonstrate.

Let's say that somebody says "physical pleasure is the ultimate good".

Now, I would say, "you're a hedonist".

Is that assuming? According to your logic it is, but according to logic itself it is deductive reasoning.

If the conclusion follows from the statements, there is no assumption. Assuming implies the imputation of position that doesn't follow from the statements.