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| How much do you smoke? |
| I never smoke. Smoking stinks. Lung cancer is a stupid way to die. |
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59% |
[ 32 ] |
| I smoke about a pack per month, only for special occasions. |
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16% |
[ 9 ] |
| I smoke a pack per day, no apologies. |
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12% |
[ 7 ] |
| I chainsmoke constantly and blow smoke in nonsmokers faces and I will never die because god told me so, NO APOLOGIES!!! |
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11% |
[ 6 ] |
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| Total Votes : 54 |
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| Author |
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moneyoriented
Joined: 11 May 2008
Posts: 76
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 Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| Chancellor wrote: |
| moneyoriented wrote: |
| Chancellor wrote: |
In response to some other parts of your post, I firmly believe that it is not the government's place to dictate to people what substances they may or may not ingest. |
I respect your opinion because I used to think the same. But then I asked myself "what is the logical conclusion of such a policy?" and I thought of the example of China in the 19th and early 20th century. A once rich, powerful and proud nation was utterly bankrupted and destroyed by drugs. Opium was everywhere, and it destroyed lives and crippled society. That will happen anywhere you allow it to happen, because the vast majority of people really are children and don't know what's best for them. They'll take the "rebellious pleasure" every time, never mind the consequences. |
And they suffered the consequences of their choices: I have no problem with that. What I object to is government presuming to think it has the right to try to protect people from themselves.
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That's fine, but don't you see that it's bigger than just the consequences to a few individuals who make bad choices? The drug culture can snowball until it affects a large part of the population, which causes society to totally break down, inviting revolution, foreign invasion, civil war, mass murder and mass starvation. It happened to China not too long ago. Don't think it couldn't happen here. |
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rusmeister
Joined: 15 Jun 2006
Posts: 867
Location: Russia
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| Posted: Sat Nov 21, 2009 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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| moneyoriented wrote: |
| rusmeister wrote: |
Hi, MO,
I appreciate what you are right about. You ARE right when you complain of the targeting of children for addiction, and so far I support you completely. However, I am a living denial of your broad generalization (see my previous post), and so would speak for the freedom to responsibly engage in pleasures on the condition that you take the necessary steps to avoid dangers like addiction.
Traditional religions, such as Orthodox or Catholic Christianity, teach that thinks like gluttony and drunkenness are sins - because they are an abuse of a good thing (food and drink) (and are silent on smoking as such, except insofar as it causes offense or harm to others or self - again, addiction or excess). But the point is that a person should be free, except where he is forbidden. A philosophy that has more concern for what is allowed than what is forbidden is a far more restrictive and unfree philosophy, and so is the society that adopts it (such as Puritanism). It's notable that the 10 Commandments, restrictive though they are, actually provide a broad framework for freedom. (In the garden of Eden, there was only one forbidding law - you could say that in breaking that, we got 10 laws, and then couldn't even keep them.)
All of that is to say that blanket condemnation really is unfair and unreasonable - even though there is much that you are right about. |
rusmeister - thanks for your thoughts - they made me think a bit more about the issue.
Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not a Puritan, if that means being opposed to pleasure. I'm all for pleasure, as long as it's not destructive to self or others.
It's interesting that you bring up the "sins" of gluttony and drunkenness, which we hardly hear about anymore. I think we'd all be better off if religious people would focus on fighting these self-destructive behaviors (and *hello?* how 'bout violence?) instead of always obsessing over gays, pornography, prostitution and sex in general.
My opposition to tobacco comes from my own family experience. My mother started smoking as a teenager, like most all smokers. My father, a doctor, nagged her to quit, but she couldn't. She told me she tried, but it was just too hard. Then she got cancer and died within a year. She was only 49. That was a horrible tragedy for her and a terrible loss for all of us, and she is still missed very much. I was much too young to lose my mother. It's really unfair that I haven't had a mother all these years.
So you'll have to forgive me for hating the tobacco companies, the fat-cat executives who make obscene profits from this business (and lie and cover up evidence of the massive harm they're causing, as well as all the unethical/illegal things they do to get kids addicted to their drug), the governments which allow this to happen, and most especially the paid shills for the tobacco industry like big-mouth Rush Limbaugh, who disingenuously (I think) frame the issue as one of "personal freedom" instead of a public health crisis which continues to cause massive and entirely unnecessary suffering and death. I'm pretty sure Mr. Limbaugh would change his tune if the tobacco companies were based in China or Iran. Then again, maybe he'd happily take bribes from them too.
But yeah, I guess there's a middle ground. I don't care too much for this so-called "war on drugs". First off, I think the whole thing is a scam and a public-relations ploy to cover up what's really going on (governments themselves importing and selling most of the drugs (through government controlled gangs), and "busting" only their small-time competitors). Next, I think it's bad enough that anyone becomes addicted to drugs in the first place, but it's even worse to then brutally arrest them and throw them in prison where they're further brutalized by real criminals.
So I might actually be in favor of decriminalizing all drugs. But I would ban advertising (and probably branding as well), restrict sales to adults over age 21, and tax them as much as possible without creating a new black market. That tax revenue should only be used to educate people about the dangers posed by these drugs, and the health consequences of using them.
And I would treat tobacco and alcohol the same way. I guess this is a fair middle ground, which would protect the young and uninformed, yet allow informed adults to engage in self-destructive pleasures if they insist. |
Hi MO,
In speaking of "puritanism", I had in mind the history of the US, whose Puritan heritage had a tremendous effect on how we view alcohol vis-a-vis European countries, for example. (Think of how many Protestants actually use grape juice instead of wine in their services, because they are convinced that wine is an evil in and of itself, and the "blue laws" of various states.)
Again, I agree with you on an awful lot, first of all on the heads of big business, and on the particular complicity of the heads of big tobacco to hide information, etc...
I also appreciate the effects of addiction and harm on your family. My mother is permanently and unreasonably opposed to alcoholic use based on similar experiences with alcohol (by which I mean she is opposed to all alcohol use, moderate or not).
And I certainly agree on middle ground - the greatest point of which is moderation.
But there are some things where we probably won't agree. You speak of a public health crisis, and seem to take responsibility on yourself for the decisions of others. Also, any education is entirely dependent on the philosophy behind the education, be it puritan or materialistic.
One thing I would comment on, taking no offense at all from your comments, is a probable misunderstanding in what "sin" is in the context I use it in. If you see the concept as something that damages oneself (like appreciable amounts of nicotine or alcohol), whether or not the damage is perceptible or not (ie, that damage could have a spiritual, as well as physical dimension), then it would not seem like unreasonable denials by authority, but authority trying to teach you what is damaging. If sexual behavior can also be damaging, then it follows that it might be just as reasonable for those people to be concerned about it as about smoking or drinking. ("obsessed" assumes an unreasonable attitude - it paints the picture unfairly)
And it's fairly obvious to me that mainline traditional religions have always opposed violence, generally speaking, and it is always genuine fringe groups and radicals that employ it and give the established institutions (organized religion) a bad name; most particularly the ones that really have existed for thousands of years.
I hope that gives a slightly more sophisticated picture of how intelligent religious believers view the concept. Don't take the whackos for the whole 'kit 'n caboodle'!  |
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tommchone
Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 108
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| Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:45 pm Post subject: |
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| The survey that accompanies this post doesn't really address my smoking habit. I smoke about two packs a day, but that's not "chainsmoking constantly" and I certainly don't deliberately blow smoke in peoples faces. |
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