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[Arachno-capitalist]

Informing and deciding are different things. There can be a strong correlation with smoking and cancer, and that can be a fact, but Id prefer a world where people are able to make the decision to smoke, given the information, themselves - Not by a group of politicians.

[theinevitable]

Exactly, people should be able to make their own decisions. But I get pissed off by the whole anti-intellectual thing.

But when we enter into these discussions in a public context it seems 'respect' for another persons position overrides honesty.

This is the thing. I think LFM said some stuff about this before, about how people on the liberal side worry so much about being Respectful while the conservative/republican side has no such worries. At the same time, obviously, they don't have to worry about being Respectful because the stuff they're saying often sounds good on paper? (I am tired and cannot think this through all the way, sorry.)
I just get tired of being sorry that I'm a pansy-ass college boy who knows things.

[Doc]

Id prefer a world where people are able to make the decision to smoke, given the information, themselves - Not by a group of politicians.

Sure, I agree with you about that, there's a good Mark Twain quote to the effect that everything one must do to prolong one's life seems to make it not worth living. Being informed is the important thing but for too many people 'being informed' seems to equate to 'finding someone in a position of authority who agrees with me'. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but that's not the same as saying all opinions carry the same value.

Now I'm going to read over my last three posts and try to figure out if my logic is internally consistent.

Exactly, people should be able to make their own decisions. But I get pissed off by the whole anti-intellectual thing.

This right here. People don't want to hear that their behaviour may be self-damaging so they turn around and tear apart the people who are doing the telling thus turning a discussion about imperical facts into a moral argument, which is dumb.

[littlefallsmets]

Ah, but here's the thing.

We are not talking about a fair playing field here, y'know.

If the government did not throw billions of dollars at informing people on how damaging smoking is, if they just said "hey, yeah, this stuff is probably bad for you" on a .gov website somewhere... it wouldn't mean anything and doesn't...

When the tobacco industry has billions and billions and billions to throw at lying to people about smoking and so forth.

If a tiger is about to kill a penis and you don't do anything, you are not being "neutral", you are tacitly siding with the penis through your inaction because the tiger's advantage is so ridiculously large.

"Informing" isn't enough when there's such a crushing amount of momentum coming from the other direction, ruthlessly and as lawlessly as possible because profit is the only concern.

[theinevitable]

Not to mention horrible horrible shit like the TRUTH campaign which is funded by tobacco companies and makes me want to smoke 10 cigarettes at once to distance myself from those obnoxious commercials.

See Also: those commercials with the kids singing as if they were in a musical about how bad cigarettes are. That makes me want to smoke one thousand times.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Weve gone over the ridiculousness of anti smoking campaigns. I think the most effective advertising would be to show the effects every smoker feels, like loss of breath, coughing, smelly clothes, social ostracizing. This in comparison to trying to convince kids that every smoker will immediately get cancer and die of an asthma attack their wedding. To be honest, the fact that caused the greatest decrease in my tobacco consumption was data on the metastasis periods for lung cancer (decades). I dont like the idea that every cigarette is depositing a cancer unit in a 20 year CD earning HELL as a return.
Smoking used to be a relaxing activity I could do with my friends in a diner, now its just a damn chore.

[jaydub]

Not to mention horrible horrible shit like the TRUTH campaign which is funded by tobacco companies and makes me want to smoke 10 cigarettes at once to distance myself from those obnoxious commercials.
See Also: those commercials with the kids singing as if they were in a musical about how bad cigarettes are. That makes me want to smoke one thousand times.

Don't those commercials exist because the government (justice system) bent the companies over a log and forced them to put out messages like that to counter promotional advertising (which seems really schizophrenic to me...but that's Tobacco in the US).

I dont want to think about my firm athletic body collapsing into itself like that. I think I understand the anti-aging craze now.

... the effects every smoker feels, like loss of breath, coughing, smelly clothes, social ostracizing ... I dont like the idea that every cigarette is depositing a cancer unit in a 20 year CD earning HELL as a return.  Smoking used to be a relaxing activity I could do with my friends in a diner, now its just a damn chore.

Dissonance.  Like returning to HSC, I think you know what to do.

[wombat]

See Also: those commercials with the kids singing as if they were in a musical about how bad cigarettes are.

I've never seen that, but it sounds hysterically funny.

[Ben-San]

So I agree that legislation shouldn't prevent informed and rational adults from giving themselves cancer. You want to chew tobacco and give yourself mouth cancer, awesome, you go do that. I nonetheless support laws forbidding smoking in many public places because it creates an environment which is not only unpleasant for those in the area who are not smoking but which the weight of evidence suggests increases their risk of cancer. As long as we're throwing around quotes, "the right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins".

[AugustWest]

Here's my thing about smoking or riding a motorcycle without a helmet or other such "It's my life and I've got the right to risk if'n I want to" activities.

I think it's fine to engage in risky behavior, but only if you are willing to bear all the costs of that risk.  The Kentucky legislature considered a helmet law a few years ago which would have allowed helmetless riding if you could show you had a fully paid up health insurance policy.  Want to kill yourself smoking, OK by me, I suppose, but not if I have to bear the costs of your emphysema through higher Medicare/Medicaid payments.

Donne was right -- No man is an island.  Pretty much everything we do affects everyone else in some way or another.  It's such a delicate balance between individual rights and what benefits the group as a whole.

I'm a staunch defender of individual rights.  The Bill of Rights is close to my heart.  But with rights come responsibilities.  If I were emperor of the universe and could restructure our political systems anyway I wanted, I'd keep the bill of rights (or some similar statement of individual human rights), but I'd also list a few basic responsibilities that everyone is expected to respect.

Here are the first three items on that list:

1.  Everyone should pay their own way.
2.  Everyone should clean up their own messes.
3.  Everyone should educate themselves sufficiently to participate intelligently in government.

[jaydub]

3.  Everyone should educate themselves sufficiently to participate intelligently in government.

I think you've defined concisely the minimum acceptable level of education for a modern American.  Being the horrible elitist that I am, I can't imagine anyone not wanting to attend a 4-year college - the realist in me knows that this is not only not possible, but undesirable for some.  Still, I think no one should be so ignorant that you wouldn't trust them to be a councilmember, or school board member;  if not when they're 19, then when they're 50.  High school civics is all well and good, but an astonishing number of people who presumably graduated can't describe the 3 branches of Federal Government, let alone reason why the system was designed that way.

[colmore]

I work for a foreclosure defense unit at a public legal services.  People in real need are remarkably good at gathering information about their world, regardless of their level of education.  True ignorance (that is ignorance of things that will materially affect your life) is as much a privilege as grad school is. 

But it comes down to this: nobody has ever or will ever grant me the authority to define right and wrong human behavior.  There are extremes where most of us agree that stepping in and forcibly altering someone elses behavior is necessary, but this is allowed only by the fact that there are more of us than there are of them, not because we have, in any materially objective sense, some right to do what we're doing.  I think you get a lot farther improving the world by setting a compelling and non-judgemental example.

But you really have to ask yourself, why do I care so much about some stranger's lungs?  Or their taste in TV?  Or honestly, given that they're one individual out of millions and millions, who they do or don't vote for.  You're looking at a human being and only seeing incredibly trivial things.

[wombat]

  I think you get a lot farther improving the world by setting a compelling and non-judgemental example.

I would be really happy if I could believe that, but I've never noticed that it makes a damn bit of difference.

[colmore]

Yeah, but does judging people?  The question is what are you comparing it to.

[AugustWest]

But it comes down to this: nobody has ever or will ever grant me the authority to define right and wrong human behavior.  There are extremes where most of us agree that stepping in and forcibly altering someone elses behavior is necessary, but this is allowed only by the fact that there are more of us than there are of them, not because we have, in any materially objective sense, some right to do what we're doing.  I think you get a lot farther improving the world by setting a compelling and non-judgemental example.

But you really have to ask yourself, why do I care so much about some stranger's lungs?  Or their taste in TV?  Or honestly, given that they're one individual out of millions and millions, who they do or don't vote for.  You're looking at a human being and only seeing incredibly trivial things.

I'm not talking about judgment.  I have my opinion about certain behaviors and you are entitled to yours.  But when your behavior costs me money, I think I should have a voice. 

Is smoking morally wrong?  I don't know or particularly care.  If providing medical care for people who have health problems as a result of smoking costs public dollars, then the public gets a say about the legality of smoking. 

Another example:  I don't see anything morally wrong with being addicted to heroin.  However, if you have to steal my TV in order to support your habit, I have the right to complain. 

Sure, do what you want as long as you don't hurt anybody else.  I just think people get awfully short-sighted when it comes to thinking about whom their behavior is indirectly (but demonstrably) hurting, especially when it comes to things like smoking.