The Agenda - Plain Packs Are Daft

Poker goddess and smoker Victoria Coren weighs in with her views on plain packs on ITV's The Agenda yesterday.  You can watch it here (it starts about 1 minute in or so), but fair warning:  Ed Miliband is on the panel of guests, and yes, he's still a moron. 

Watch It, Ed! We're coming for you nannies!

Plain Packaging Already Doesn't Work

You know what already comes in plain, nondescript packs that both adults and kids are still buying despite decades of trying to stop them from doing so?

Drugs.  Lots of illegal drugs.  Just about all of them. 

Oh, you might find a dealer or two with a sense of style and flair about how he packages up his wares, but on the whole you see only transparent plastic baggies, foil, or brown paper.  So where's the evidence that plain packs work?  There isn't any.  Even fuckwit himself, Simon Chrapman, admits it.  It's theory. It's unproven.  See for yourself:

I can keep reposting this all day, folks...

The Consultation

The plain packs consultation is up here: http://consultations.dh.gov.uk/tobacco/standardised-packaging-of-tobacco-products/consult_view

I've only had a brief chance to peruse it, so I will come back later and give my thoughts on it.  I did notice a couple of leading questions, and the whole preamble looks like it was written by tobacco control. 

The Devil's Kitchen: The Day The Coalition Went Mad

Over at The Devil's Kitchen, The Nameless Libertarian wonders “when did scrotums begin to walk and talk?”

The Devil's Kitchen: The Day The Coalition Went Mad: Now, after just two short years in power, the coalition seems happy to openly endorse the sort of utter shit that they used to rightly decry when it came from the last Labour government. Last Friday was not just the day the coalition went mad; it was also the day they became Nu Labour. The terrifying implication of this is not so much that nothing changes, but rather than nothing can change while the three main parties have a monopoly on power in this country.

Remember to vote them all out.

How Petty Can One Man Be? Plenty Petty.

https://twitter.com/#!/SimonChapman6/status/191482691890327552

Yep, he's a dickhead.

Vote Them All Out

One of the greatest dangers to a free society is the career politician.  Politics is often a nasty, petty business, filled with back-biting, childish taunts, and sensationalised propaganda unfit for even a schoolyard.  The mechanisms of "compromise" corrupt those who began their political careers with the very best of intentions, and even the most stalwart defenders of civil liberties and freedom may vote against their core beliefs and conscience in order to secure a victory for something else later.  It is almost unavoidable.  The longer one remains in politics, the more likely their integrity will be eroded.  Without genuine integrity to guide the politician's decisions, votes are likely to be ego-driven and self-aggrandising.  The career politician must toe the party line and curry favour with big businesses and special-interest groups. In return, the politician gains more power, greater influence and wealth.

Our democracy is representative, meaning that we voluntarily elect citizens to act on the people's behalf.  A true democracy, where every citizen has an equal voice and could vote freely on every issue, would be an impractical and logistical disaster for most every country and society.  And the honest truth is that most people simply cannot be bothered to care.  If someone else can do the job for them, all the better.  So we hire a few select citizens and grant them very special privileges to take care of all of the things that should keep society running smoothly.  In effect, we pay them to do our dirty work for us.

When you think about it, making decisions for vast swathes of the populace is an awesome responsibility.  It is not a duty that should be taken lightly.  Livelihoods are often at stake.  No one decision will please everyone and the politician should ideally proceed by weighing up the opinion of the majority and carefully considering the impact any given law will have on a minority.  Unfortunately, we find that the politician's responsibility has been delegated to party leaders with particular agendas at play.  The politician is told what to think, what to say, how to act, and how to vote on any given law or proposal.  The duty of being a politician for the people is therefore corrupted by the selfish interests of the few for short and long-term gains of the party.  Decisions are not made in the bests interests of the people, they are made for the best interests of the politicians we've elected, and they are too often made for special interest groups and big businesses which would profit by certain legislation.

On the other hand, what if every politician actually voted for what they and the people they represent believed?  If there were no parties to align oneself to, would chaos ensue during debates and votes?  Is the party system a necessary mechanism of politics in order to get things done as it were?  It probably is.  If all of the MPs were given equal time to debate every proposed regulation and law, allowing for rebuttals, and further rebuttals, it could likely take years before a vote occurred.  Nothing would be achieved efficiently. So the party system could be seen as a further representative device within government to delegate the authority of the many to the party leaders.  It's difficult to imagine a working system of government without a party system in place to speed things up a bit.

So if we want a somewhat functioning government (and I'll leave it to you to argue what that means), we should accept the limitations of a democracy.  Right? Can we do representative democracy better?  Is there another system that would ensure efficiency and integrity? I really do not know.

The real trouble isn't the party system despite its flaws.  The trouble is that we have people who make careers out of being politicians. Some stay in for life. I suppose it's easy to argue that experience with the system makes for a more effective politician; that the older pols will train the newer pols how to work within the system; that the contacts made over the course of many years are vital in greasing the wheels of democracy. The truth is that the system is gamed to reward those who stay in politics.  It is this way because all of the politicians in the past have set it up to be like that.  It's protectionism at a grand scale. Think of it as a labour union.  The job of the union is to protect as many of its members as possible.  And so it is with politics.

Because the system is gamed, there are no limits for how long a politician can remain in power.  And you can bet that very few of them would accept term limits. How many of us would accept being forced out of our jobs every five years, especially when we loved our work?  Probably none of us.  So our options are limited, but we can do something about it.

We vote them all out.  They need our votes to keep their jobs.  We should not give our votes to those who want to remain in office, regardless if they did a good job while serving.  Many, if not most, will become corrupted by the system, if they were not already corrupt to begin with.  We could use our power of democracy to enforce term limits on those who would seek to profit from their responsibilities.  We should vote them all out in put in new recruits at election time.  We could effectively limit the corruption to a short amount of time.  Since they won't change the system, we can try to do it for them. 

To me, it doesn't matter which party you want to vote for.  I view them all as pretty much the same with a few minor variations.  Just get rid of all of the politicians currently serving and start fresh, every time, because they have, every last one of them, let us down spectacularly.  I don't imagine that doing this will be the panacea for everything that is wrong with politics.  Indeed, I can already see a host of other problems that it would create.  But it's a start in a new direction.  By limiting the time they can serve in office, we can begin to limit the influence of special interest groups and big businesses who influence the debate unevenly and unfairly.  We can effectively end some of the cronyism and we can bring a little more integrity to our political systems.

One further caveat:  It does require that you begin to care.  Just a little more than you might already do.  I sincerely believe getting people to care will be the greatest hurdle of all.

Portrait of a Tyrant

Make no mistake, Simon Chapman wants to protect you from harm.  A professor at the University of Sydney, he is Australia's premiere public health activist and campaigner.  He has written over a dozen books and hundreds of articles opining on health and tobacco control issues and most anything else that may or may not harm you.  He's a believer.  But it is not his beliefs that should concern anyone; it is his heavy-handed methodology of attacking anyone who challenges those beliefs.  Simon Chapman does not need to debate.  His beliefs are, in his and his followers' minds, unassailable truths. It has taken him a few decades, but through a tireless crusade he has successfully managed to insinuate his tyrannical, let-the-nanny-state-protect-you-from-harm healthcare policies into most of the western democracies.  Your free will does not matter.  Your ability to assess the risks of your activities and make your own informed choices is irrelevant.  All that does matter is that you conform.  Conform or be cast out.  Resistance is futile.  Alone, Chapman cannot protect you.  Backed up by the all-powerful State and its legions of legislators who wish to be seen as doing "good works for the benefit of society," Simon has all the ammunition and weaponry he needs to bend you to his will and keep you safe.

Chapman is a classic cult of personality, comparable to any historical tyrant who used fear and hatred to stir up public sentiment and ultimately to whip up support to eradicate a segment of society that the tyrant believed to be intolerable.  If there is any doubt that his intentions are to destroy rather than heal, then read the end of his opinion on tanning bed use and the solarium industry printed in the Sydney Morning Herald in February 2010 (emphasis mine):

So why do we tolerate solariums? This is a gnat-sized industry that could be squashed with barely a whimper of protest about lost jobs. Have people switch to spray tans to satisfy their tanning fetish.

Like today's employees of the tobacco industry, these are people who entered the cancer promotion trade with their eyes wide open. They went into it cognisant of the risks and should expect no sympathy if they are shut down. They just don't care, and neither should we.

If it became fashionable to wear a lump of uranium yellowcake or flaky blue asbestos around your neck as a sign of some neo-gothic death wish, would this be allowed? If the radiology (x-ray) industry tried to expose young people to vanity-based radiation exposure, the community would be understandably outraged. This is an industry whose time must surely be up.

Look carefully at Chapman's word choices.  "Why do we tolerate?" "Eyes wide open."  "That could be squashed."  "No sympathy."  These are deliberate word choices.  The entire article is inflammatory, absolutely designed to whip up sentiment against an industry that Chapman is unable to tolerate.  Before he wrote the opinion piece, Australia had already enacted legislation to prevent children from using tanning beds.  That wasn't good enough for Chapman, though.  So out he comes and compares solariums to the cigarette industry.  (ed note: So much for tobacco being a unique product, eh guys?)  Do also note the whole article talks about victims of the tanning bed industry, and Chapman deftly weaves in cancer statistics and facts to support his viewpoint.  He begins the article by pointing out the tragic death of a young woman who died from melanoma.  He then uses that as a basis of guilt to convince you of his beliefs.  He is effectively saying:  "Look here, fools, this woman died. And it's their fault!  They are responsible for other people's choices. We must squash them!"

In Chapman's world, you can never go too far and the ends always justify the means.  Nothing is too outrageous. No tactic too terrible.  How far is he willing to go? Perhaps make smokers wear some kind of ID badge (the link is probably parody -- I sure hope it is) or force smokers to wear a scarlet letter?  From the tobacco world web site, we learn that Chapman is advocating for forcing smokers to get a licence to buy tobacco:

Yet some of the government’s key allies, such as the public health lobby, are already hedging their bets on a potentially successful challenge [of the plain-packaging laws] by tobacco companies in the High Court.

This is why over the weekend anti‑tobacco campaigner and University of Sydney academic Simon Chapman turned up the heat with a new proposal to make smoking history, through creating a consumer license to smoke.

Under the proposal, a license would give the smoker a right to a limited quota of tobacco supply, say 10 cigarettes a day or 20 cigarettes a day and so on. There is a fee payable to government to give the consumer the right to use tobacco. The more tobacco the license holder pre‑commits to smoke, the higher the license fee involved.

Under the licensing plan consumers would be asked to pass a test, ‘not dissimilar to a driving test’ Chapman stated, to qualify for a right to receive a license to legally purchase tobacco.

Is it really any stretch to see how easily it could be taken further, such as advocating that tattooing smokers with an ID number would be the best way to enforce a licensing requirement?  Already it is clear that a number of Chapman's supporters would very much like for smokers to die right now.  Their utopian vision of a planet of mindless drones who will all live forever is at stake, of course.  Hurry up, smokers.  Please do hurry it up, they say.

I do not exaggerate when I say I believe he is the root of all evil in modern society.  I do not say it lightly, either. There is no room for freedom of expression, self-choice, civil liberties and tolerance in Simon Chapman's world.  He sees only death and cancer, and he will likely stop at nothing to impose his utopia on the rest of us.  What we all need to take away from the lessons of tobacco control is that if you give a tyrant an inch, he will take a light year.  And it will be a long while before you are able to scratch and claw back even a millimetre.

How to Spot an ASH Stooge

Generally, it is pointless to get into a debate with anyone on an on-line newspaper website.  Sometimes, however, it can be fun.  But you need to know who you're up against.  If you see someone commenting on every other comment arguing against for or against something, you can almost be assured they that are being paid to do so.  Take for example, this guy.  (Click on "Activity.")  I'm not going to link to his web site, because he's a twat.  If you want to visit, feel free by doing so through Disqus.  But suffice to say that he's now "freelance."  He describes himself on his site as an "apathetic activist."  Translation:  "Pay me and I'll and support your cause."  His CV reads like someone who believes he should be regarded as important, but the truth is he doesn't play well with others, and I suspect he's not very well liked.  So he's a gun for hire, a stooge for tobacco control or anyone. Go back and read all of his comments if you want to.  You'll see.

One of the benefits of Disqus is being able to go back and see their entire commenting history as well as which posts they "liked."  But do note, when you see that roughly the same people are liking their comments in a variety of unrelated topics, then you pretty much know it's the same guy logging on with different accounts. It's what they do. 

You might be surprised that groups like ASH, Fresh and CRUK actually spend money to hire people to espouse their views of intolerance.  You might be surprised, but you shouldn't be.  It's easier and cheaper to give someone a few hundred quid than to do it yourself.

So, how to spot an ASH (or tobacco control) stooge.  First trick, deviate from the tobacco control script.  Look, they know what most people are going to say long before we know what we're going to say.  It's their job to have an answer at the ready.  But when you get them off-guard, anything can happen, and the ASH stooge will feel obligated to reply with meaningless statistics, because that's all they have at their disposal.

If they answer with the standard statistics, then it's an ASH stooge  Copy and paste the text of their message into a search engine and you'll see. Sure, some people will take the time to Google something, but most people will only type what they think.  Statistics = stooge. Every time.  If they suddenly disappear or fail to answer, mostly likely a stooge.  Obviously, not everyone is hanging on every word they've ever posted as a comment somewhere.  But these guys are on the clock.  They work for a few hours, and that's it. They're only being be paid to do a few hours work, and once those hours have expired, they move on to the next job.  That's how it works. 

(Coming up this weekend, our Simon Chapman special. Man, is this guy a supreme wanker or what? Stay tuned.)

Richard Pugh - Your Community Development Hater

He really, really does hate you.

Smokercide

It is appalling how many anti-smokers want smokers to die.  Tobacco control fanatics are not interested in helping anyone but themselves; they are only interested in furthering their hate campaign against adults who smoke.  Anti-smoker propaganda is disseminated to today's children with religious fervour -- "Believe and accept our faith and everlasting life will be yours," they preach from their pulpits of faux morality.  They know that the only way forward is to socially-engineer the children to believe in hate over tolerance.  It is a relentless crusade, one that exploits a natural instinct to protect your offspring at all costs, and so the crusade goes mostly unchallenged, for who would want children to be harmed?  The result is an army of kids wearing khaki shirts who are true believers, because it is all they have ever been told.  They grow up and become unwitting participants in a culture of hate, because it is all they have ever known.

People often say that you lose an argument the moment you call someone a fascist or a Nazi.  And that may be true when it's done to end an argument you want nothing more to do with, and if you give no supporting evidence to back up that claim.  The reason people say you've lost, however, is because of the grotesque and almost unimaginable acts that happened before and during WWII.  We all know what happened.  We all know how it happened.  We even know why it happened.  Even now, few people want to talk about it or even think about it. It's repulsive. But in order to truly understand it, you need to ask some very uncomfortable questions about what people are capable of doing to other people.  You need to ask yourself those very same questions.  What are you capable of doing to support your beliefs, your causes, your crusades?

And it's an answer that is almost impossible to accept.  The truth is that some people are capable of doing anything.  Maybe most people, given the right belief system, event or circumstance.  What does that really say about us?  Are we all monsters or are we simply sheep?

There are those out there who would wish great harm on smokers.  These are people who are capable of justifying any act, no matter how terrible that act is, to support their cause.  There are no boundaries for them.  Everything and every one of us is fair game.  They will attack any one who does not believe, or who gives comfort or support to their enemies.  You shall know them by their fruits. And that fruit is ever-so-rotten.

I call it Smokercide. 

What do you call it?

Completely Missing That Huge Elephant

When I saw The Independent's blog post title "David Cameron’s oppressive Big Society," I admit I got a little excited before I had even clicked the link.  Surely, someone was to have a go at the Tories for being nannying tyrants like Labour had been before them.  Alas, I was disappointed.  Still, it almost began to cover the nanny state:

But though group security can bring comfort and belonging, it can also perpetuate injustice and ignorance. The understandable craving for affection and status within a group – and what esteemed physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow claims is the deep need for an “affinity with a group identity” – often leads to people immersing and identifying themselves in only a few social networks.

And so we have group-think: too little interaction, and thus empathy for, other groups. Instead, a deep internalisation and fierce defence of one’s own group norms.

And then that huge elephant standing in every pub, every supermarket, every train station, and soon itself to be wrapped in plain packaging if the nannies get their way was completely missed.  Maybe he is completely unaware of it?  I don't know.

The sad truth is that millions of adults in this country simply do not care or they are unaware that their freedoms are being taken away, one by one.  The media doesn't care, either.  Because when this country finally does descend into that Orwellian utopia, the media will still be there, pumping out government-approved propaganda.  I am vaguely reminded of this quote:

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" - George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

It was just a blog post, though.  So I won't be too hard on this kid for missing the elephants, in all of the rooms.  And really, it's my fault for having any expectations at all. Which is why I so rarely read or watch the news.

Except for late at night when Babita is on, but I'm not really paying that much attention to the news.

Way Back in 1990

Finding Cigarettes In The Soviet Union: It`s A Real Drag 
July 28, 1990 | By James Yuenger, Chicago Tribune.

MOSCOW - A cigarette shortage is giving the Soviet Union a collective nicotine fit.

The shortage is serious business in a country where an anti-smoking crusade has largely fizzled, smoking restrictions in restaurants often are ignored and health warning labels were added to cigarette packages only a couple of years ago.

So acute is the situation in the city of Perm, in the Urals, that purveyors last week began marketing packets of tobacco dust that had been used earlier against garden pests.

That triggered a demonstration Thursday by a tobacco-starved crowd of people who lay across streetcar tracks, disrupting traffic, before moving on to register their protest at City Hall. Chronicling these events in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, a writer indignantly puffed:

``There are too many explanations, as always. But if our criminal code provides serious punishment for personal insults, who will punish this continuing insult to an entire nation?``

Adding injury to insult, prices have soared.

Read the rest of the article here.  And I wonder, could something like this ever happen in the UK?  If the antis get their way with plain packs, banning smoking in cars and homes, it could be worse.  Much worse.

It's the easiest thing in the world to counterfeit cigarettes after all.

Love and Tolerance or Hate?

Once you start exposing the hate and intolerance that is out there, it is inevitable that people will call you a hater in response.  Here's a good one by @ulieichhorn, who "Loves things digital & print. Plus travelling, photography, nature, environment/sustainability," but apparently that love doesn't extend to people like me and possibly all smokers because she wants me to die soon:

Hey, Uli.  I'm not the one doing the hating here.  I have not and never will advocate for anyone to die.  I don't want Simon Chapman to die any time soon - I hope he can live for as long as he wants to live.  I only want for everyone to live their lives as they see fit for themselves. What I do not want is people telling me how to live my life and then legislating it.  And that's what this blog is about. It's not about hate. It's about calling out the hate and intolerance by the people who say they care about people so much that they want them to die soon.  Do you see my point? 

Now, I do not mind name-calling so much.  Simon can call me a splenetic miscreant whenever he wants to do so.  In fact, I fully support free speech, even negative speech about me.  I wouldn't dare try to censor someone's opinion of me or anyone simply because I do not agree with it.  I would challenge it openly.  I even support Simon's right to educate people against smoking, particularly educating young kids who have no business smoking at all.  You will find that most pro-smokers feel exactly the same way.  For example, Pat Nurse said to Amanda Sanford: "I do admire the work that you’ve done in helping to protect children from my generation and my children’s generation."  I have never met anyone who wants kids to smoke. 

So, if any anti-smokers out there want to guest post on this blog to have your say, I'm 100% all for that.  Get your views out there, and let them be challenged.  Feel free to contact me, or write in the comments.  Say your piece, people. But we can please stop the fucking hope-you-die-soon hate towards people who do not choose to live the same lifestyle as you? 

Because hoping that I die soon is pretty fucking hateful, Uli.

Just saying.  Give it some thought.

Greece, I Apologise

Sometimes I fail to choose the best words to make a point.  Sometimes those words of fail are fairly challenged and I need to re-evaluate and reconsider what I said and put into a proper perspective of how someone else might view things.  I am human, and "I want to be loved" I am not perfect.

In first link above, I wrote the following comment on Dick's post about minimum pricing:

"The sooner Greece falls, the better...  Why?  Because we need things to get a a lot worse before we can make it better.  The reason is because no one will take action until thing get bad enough. While I don't know when it will happen, I do think Greece will fail, then Portugal, and Italy, and Spain... then France, and of course the UK.  America right behind them..."

I was then rightly challenged by another commenter, who wrote:

"You are adopting the faux-Marxist position of the French situationists in the 1960s, and supporting the deliberate worsening of ordinary people’s lives, and deliberate provocation of the authorities so they will be provoked into striking back with disproportionate force, so they will be condemned, and so there will a popular uprising, and then the “we” that you refer to can take power, right?"

Well, I wasn't really adopting that faux-Marxist position at all, although when you read my comments you could not be faulted for thinking that I was.  I did write one further comment in reply to try to justify my comment and mitigate any damage caused, but the damage had already been done and I sincerely doubt that last reply had helped -- it probably made it worse.

There is a whole lot of fail in my comments, definitely.  We don't need things to get worse. We need to make them better.  If we can do that before things get worse, I am definitely all for that.  I just don't know how, and that frustrates the hell out of me.  I didn't consider my comments about Greece properly before typing them.  It's easy for me to sit here, in my computer chair, and type whatever the hell I think without actually being in the middle of it.  I'm not in Greece, which is having huge problems and the very beginnings of civil unrest, so for me to make a frustrated, flippant comment about wanting it to fail sooner isn't fair to anyone in Greece.  Not to fair to anyone, perhaps.  My real issue is with the UK government and how they are walking all over us.  And I do believe that here in the UK, it will probably get much, much worse before anyone actually stands up to the government's bullshit.

So I apologise to all of Greece and to the commenter for my insensitivity.  Because you are all dealing with it right now.  I am completely unable to offer any advice, because I have no idea how to fix any of it.  (Maybe this kid does?) I didn't mean to be insensitive.  Honest.  I can only offer consolation, which is hardly enough I admit.

And I'll repeat that I don't want any of this to happen to Greece.  I just think it will happen.  I don't want any of the EU countries to fail -- not Portugal or Italy or Spain -- but from my magical armchair perspective it certainly appears as if it is all going tits up quite rapidly and I cannot see how German and French intervention is going to make it better in the long-term.

I hope I'm wrong.  I often hope I'm wrong when I say some things, because I'm a cynical optimist.  I hope, yet I somehow feel it's going to go horribly wrong -- like a child asking for money to go to a film for over 18s hopes and yet knows his parents are going to say "no" before he even gets the full question out. You still gotta ask, though. Right?

Human Rights? Pish.

Disclaimer:  I have a feeling this post will be one of my least popular viewpoints.  You are entirely welcome to disagree with me in the comments, and I encourage you to do this if you feel strongly enough about it.  My role here isn't to tell you what to think, how to think or even convince you of anything.  I do not require your acceptance of my views in order to validate my existence on this blue spinning orb.  I will never tell you how to live your lives.  You have free will; you are more than capable of making your own decisions, and the last thing you need is yet another person telling you what to do.  So here we go:

I Will Survive!

The idea of "human rights" is utter bollocks.  The hard and fast truth is that you have none, except for tenuous legal constructs that governments have reluctantly conceded to give you in order to shut you up and let them take more of your money.  If you had any human right at all, it would be simply to do anything you want to your own body.  Except you don't even have that. There are hundreds of laws preventing you from doing what you might want to do to yourself.  Because there is always someone out there who thinks they know what's best for you, like Andrew Lansley, so they will go to great lengths to make sure that you cannot be in control of your own body and your life.  So what are you left with if you can't even do what you want to your body?  Nothing.  You can only hope to survive, which some mistakenly refer to as a "Right to Life."   That's all you've got.  Survival. A chance to survive, actually.  And this isn't a human right.  It's a fundamental law of nature.

There are no guarantees in life.  You are not born with a book or some kind of guide that definitively outlines your human rights.  No one is.  Every right you believe you have can be and most certainly will be taken away from you given the chance.  You do not even have a right to procreate and to have children, which is necessary in order to ensure survival of the species.  You have only a chance to reproduce, provided that A) you live long enough to reach sexual maturity,  B) you can find a mate who has also reached sexual maturity, and C) you are both fertile and you have sex together.  That's the magic formula for human life right there.  Children or Reproduction equals:

A+B+C

(Random Chance * Frequency of Mating)

OK, I've completely made that formula up, and I know it's not even remotely accurate, there are way too many variables for my little brain to consider -- if you have a better, funnier formula, please post it in the comments.  Still, you can significantly improve your chances of successfully reproducing with a set or two of these:

 

Your Human Rights Explained

You do not have a human right to own a home, or even live in one.
You do not have a human right to breathe clean, unpolluted air.
You do not have a human right to health care.
You do not have a human right to a job.
You do not have a human right to not be offended.
You do not have a human right to Internet access.
You do not have a human right to drive or to a parking space.
You do not have a human right to privacy.
You do not have a human right to marry.
You do not have a human right to education.
You do not have any human rights.

Welcome to Your Goverment-Approved Entitlements Culture

I'm sorry, but it's the truth.  The reason we say we have human rights is so that society and civilisation can get on with the business of surviving.  Just because people say it's a human right, doesn't make it so!

The point is this: All of the things that people say are "human rights" are merely civil liberties, whether ancient or modern, and they are liberties or rights granted to us by the powers-that-be in the place where you live.  Civil liberties that people have fought and died for, sacrificed greatly for.  If these were truly human rights, we wouldn't need to write them down and enshrine them in law.  We would all instinctively know them as universal truths from the moment of our birth.   You wouldn't even need to fight for them.  They would simply be without the need for defining them or arguing for them.

We bandy about the term "human rights" incorrectly so often that we now fail to realise or even consider that these are only "legal rights" afforded to us.  Legal rights always come with exceptions, and are not necessarily binding, for they can be stripped away at any time.  Indeed, they are taken away when it suits government.  Legal rights vary from country to country, culture to culture.  It's great we have some legal rights.  Some societies are far less fortunate.

Politicians love the idea of human rights, because it inspires them to create entitlements for us, by doling out taxpayer money that most of us didn't need in the first place, all in exchange for voting them into office.  What? You thought they actually cared about you?  Please.

The First Rule About Fight Club Is...

So, when you believe you are fighting for your human rights to do anything, including smoking, you are actually fighting for your civil liberties.  It really is an important distinction to make.  And when you wonder why your civil liberties have been taken away, like the smoking ban in public places, it's because you do not have any human rights at all.

"You take tuberculosis. My smoking doesn't go over at all."
Image Source: Entertainment Geekly via Google Image Search

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The 1st July 2007 sounded the death knell for adulthood in this country.

It was the day that businesses were forced to adhere to a law that harmed them and put a staggering percentage of them out of business. They were no longer allowed to make choices that suited them but rather they had to do what the government said.

It was the day that nannying do-gooders won their fight to have civil freedoms stripped from everyone who didn't agree with them. It started with smoking, it now threatens every aspect of our lives -- proposed minimum pricing on alcohol, a briefly mentioned "fat tax" which I'm sure will be revisited, the government snooping into our emails and Internet use, Nadine Dorries working tirelessly behind the scenes to change abortion laws by the back door, politicians like Andrew Lansley and Stephen Williams having no compunction about trying to ruin an industry simply because they don't like its product and believe that they have the right to dictate to us all ...

He'll be round to wipe your arse and check that your nappy is nice and tight

Tobacco is a legal product.  It probably isn't particularly good for you but then, neither are a lot of things and the only certainty in life... is death. The hypocrisy of denormalising smokers is sickening because of the massive amount of revenue tobacco generates. Government is happy to take our money and then use it club us over the heads with insane policies to get us to stop.

What next?

I would like to designate the next Bank Holiday as National Adults Day. Maybe we could have a parade through the street of every town, converge on Parliament and demand that our rights as adults are returned to us because it's not the government's fucking job to tell us how to live our lives.

Image Source: Daily Mash

Mourn, people, mourn for the death of adulthood. By allowing this appalling, draconian piece of legislation to be enforced, they will make us all children by imposing more and more idiotic laws upon us all.

That bell? It tolls for thee.

Non-Smokers Die Every Day

The tobacco control dickheads would like you to think that you're going to live forever.  You will hear them cry about premature deaths, preventable deaths, smoking-related deaths, and more deaths attributed to tobacco use so often that you would think that only smokers are capable of dying.  It's not true.  I know that.  You know that. Hell, even ASH knows it, but they'll still try to convince you otherwise. 

Let's consider the case of the late David Taylor MP, former chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.  If you missed the word "late" in the previous sentence, let me tell you now that David Taylor is dead.  He died in 2009 of a heart attack at only age 63, which is a far cry from living forever, but to be fair 63 isn't all that young either, in the sense that it's not really an "early death."  It's almost the average life-expectancy figure for men in the entire world, which is 65.  I can't find any evidence that Taylor was a former smoker, an ex-smoker, or a reformed smoker.  By all the accounts I've read, he led an active life, even exercised and stuff.  Maybe it was anti-smoking stuff that killed him...?  Is it possible?  I don't know.

So Taylor died suddenly while out for a walk.  He had a heart attack.  Tragic.  He was only 63!  How could this happen?  Better yet, how could the BHF let this happen? 

It happened because shit happens to non-smokers like shit happens to smokers.  Bill Hicks once said, "Non-smokers die every day."   Non-smokers die every day of the same diseases that smokers get. More non-smokers die each day than smokers. 

Naturally, people are always looking to blame someone or something for unexpected and expected deaths.  You've heard the mantra of the anti-smokers: "You're killing me with your smoking."   You could be trapped inside a burning building, with no chance to escape at all and only a few minutes before the flames and smoke will overcome you, and if you then decided to light up one last fag as your parting salute to this fucked-up planet, you can bet that the anti-smoker trapped with you is going to complain about it.  "You're killing me!"

And now, after years and years of anti-smoker hysteria provided by the likes of ASH and Simon Chapman, people actually believe that if they don't live to be 100, it's because at some point in their life, they were around a smoker.  Never mind ovens, grills, cars, factories, your work environment, your genetic predisposition to certain diseases, household cleaners, insect bites (yes, they can lead to immune deficiencies, which will open the door to a host of "preventable" diseases), STIs... I mean, the list goes on and on.  But no, it's smokers that are causing millions of deaths of non-smokers.

It's not true, no matter what you've been told or read. 

So, what's really happening here?  It's social-engineering and brainwashing by activist hate groups.  If you say something often enough, if you hear something often enough, it becomes true for you.  Because, hey, you're smart and intelligent. You read the papers, watch the news.  You don't need actual scientific proof to know when something is true.  You just know it, because someone told it to you.  Someone you trust to be reliable. Like the media!   Yeah, OK.  I know...

Pay attention:  They are playing on your natural fear of death to convince you to live a lifestyle that won't guarantee you any more time on this planet.  They are playing you, just like the global warming alarmists, and just like all of the politicians who enact stupid laws that restrict our liberties under the guises of protecting children or protecting us from terrorists.  And just an aside here, who is going to protect me from your children?  That's what I thought.

Did you know that the Dreadful used be a smoker?  She smoked Silk Cut.  She quit in 2003.  I don't know why.  But I can guess as to why she's an evil cow:  Self-loathing.  She probably hates herself more than she hates other smokers.  I wouldn't be surprised if she still sneaks a crafty one now and then.  And then she hates herself even more, and the cycle repeats and to atone for her sins of self-loathing, she attacks the tobacco industry, smokers, and anyone who would dare to speak out against her.  She should hate herself, not because she's a reformed smoker, but because she's a cunt.

I guess since we're talking about her and we're on the business of plain packs, we may as well extract this quote from that Guardian article I found when researching this post; an article where Dreadful explains why young kids start smoking.  Ready?  OK, here it is (emphasis mine):

"That's because [smoking is] still something that's attractive to young people, because it's still cool. If you talk to 8-, 9- or 10- year-olds, they'll be very anti-smoking. Puberty is when it happens: you're independent, you want to be cool, and you're not sure what do with your hands when you're talking to people of the opposite sex."

That's her words, in February 2010.  Nothing to do with pack designs there, it's all about what do with your hands. I'm pretty sure that pack designs didn't magically change into marketing monstrosities since then.  Let's repeat what she said:  "You're independent, you want to be cool.  You're independent and you want to be cool.  You're independent and you want to be cool.  You're--"

Wow. I feel independent and cool.  Time for a smoke, I guess.

Misinformation - It's How They Roll

ASH likes to consider itself to be "pressure" charity, but it's anything but charitable.  I like to think of ASH as a cult, the Jim Jones's drinking Kool-Aid Flavor Aid kind.  ASH is a cult of hate, and it feeds its supporters lies and misinformation to further its agenda of ridding the world of evil smokers.  The kind of people who support ASH hate it when their worldview is challenged by freedom-loving people, or even popular films for that matter.  For example, let's look at this exchange on the ASH Australia Facebook page:

The text of that exchange reads:

Q: Quick question, went to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo the other night and in the movie the main character goes in to a shop and asks for a pack of cigarettes by name of brand and is given the packet clearly showing the brand on the packet. Does this constitute advertising and if so isn't that illegal in Australia?

A: ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Australia - Product placement is common practice and nothing much can be done about it when movies are made overseas unless regulated in country of origin. The author of the books sadly died in his 40s form (sic) smoking so pity that his heroes in the trilogy do so much smoking. 

OK, I've blacked-out the questioner's name because he's a complete fucking moron, and no doubt a smokerphobe.  And, um... OH NOES! There was someone asking for a pack of cigarettes in a film!  The horror!

Right. Before I break this thing down (it won't take long, I promise), I don't expect everyone to get all the details right all of the time.  It would be good if you got at least ONE of the details right.  But ASH couldn't even manage that when answering the question.

First problem.  The author, Stieg Larrson, did not die in his 40s.  He was 50.

Second problem.  The author did not die from smoking. Granted, he smoked a lot according to reports, perhaps as many as 60 per day. But he did not light a cigarette and suddenly die from it.  No, he died from a heart attack after he had climbed seven flights of stairs because the lift was broken at his office.  Was his heart attack caused by excessive smoking, or was it caused from a complete lack of exercise?  Maybe it was both.  He could have been killed by neo-Nazis!  In any case, he did not die from smoking or only smoking. It was a combination of health issues (or a neo-Nazi conspiracy, maybe, but I'm not buying it) and, for him, at 50-years-old, an arduous stair climb.  Like any good cult, you distort the facts to suit your agenda. Well done, ASH. Liars.

It's not a pity that his heroes "do so much smoking" either. But that's your opinion, and I'll let you have that one.

It's pretty sad that the guy who asked ASH that question thought that asking for a pack of smokes in a film constitutes advertising.  It's a film, fuckface!  It's fiction!  It's not real!

So now you can see the mentality of people who support ASH, and you can see that ASH can't help but misinform their own supporters  - don't worry about fact checking.  Of course, we're not dealing with rocket scientists here, just the fake kind of science ASH believes in.

Stieg Larsson - Probably not an ASH supporter

The CDC Pretty Much Destroys the Argument for Plain Packs

Look, I'm not making of light of anyone who has become ill, whether their illness was from smoking or tobacco use or from any other factor.  The truth is, all of us can become inflicted by some illness regardless if we are lifelong non-smokers or a habitual smoker.  It's called life. Diseases were rampant long before we started smoking.  And while people do genuinely get ill from tobacco use, just like people can get ill from peanuts or anything on this planet, the truth is that cigarette pack designs have fuck all to do with taking up smoking.

Consider, if you will, the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) website chock full of ex-smoker testimonials; all of them suffering from some horrible affliction you wouldn't even wish on your neighbour that invites screaming tranny hookers over to his flat four times a week while playing Lady Gaga's songs at 140 decibels.  No.

Still, not one of the biographies mentions that someone was attracted to smoking by the pack design.  Not one. You would think there is at least one that said, "I started smoking because of that pack design.  I was hypnotised and enthralled by its relentless allure, like I was watching David Hasselhoff in Baywatch, or that weird guy in The Mask."


This the CDC we're talking about. You would expect them to be just a little more scientific than, say, you're typical hater like Simon Chapman or Dreadful Arnott.

And to be fair to the CDC, they are not kind at all on smoking or tobacco use. They don't advocate it.  But let's read teaser text of each of these testimonies on their site, and then you'll see that packaging has sweet FA to do with taking up smoking.  (Of course, by posting this, I expect the fASHists to make a call to the CDC to have them remove/change the proof, because that is how the hate rolls.)

Annette's Story 

Annette experimented with cigarettes as a teenager, smoking occasionally. But by the time she turned 20, Annette was a regular smoker.

Beatrice's Story 

Beatrice, age 40, is the mother of two boys and lives in New York. She tried her first cigarette at age 7, her second at 11, and then began smoking regularly when she was 13. She had friends who smoked, and she wanted to be “cool” like them. 

Brandon's Story 

Thirty-one-year-old Brandon started smoking in his mid-teens, and by 18, he was diagnosed with Buerger’s disease, a disorder linked to tobacco use that causes blood vessels in the hands and feet to become blocked and can result in infection or gangrene. 

Christine's Story 

During high school, Christine wanted to fit in, so she began smoking at age 16. She became addicted and continued smoking for 28 years. 

James's Story 

James started smoking at age 14 in an attempt to be like his father. Thirty years later he decided to quit and adopt a much healthier lifestyle. 

Jessica's Story 

It’s not easy being a single parent, and for Jessica, it’s especially challenging. Not only is she a student, a bank employee, and a handball player who competes nationally, this 28-year-old also is the mother of a child with severe asthma. 

Marie's Story 

Marie lives in New York and began smoking in high school with her friends. They would congregate regularly to smoke the cigarettes they took from family members.

Roosevelt's Story 

Like many smokers, Roosevelt started experimenting with cigarettes in his teens. But his addiction became entrenched during his time in the military. 

Shane's Story 

Shane began smoking at age 18 and was only 34 when the damage to his body from smoking became evident. 

Sharon's Story 

Growing up in the seventies, it seemed to Sharon like everyone smoked cigarettes. She was only 13 when she took her first puff. In no time, her casual smoking would turn into a full-blown and expensive addiction. 

Shawn's Story 

Fourteen-year-old Shawn was only trying to make friends and fit in at a new school when he started taking cigarettes from his father. 

Suzy's Story 

Suzy, age 62, came from a family of smokers, so it wasn’t unusual when she began sneaking cigarettes at age 15. Suzy grew up and married; she and her husband were exemplary entrepreneurs. 

Terrie's Story 

In high school, Terrie was a pretty cheerleader who competed on the cheer circuit. Her father was a smoker, and with more and more of her friends smoking, Terrie soon found herself lighting up in social settings. 

Wilma's Story 

Wilma can’t point to a specific reason she started smoking cigarettes. Her siblings smoked, and by her early teens she was sneaking cigarettes from her sister — beginning an addiction that would last 30 years. 

Look, I know you're intelligent enough to see the overarching theme above.  I'm not going to spell it out of you.  But if you need to make a limited case against plain packs, why not start with the CDC's own site?

(apologies for any grammatical errors or typos -- we've absolutely caned two nice bottles of wine and now we're having a nightcap, as it were.  While the booze is still cheap, of course.)

Simon Chapman is a Petty, Hateful Bastard

Like a vicious herpes infection, or a stinking, floating turd that just won't be flushed, Simon Chapman won't go away.  To say Simon Chapman is a petty, hateful bastard is being way too kind.  This man is quite possibly the root of all evil in modern society.  He is the father of the plain packs campaign -- a hateful, spiteful, tyrannical ploy designed to torment tobacco companies and smokers equally.  Rest assured, Simon Chapman hates you.

When he's not sucking on the government money-teat, Simon Chapman likes to use Twitter to promote his vile, hateful views.  What passes for hilarious japes in the anti-smoker circles these days?  Let's see:

Simon says, "what pro-smoking group members buy their kids"
What a fucking twat!

I suppose Simon Chapman thinks being a hateful cunt is funny.  It isn't.

We will revisit Simon's hate campaigns another time.  For now, let it be known that the tobacco control group, every single last one of them -- yes, all of those nannying motherfuckers from hell -- they probably think you pro-smokers are all child abusers and paedophiles and murderers.  Which is kind of odd, the paedo thing, because it ain't us pro-smokers who are out there working with children every chance we get, using those "gullible" children to protest at rallies and so on.

Hmm...  time for a little investigating, methinks.