Class Warfare and Saving Lives

Over the next few days, weeks, and months (hell, possibly years) you're going to see a lot of people say stupid shit just like this:

Rebecca Taylor MEP:
"Congratulations to all those #ENVI MEPs who voted in favour of #medicines route for #ecigs; you did what #tobacco industry wanted : (

Or (perhaps unintended, perhaps intentional) asinine things like this:

Chris Davies MEP:
"Key e-cigs vote lost 45-25. People will die unnecessarily as a result unless this can be changed. #e-cigs"

And more than a bit of this hysterics from some vapers, evidently learned from tobacco control and their sheep minions of hate:

g james:
".@LindaMcAvanMEP how does it feel to advance your career on the backs of 1,000s of deaths? #ecigs #EuEcigBan #SWOF #BBJ"

But what you won't see very much of is this, which is absolutely spot-on and true (note: I don't know this MEP, or what she stands for, but I like the wording of this tweet -- I'm certainly not endorsing this MEP):

Marina Yannakoudakis MEP:
"E-cigarette users let down as MEPs reject @ecrgroup amendment & instead support Socialist & Green plan to classify #ecigs as medical devices"

I believe that last tweet really just sums up the situation with MEPs choosing to (effectively) ban e-cigs, along with a total ban on menthol cigarettes, and a total ban on slim cigarettes, and new 75% graphic health warnings, and whatever other evil things the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) is meant to control. I think MEP Yannakoudakis could have said "E-cigarette users failed by MEPs" but you know, wording choices aside, she's nailed it in a single tweet.

Because this is about class warfare first and foremost. Socialists want only one class of people -- that is to say everybody should be poor and dependent upon the State. The same goes for the Green party, which is really just an off-shoot of the Socialist party when you inspect them a bit more closely.

So why a menthol ban and why a slim cigarette ban?  Because a) poorer people and women tend to smoke menthol cigarettes in much greater numbers than other groups of people*, and b) because women smoke slim cigarettes. The goal of these bans is not to protect anybody's health but instead to take away your choices, to force you to conform to the will of the State along with the eradication of dozens of brands from the market, the latter being particularly important as it's part and parcel with plain packaging.

This is exactly what the Tobacco Control Industry (TCI) has been demanding for years, because TCI has always viewed women and the poor as weak and unable to think for themselves. Indeed, most of your elected representatives feel precisely the same way. The ruling class, which always thrives in a socialist state, will have you believe that all women, but particularly young, poor and/or pregnant women, are too gullible, too stupid, and too weak to be able to make their own choices, so MPs and MEPs choose to make women's choices for them.

(*Some of you might want to include racism as a reason for banning menthol cigarettes -- I don't know whether that's the case here. If it is, I would hardly be surprised, but I'm not going to make that claim, because I simply cannot say whether race is a factor.)

This is class warfare, people. This is all about controlling the poor, who (if the statistics are correct) smoke more cigarettes than the middle class or the upper class. Of course, it's also about making the poor even poorer. Because that's also an effective control tactic. If you have no money, if you spend more and more of your time working for the State to survive, then you are less able to rebel against your masters. It is also about hurting the tobacco industry, which, in the opinions of the socialists, tobacco control academics and many of your MPs and MEPs, is making too much money. Ultimately, it's about controlling all of us eventually, poor or rich.

I just thought I'd point all of that out, in case you didn't already know.

Now, back to the tweets shown above. Rebecca Taylor MEP's tweet indicates that the tobacco industry (presumably all of it) wanted this to happen. I have no doubt that some tobacco companies certainly did want e-cigs to be regulated as medical devices. Larger tobacco companies who are interested in developing their own e-cigs can afford any licensing and medical regulation schemes the Socialists can throw at 'em.  But  Taylor left it there -- she forgot who else would also benefit. So I called her out on that:

Rebecca Taylor MEP

All right, so she's only casually mentioning that the tobacco industry will benefit, not assigning blame. She also sent this tweet:

Rebecca Taylor MEP

Well, she did tweet a few times to the WHO's Twitter account. Was she "very critical"?  I don't think so. Here's one of them:

Rebecca Taylor MEP:
"@WHO do you want to encourage #ecig users to return #tobacco after stopping smoking? That would not be in the interests of #publichealth"

Oooh. You showed 'em, Rebecca.  I'd bet the WHO is absolutely smarting from that critical tweet! Like they care. But the point of selecting this tweet (and there were a couple of others) is to show you that Rebecca Taylor MEP supports Public Health primarily. And those who support Public Health are not your friends -- they never will be, even when they say or do things you agree with.  Rebecca Taylor is also anti-smoking and anti-tobacco, including using snus.  It took a lot of people commenting on her blog post and sending her evidence about vaping to get her on board to support e-cigs, but she wilfully turns her back on tobacco consumers. If you can get her to do what you want, vapers, great -- but trusting her, thinking that she's a friend ...?  That would be a huge mistake.  You've been warned.

As for Chris Davies MEP's tweet, well... I find statements such as his to be unnecessary hyperbole and I put it this way to him:

That's right. People will die regardless if they vape. Vaping isn't going to make you immortal, folks. No matter how much you think it might. Perhaps vapers think that they won't get cancer -- because, you know, cancer is that "bad death" that only smokers get. Think again. Any of us, smoker, non-smoker or vaper could get some kind of cancer, eventually. And apart from suicide, if any of us could choose what we die from, we would. But we cannot. So all of the "unnecessary deaths" will still happen, one way or another, by some cause or another. And if you eliminate one cause, there's another waiting for you.

So I have real difficult time understanding Chris Davies MEP's tweet that "people will die unnecessarily as a result" if they cannot vape. It's poor and sensationalised wording designed to inflame opinion, not inform. It's not even remotely true. E-cigarettes aren't going to save anybody's life. It's disingenuous to say they will. Statements like that are utter bullshit, actually.

At best, e-cigarettes "might" help to extend your life by a few years if you don't get lung or any other kind cancer (because, as we all know and have been told endlessly for decades, smoking causes all diseases and cancers and deaths, right? yeah?), but there's no guarantee that would ever happen. You might die from a stroke or a heart attack or getting hit by a bus, train, or a meteorite; you might die from a snake bite, or from a bee sting, or from a nasty virus or the common cold; you might freeze to death or burn in a fire; you might die in a plane crash or a terrorist attack; you might suffocate on your own vomit or your spouse might suffocate you with a pillow some night; you might get Alzheimer's or some other form of brain disease or dementia and forget who you are, forget where you are and maybe, just maybe, on a bad day, when somebody forgets to look after you, you could come to a sticky end by accidentally walking off a cliff or something...

Are any of those particularly good deaths?  What? You're hoping you'll die in your sleep?  That would be great. Wouldn't it? Doesn't happen that often, though. Nope. I know this, because my mother works as a nurse, in a care home for the elderly. We rarely go quiet into that good night... so, pleasant dreams, people.

It's time vapers abandoned the line of thought that suggests e-cigs will save your life. You are all -- all of you vapers and every last human on this planet -- going to die. Regardless. It is only a question of when -- you can spend the rest of your life, however long that may be, worrying about the "how" if you so desire. It's your life. Do what you like.

So. If you think that e-cigs are likely to extend your potential lifespan, then say that.

But stop fucking saying e-cigs will save lives, because they sure as hell won't.

I can guarantee that much.