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Re: [ProgSoc] Have you registered to vote yet?



Benjamin Johnston wrote:
I don't find myself insulted by the horrific drink driving ads or the anti-speeding ads, or child safety ads, or by anti- unsafe sex advertising.
I do. Then again, I don't have a television. Fear, negativity, and 
horror are not welcome in my home.
They are there to engage proper thought about the consequences of actions whose risks are typically poorly calculated by people
No, they are there to shock people into ignorant thoughtless fearful 
compliance. The practice is the antithesis of reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc

(and to discourage people who will then go on and expect everybody else to pick up their medical bills).
Either you go and find the financial study which shows that the medical 
costs of treating smokers are more than the costs of keeping senile 
seniors alive well past their expiry date (and if you do, which you 
won't, then I'll show you why it's bogus 'creative accounting'), or you 
stop making allusions to the cost of smokers' death.
If I die of lung cancer, then I expect you to kill yourself just as soon 
as I do, because you are *not* welcome to sit in a nursing home 
dribbling for forty years at my expense while my daughter wastes away 
the productive years of her life looking after you, *especially* if I'm 
already dead.
If I'm about to undergo risky surgery, it isn't insulting if the doctor were to present graphic images of the potential risks - it is something that I should be prepared to accept as I agree to the risks.
Being informed of health risks, and being continually spammed by 
horrific alarmist propaganda are not the same thing. Further, there are 
certain practices which ruin credibility, and the latter is such.
If you have properly considered the risks of smoking, you should be fully aware that you may very well end up with awful cancers and die a horrible death as a result of the smoking.
Thanks.

Oh, and just something for you to keep in mind next time you're at the beach:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=J4YjmwCs6H0

If you've properly considered those risks you should have accepted
this. And if you've really accepted it, then the images shouldn't
be insulting to you.
They are insulting because I don't like being reminded every day that 
I'm going to die. I know I'm going to die. I accept that I am going to 
die. I don't know why I'm alive, I'm not sure what we're doing here, and 
I find it quite bizarre and fantastic that we're sitting on a rock 
hurtling about a star in the midst of an enormous universe that we don't 
understand. I don't know what the circumstances or time of my death will 
be, but I am aware that I have a limited amount of time to "be" here.
I don't tell you every few hours that you're going to die, perhaps 
painfully. Perhaps tragically. Perhaps violently. Perhaps pathetically.
The government isn't saying "smokers suck" or "smokers are immoral heathens". The warnings are factual information and images.
No, the warnings are unwelcome alarmist spin, and they are widely 
interpreted as "smokers suck" and "smokers are immoral heathens".
If you deny this, then I say you are a liar.

During this conversation I forced Andi to back down from his "smokers are immoral heathens" line of argument, because he can't defend it. He still holds this belief, however. Go team!, right?
It's the minority of people who are vehemently anti-smoking and driving 
this slippery-slope agenda, allied to pharmaceutical companies. The 
silent majority really doesn't care. Smokers themselves hardly even 
care. Yeah, sure, we get it. We're stupid immoral heathens. Right. No 
worries. Yawn.
I don't think the government has an obligation to not offend everybody - that would be impossible - I'm sure that for any possible decision or non-decision you can find some crazy person who would be offended by it.
In this case we're talking about twenty percent of the population being 
deprived of public space, and being silenced and condemned.
But I suspect you are being irrational and oversensitive if you think smoking warnings are *insulting*.
Andi calling me pathetic was insulting. Forcing state funded propaganda 
into my home isn't so much "insulting" as it is oppressive.
And as for other treatment of smokers like banning smoking in public places, then again, this should be perfectly reasonable given that there are non-smoke alternatives available for people who need a nicotine fix in these places, and that smoking can cause non-smokers allergies, irritation, discomfort, hayfever and potential health risks due to passive smoking.
There isn't a "non-smoke" alternative to smoking.

All these points have been made previously, but you haven't really addressed them except through your homosexuality analogy or vague rants about the machinery of the state.
I've addressed all of the points, but they are all window dressing anyway.

The root of the issue is about self-determination and the absence of state interference, which is why the gay analogy was both valid and important.
If you want to draw an analogy or comparison to make your point, than you should come up with something better than homosexuality because (as I explained previously) that was a stupid and insulting argument (and yet you are apparently attempting to continue it...).
No, my analogy was perfectly valid, it was insightful not stupid, it 
sought empathy not insult, and you won't accept it because if you did 
then you'd have to concede that your treatment of smokers is appalling.












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