Bernie Parks Encourages Smoking

Jacob Sullum | August 13, 2008

Los Angeles City Council Member Bernard Parks wants to ban smoking "wherever people congregate or there is an expectation of people being present." In short, in addition to the existing state ban on smoking in indoor workplaces, he wants to ban smoking in virtually all outdoor locations. Parks claims "secondhand smoke is the number one cause of preventable health disease in America."

This will come as a surprise to—well, almost everyone, including the CDC, which says smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. It attributes 400,000 deaths a year to smoking, more than 100 times its estimate for the number of deaths caused by exposure to secondhand smoke. But it's understandable that Parks' figures are out of whack, since he thinks "research has shown that inhaling secondhand smoke is more harmful than actually smoking." In other words, unlike every other poison known to man, tobacco smoke becomes more dangerous in smaller doses. By this logic, smoke-free air is more dangerous than secondhand smoke.

Parks seems genuinely confused. But as I've noted, this sort of confusion among policy makers has been fostered by public health officials and anti-smoking activists who have hyped the dangers of secondhand smoke so much that they've undermined warnings about smoking. "If you take this message seriously," Michael Siegel writes on his tobacco policy blog, "a rational nonsmoker might actually start smoking. After all, according to the message, it's better to smoke yourself than to be exposed to secondhand smoke."

Siegel, who has long supported bans on smoking in the workplace, believes bans like the one proposed by Parks go too far:

Anti-smoking advocates...are promoting such extreme proposals that go far beyond the documented scientific evidence that they need to create their own facts in order to justify these proposals.

You can't credibly argue that smoking needs to be banned everywhere outdoors to protect the health of nonsmokers using the actual truth about the severity of health risk from secondhand smoke exposure. There simply is no evidence that a few wisps of secondhand smoke, as one might encounter from someone smoking on a sidewalk or in a street, parking lot, or park puts people's health at risk and represents a significant public health problem. 

I agree with Siegel that broad outdoor smoking bans are not justified by any health risk that secondhand smoke poses. But unlike him, I'm also against government-imposed smoking bans on private property, including businesses as well as residences. And Parks, for all his fanaticism, offers an argument that supports this position, saying his aim is to "move smokers and smoking away from people who do not choose to either smoke or inhale secondhand smoke." What if we had indoor locations where people were allowed to smoke and where everyone who entered knew about this rule? Maybe people also could have a drink or a bite to eat in these places, which would be restricted to customers who "choose to either smoke or inhale secondhand smoke." Surely this is an idea Parks could get behind.

Comments

Nigel Watt|8.13.08 @ 3:39PM|#

State of California ban in 10 years? Over/under?

Mr. A|8.13.08 @ 3:48PM|#

If I were real, I would beat Bernie Parks to a bloody pulp. Amidst my other mayhem.

|8.13.08 @ 3:54PM|#

Nigel: I'll take the over. They'll continue to do it piecemail, but the state won't make that one final, overarching ban. That would get sent to court. Whereas if they just make it so that there's only one block in Visalia where it's still legal, then they can continue to argue that they haven't actually violated any rights of smokers. Because Visalia is convenient to everywhere.

ed|8.13.08 @ 3:59PM|#

Remember how idiotic it seemed just a few short years ago when politicians floated the idea of banning smoking in outdoor sports arenas? Outdoors? Ha ha ha! That's a good one! The smoke would be too dilute outdoors to harm anyone! Silly politicians!

|8.13.08 @ 4:04PM|#

Anti-smoking advocates...are promoting such extreme proposals that go far beyond the documented scientific evidence that they need to create their own facts in order to justify these proposals.

Obesity is the next crusade. The game plan has been tested and it works. Slippery slope indeed.

bill|8.13.08 @ 4:07PM|#

Has Parks ever SEEN the air in Los Angeles? I have. I would prefer the secondhand tobacco smoke.

iowan|8.13.08 @ 4:14PM|#

I want a divorce, time to expel California from the union.

California is a community property state right, so we get half its assets?

|8.13.08 @ 4:23PM|#

[T]he CDC...says smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S.

That is so cool, so if I quit smoking it will prevent my death? I am going to take up smoking, then quit, then become immortal. Plus think of all the money I'll save.

The Extispicator|8.13.08 @ 4:24PM|#

Bad news: the government will not be happy until it can shrink bureaucrats down, like in Fantastic Voyage, and monitor our bodies from the inside to make sure we're all safe and not violating any regulations.

Good news: since they're bureaucrats, they'll only be in there about 200 days a year from 10:00 until 4:30, and they'll only actually do their jobs about half that time, so at least they won't do too much damage.

Naga Sadow|8.13.08 @ 4:25PM|#

Beware of Antelope Valley real estate, Iowan. Its a currently a dry river bed that floods every 10 years or so. Go for some Santa Monica blvd real estate.

Peter Orvetti|8.13.08 @ 4:30PM|#

It's that thirdhand smoke -- when someone who has stood near a smoker breathes on you -- that you really have to watch out for.

Paul|8.13.08 @ 4:40PM|#

Los Angeles City Council Member Bernard Parks wants to ban smoking "wherever people congregate or there is an expectation of people being present." In short, in addition to the existing state ban on smoking in indoor workplaces, he wants to ban smoking in virtually all outdoor locations. Parks claims "secondhand smoke is the number one cause of preventable health disease in America."

I wonder if we can get a legalization movement going. You know, something successful, like the marijuana legalization movement. If we could just copy their tactics, people could smoke again.

|8.13.08 @ 4:43PM|#

Because Visalia is convenient to everywhere.

Don't encourage Visalia! It's an agricultural town that wants to be a trendy urban center. If that means banning tobacco to be hip and trendy, then consider it done. This is the town that banned cruising, even though the movie American Grafitti was filmed there.

Paul|8.13.08 @ 4:43PM|#

California is a community property state right, so we get half its assets?

Community property. Read carefully. You also get half its debts.

iowan|8.13.08 @ 4:57PM|#

You also get half its debts.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind when we draft the settlement.

Paul|8.13.08 @ 5:15PM|#

The 'Expectorator':

Good news: since they're bureaucrats, they'll only be in there about 200 days a year from 10:00 until 4:30, and they'll only actually do their jobs about half that time, so at least they won't do too

You're so very wrong. These are special Bureaucrats. These are the workaholic bureaucrats with "big ideas". These are the kind that show up early, and go home late. The most dangerous kind.

There was a time when government was full of shiftless lazy folks who, while annoying, did little damage. Then they started drug testing, and now it's all spit-and-polish, no drinking, no smoking, no trans-fats, health-conscious ambitious go-getters.

bubba|8.13.08 @ 5:16PM|#

Of course smoking is banned in "private" employment offices. One has no choice where one works, and must accept whatever wage slavery is offered. It is therefore appropriate for the government to step in and protect me.

Likewise for stadiums. These are publicly funded boondoggles, and therefore subject to measures that benefit the public good.

Right?

Dello|8.13.08 @ 5:20PM|#

"There was a time when government was full of shiftless lazy folks who, while annoying, did little damage. Then they started drug testing, and now it's all spit-and-polish, no drinking, no smoking, no trans-fats, health-conscious ambitious go-getters."

We're fucked.

Episiarch|8.13.08 @ 5:20PM|#

In other words, unlike every other poison known to man, tobacco smoke becomes more dangerous in smaller doses.

We need to get children smoking right away to protect them from second-hand smoke! TEH CHILDRENZ!1!!

Kolohe|8.13.08 @ 7:55PM|#

California is a community property state right, so we get half its assets?

Beware of Antelope Valley real estate, Iowan. Its a currently a dry river bed that floods every 10 years or so. Go for some Santa Monica blvd real estate.

We could always use a nuclear missle targeted at the San Andreas fault to make that waterfront property. Just make sure our bimbo's girlfriend mother doesn't live where the other missle is targeted.

|8.13.08 @ 8:09PM|#

"In other words, unlike every other poison known to man, tobacco smoke becomes more dangerous in smaller doses. By this logic, smoke-free air is more dangerous than secondhand smoke."

No, it's the logic of homeopathy applied to poisoning. You need the equivalent of distilled essence of cigarette smoke to teach the body how to make cancerous cells. That's why second smoke is so deadly!

JB|8.13.08 @ 9:36PM|#

Politicians are morons.

|8.13.08 @ 11:02PM|#

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. "
C.S. Lewis.

Need we say more?

|8.13.08 @ 11:30PM|#

The truth of the matter is, people who don't smoke don't like the smell. And that is the basis of smoking bans in a nutshell. There is no panic in the streets every time someone lights up, because people, even those being protected from it, don't really believe the ad agency produced lies and euphemisms declaring harm from second hand smoke.

People love the lie because it makes them comfortable. The promotion of the lies allow people to vent their frustrations and express their primal instincts against others, in a politically correct and acceptable form of hatred.

There has only been one government system which based its power in paternalism, teaching people to believe they are helpless children, who need to be mothered and protected. Promoting the prissy and the weak beyond their true stature as cowards.

The competition of the complainers, to be established the victim of the week has been going along splendidly, as is the promotion of the remote elevated to the norm in search of action, also become a normal way of life.

Just as it was in 1930s Germany when the Jew had to be denounced in any publicly acceptable, dinner party compliant language, hatred could devise. So too we can teach ourselves to look away and feign blindness, just as we do when encountering someone sleeping on the street, we cant see them, so we don't have to get involved. The bigotry Isn't real if we ignore it, or at minimum as it serves our personal comfort, we can look away and pretend it isn't happening, so no one could accuse us of being the hypocrites we are becoming.

How many times do we have to promise ourselves, "never again" before we put it in stone and try to remember why the promise was made? Hatred is not a noble cause or a feel good position; it is just the promotion of the majority to believe themselves superior to others. It is particularly perverse when promoted for just money.

Just as many authors hope to present in their overdone vilifying of smokers and praising of the self important paternalists they identify as "public health authorities", which incredibly is seen as "acceptable" enough to publish today, this offers illuminating insight into where the rest of us stand. Or what we refuse to see.

|8.13.08 @ 11:49PM|#

secondhand smoke is the number one cause of preventable health disease in America

What, exactly, is a "preventable health disease"? Wouldn't alcoholism count? Or AIDS? It's not hard to prevent those diseases: just don't do the things that cause them. And yet secondhand smoke is number one?

|8.13.08 @ 11:50PM|#

Here is something most people don't know and those who do, are fiercely reluctant to admit it;

I would like to present with no denials, as the conspiracy nut I am, a perspective which seems to indicate Industrial Socialist promotions of smoker bans and the creation of second hand smoke "risk" to inexplicably gray the importance of personal autonomy. Amounts largely to an organized cull, of those deemed "useless eaters" by others who believe themselves to be superior beings, in dealing with an over population issue as the real problem inherent with smoking.

There seems to be a lot of denial within the medical community that; nicotinic acid produced by burning the nicotine found in tobacco, is actually vitamin B3 or niacin, oxidized nicotine or nicotinic acid, is by far the most efficient means of natural self medication, known to man, in use of niacin to cure what ails you. The chemical description is C6H6N2O and its molecular weight is 122.13 daltons.

You don't get high on cigarettes, your body just gets much more efficient, which to some, may seem like a high.

Nicotinic acid is processed by the human body to produce among other things, NAD+.

Google searches are readily available to find the proof if I am wrong.

Go for it.

However after you discover I am not wrong, go one step further and do a search at PubMed or any of the popular medical journals for "NAD+" a highly effective prevention or cure for both cancer and heart disease. Believe it or not.

http://research.exercisingyourmi...tinic- acid.aspx

"Niacin is a member of the B-vitamin family. It is sometimes referred to as vitamin B3. Nicotinic acid was first discovered as an oxidation product of nicotine and thus, the origin of its name. In fact, much of the confusion caused by the use of the term niacin for both nicotinic acid and nicotinamide, as well as for nicotinic acid alone, was created by the attempt to dissociate nicotinic acid from its nicotine origins. Niacin, via its metabolites, is involved in a wide range of biological processes, including the production of energy, the synthesis of fatty acids, cholesterol and steroids, signal transduction, the regulation of gene expression and the maintenance of genomic integrity."

|8.13.08 @ 11:56PM|#

By this logic, smoke-free air is more dangerous than secondhand smoke.

Holy homeopathy, Batman!

-jcr

|8.13.08 @ 11:59PM|#

Just as it was in 1930s Germany when the Jew had to be denounced

Oh, fuck you. Kill yourself it you want, you'll be doing us all a favor, but comparing smokers to Jews in nazi Germany is nothing but a sad attempt at emotional blackmail.

-jcr

|8.14.08 @ 12:33AM|#

Oh, fuck you. Kill yourself it you want, you'll be doing us all a favor, but comparing smokers to Jews in nazi Germany is nothing but a sad attempt at emotional blackmail.

We are all Jews and niggers, except those Anointed who do the duty of The State.

|8.14.08 @ 1:11AM|#

A "preventable health disease" is the opposite of a "preventable sickness disease." When your sickness is diseased, it eventually dies, and then... you're healthy. So obviously the legislators want to prevent that. Because, according to the first formulation, health is a disease. Though, luckily, preventable.

:

|8.14.08 @ 1:27AM|#

"Oh, fuck you. Kill yourself it you want, you'll be doing us all a favor, but comparing smokers to Jews in nazi Germany is nothing but a sad attempt at emotional blackmail."

Your point can be made without the trash talk, pleeez Try to consider what was actually presented, before jumping to conclusions that only serve to embarrass yourself.

Because the media and a few brainwash lemmings are convinced; the only reason to suggest something appears to be representative of Fascism is a cowardly way of winning an argument does not explain how someone would explain it if Fascism is what he actually sees. For a Fascist your opinion is great news. They can now operate on main street and no one will have the courage to call them for what they represent.

The Emperor has no clothes and the sight of what is visible isn't pretty.

Now Mr Potty face, just how do you believe they created such a substantial and deep rooted hatred of Jews? Racism which still sees effect in today's society, fifty years later? In a society which was traditionally Highly moral, in less than a generation Germany was transformed to a society which allowed the Holocaust.

They started with smoking bans and gun registry, Animal protection, Gay rights along with a number of other current controversies that need victims and protectors. While always over protecting the children who essentially represented the gene pool.

Fear is one of the most certain of motivators and if society really feared the smoke, more than being seen as "not normal" there would never be an issue with smoking bans. No one is genuinely afraid of the smoke, most just stay silent because the anti smoker campaign suits their personal comfort. There are few accusations made against the Jews in 1930s Germany, that is not being repeated today referring to smokers. Look it up.

Campaigns against Jews, Poles, Gypsies and Blacks were built in paternalism. Paternalism backed by the same epidemiological studies presented deceptively as proportions as opposed to the absolutely dissimilar high end in ranges of worst case association. They claimed to be protecting the gene pool, an obligation of the state, to protect the population from themselves.

The language has changed but the methods are entirely consistent. Incredibly the Former Eugenics society who are now known as the Galton Institute are listed as participating policymakers at the World Health Organization today. Everything old is becoming new again and most of us did forget far too soon.

Look at how the cult members treated James Enstrom for the crime of reporting research findings, not consistent with what the health scare fanatics wanted to hear. Over 250 critics and only two talked about the science the rest were focused on defaming the messenger.

Paternalism will always need more enthusiastic messages in order to stay emotionally urgent. They will eventually evolve to comparing races as we have already seen in England, denouncing Polish immigrants, who the anti smoker group ASH advised a few months back; smoke more and cost the lion's share in health care expenses.

Keep watching you will see those comparisons here soon enough. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gambled a half Billion dollars to date, confident they could convince us all, smokers are not the same as everyone else.

Guess what? it looks like they were right.

They are not closing up shop just yet. There is still lots of gold to be had and these Industrial socialist leeches who are currently operating without restrictions, with the traditional roadblocks we know as Autonomy and basic human rights being set aside, they know just how to get to the gold by the power position of mothering scolds treating the rest of us as needy children.

Thomas Laprade|8.14.08 @ 2:01AM|#

Smoking bans mean..It is against the law to use or permit a legal product on 'private' property.
Is this the American way??
smoke from tobacco is a statistically insignificant health risk.

http://smokersclubinc.com
http://pasan.thetruthisalie.com

|8.14.08 @ 6:01AM|#

The way the anti smoking lobby are perverting science is a complete disgrace. Are you guys aware of the longest, most in depth study into passive smoking done in California by Professor James Enstrom and Dr Geoffrey Kabat. It covered 118,000 Californians, 35,000 had partners who smoked. It was peer reviewed by equally eminent scientists who reviewed the methods, figures and science. I was published in the British Medical Journal, the equivelent of the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 and I quote:

"Conclusions The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

"Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, primarily asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, has been associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, but the evidence for increased mortality is sparse."

|8.14.08 @ 6:02AM|#

Sorry here is the URL so you can read the report yourself.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

Look This Up Your Damn Self, T|8.14.08 @ 9:59AM|#

The truth of the matter is, people who don't smoke don't like the smell.

About thirty years ago, they did.

Amazing how that changed, completely on its own and naturally, with not a bit of external pressure, or any plan of any sort whatsoever.

Magic.

Michael J. McFadden|8.14.08 @ 3:47PM|#

Why is it so hard to understand?

Tobacco smoke is MAGICKAL !

It can travel against air currents, so fans and ventilation have no effect on it.

It is deadlier as its dose is reduced, with the ultimate effect of one day wiping humanity from the face of the planet when the last, lone, tobacco smoke molecule wafts through the atmosphere.

It is the strongest and most instantly addictive drug ever known to humankind, yet half of the people who smoke eventually give it up rather than pay an extra 50 cents a pack or step outside to smoke.

It forsakes the air within which and through which it was born, and burrows within walls and carpets and teddy bears, only to LEAP OUT once again to kill as it senses innocent children nearby.

It defies Einstein by reducing lung cancer deaths in California by 14% in 1996... two years BEFORE their total smoking ban.

In truth, the only thing known that is more MAGICKAL than tobacco smoke is the power of the propaganda machine that has brought to the place we are today.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"

|8.14.08 @ 4:59PM|#

The ultimate end point for a health program is decreased mortality. The following is from numbers used by pro ban groups in the United States.

Gary K

Smoking bans cause more non-smokers to die!

Since 1965 there has been a 50% decrease in the adult smoking rate.

Since 1990 there have been literally thousands of smoking bans of one sort or another enacted.

Since 1965 the exposure rate to SHS has decreased by 75%.

The stated reason for smoking bans is that SHS exposure 'KILLS' non-smokers and smoking bans are needed to change that!!

In the early 1990's anti smoking groups claimed that 53,000 non-smokers died from exposure to SHS.

In the early 1990's there were about 140,625,000 non-smokers,53,000 deaths means that there was 1 death per 2,653 non-smokers.

In the current era, pro ban groups claim that SHS exposure causes about 65,00 non-smokers to die per year.

There are about 165,000,000 non-smokers these days, 65,000 deaths is 1 death per 2,538 non-smokers.

Sooo,the antis are saying that after a 75% decrease in SHS exposure and literally thousands of smoking bans of one sort or another, "THE DEATH RATE HAS INCREASED AND THUS, SMOKING BANS CAUSE MORE NON-SMOKERS TO DIE"!!!

At the very least, smoking bans and a 75% decrease in SHS exposure have not caused a decrease in the number of deaths.

|8.14.08 @ 9:30PM|#

How did this nut get in office.

1. If those of you who are so worried about your right to breath clean air I wouldn't mind a little of it myself. I have yet to find anyone who can find it.

It won't be in your homes because of the materials it is built from.

It won't be in your own Kitchen with the cleaning products.

It won't be in your yard because of the insecticides you spray.

It won't be in your car because of the materials used in the upholstery and the fumes that come into your car while driving.

It won't be anywhere outside because of the pollution.

Look up Burning Issues and see the chart. Be sure to notice the least harmful item on the list.

Be sure to ignore the fact that the EPA Report was vacated as fraudulent.

Be sure to ignore over 150 studies that show no harm from SHS.

Quite frankly all the Anti's have are Fraudulent Studies and biased opinions.

What you will have, because of the wildfires, is the highest number of cancer cases ever in about 10/15 years from Wood smoke and House fires and smog.

What you do have is a need to control others which you have no right to do.

|8.15.08 @ 5:02AM|#

Although I always believe it is far easier to remove yourself from an environment rather than make everyone else in the environment bend to your will, and although I'm not for the government banning substances, I am in favor of banning smoking outdoors. While I won't die if someone blows smoke in my face, I do have asthma and while the existing air might not be that high of a quality to begin with, my lungs have adjusted to it somewhat... but a sudden gust of cigarette smoke can bring on an asthma attack. The fact that the smoke is outdoors doesn't matter if you're in line behind someone who's smoking.

I recognize that everyone has the right to do as they please, so long as they're not harming others... and I can vouch that it does harm me, regardless of whatever actual statistics about secondhand smoke exist. I may be in the minority, but I think it's something to consider.

|8.15.08 @ 10:15AM|#

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001282/128291eo.pdf

Read it and understand it. Then ask yourself are smokers now an ethnic group? The cure for smokers is smoking bans which seek to eliminate smoking by social ostracisation. Smokers are separated by Theological, Scientific, Social and political definitions.

How do they now, not qualify as an ethnicity. Politically smoking has been claimed as a disease and smokers are receiving forced and mandated treatment, for the symptoms of using a legal product on the shelf.

The amazing thing in all this? the ethnic culture was evolved and defined by Industrial interests and the irrefutable advantages of advertising augmented by the new computer aided efficiencies, of identifying demographics and delivering and testing while constantly fine tuning the very messages they would be most receptive to, in euphemisms to collect their proxies.

We are in urgent need of an equalizing principle to augment the loss of control people are experiencing, taking government out of their control, and into the hands of the well heeled who only serve themselves.

The link above presents some pretty sound observations, which only remain relevant if the people understand they have to protect themselves first, before the interests of the RWJF and it's parent corporation's industrial profits.

If your going to choose sides it would serve us all, if you set aside the promoted hatred and fears of junk science, produced only to serve an industrial need. Chose to be a person in community first and an industry advocate second. You may see the term smoker by it's divisive nature, as offensive to all of us, and see an industrial socialist for the depraved self serving nature they all share.

|8.15.08 @ 10:55AM|#

The power of an insult is only sustained by the level of credibility given to it. Before the obvious reactions to the words Nazi or Fascist try to educate yourself to what the words mean, in a real sense. According to Mussolini a Fascist is an industrial socialist, defining a culture as subservient to the needs of industry at the expense of the individual.

If all you see when hearing the word Fascist is a word thrown around loosely as an insult, you have to look within to understand why your own denial system reacts so impulsively, to defend the indefensible. Why do you as an individual seek to defame anyone who would use the term as opposed to defending your own lifestyle against the very principles which may be controlling your environment to a degree they depreciate your own quality of life.

Do you believe anything other than well established greed drives the prices at the gas pumps. Why are we subservient to OPEC? or a member at all? Why do American drugs cost as much as ten times the price paid in Canada? And why do charity foundations who only sell products of the companies who fund them, afford tax benefits which offset taxable contributions for the highest profit taking organizations on the planet, while the rest of community who can least afford it, do not see a similar equalizing elimination of taxes, defined by scale of economy in a percentage of income, as opposed to the disadvantages and inequality of scale established by raw numbers, which do define the taxes you are expected to pay.

Taxes those companies didn't pay, take more out of our pockets while delivering less every year as a result of corporate welfare and funding to charities they define which serve again corporate domination and seldom give anything of substance back to the people.

There is no more consistent determinant of health than personal economy. Why are the very Health advocates who should understand this, so determined to make your life so much more expensive while defining separations of communities which depreciates our prospects even further?

|8.16.08 @ 11:55PM|#

Kevin wrote: "They started with smoking bans and gun registry, Animal protection, Gay rights along with a number of other current controversies that need victims and protectors. While always over protecting the children who essentially represented the gene pool." I do not see where gay rights and smoking bans can be lumped together as part of some totalitarian nightmare scenario. One seeks to deny rights, the other to encourage them. Gay rights stand for freedom, smoking bans for oppression.

|8.17.08 @ 8:27AM|#

"" I do not see where gay rights and smoking bans can be lumped together as part of some totalitarian nightmare scenario. One seeks to deny rights, the other to encourage them. Gay rights stand for freedom, smoking bans for oppression."

I am sorry if that sounded as though I am heaping the two in the way you suggested, that was not my intent.

The point being made was the protector was an invented perspective. Hitler after he made use of them, sent Gays off to the camps as the progressive nature of his politics demanded.

Berlin was once the hub of moral depravity, a place where you could watch a young child gang raped over drinks and a meal. An international hub for so called sexual freedom, which Hitler first promoted and praised and later "cleaned up" as a protector of the race.

The "nanny state" has an eventual end point in comparing groups of people to other groups, you ultimately have to start comparing their genetic or so called racial differences.

Although we all evolved from a common pool science has always defined us as many races and cultures in public, while according to their own scientific perspectives in research there are only three divisions which are recognized as significant, and all variations are a result of environment.

The link I posted explains the situation as well as I have seen it explained, although the article was written as an off the cuff apology without apologizing or admitting fault. By the very people who should have been hunted down as the real war criminals. Elitists who continued to enjoy their entitled lives in the absence of punishment, absolved by themselves, of any responsibility for their actions.

The protectionist state we see today is exactly the same as the racism promotions of the past, they have just found new victims.

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001282/128291eo.pdf

|8.17.08 @ 9:01AM|#

OK, thnx Kevin, I guess I get it, now that you have put things in context.

|8.23.08 @ 8:25AM|#

Science, as it is being used, to promote smoking bans is a religious dogma or belief system, which does not allow common sense or any variation of perspectives.

They denounce the Tobacco industry as the devil.

Opponents as devils advocates.

They declare death and disease as a reward for your sins.

Tax sins.

They demand the devout apply strict adherence to the prophesies and the prophets, while they declare all other perspectives as the result of denials in the one true belief.

Church doctorate or secular scientific opinions, should be easy to distinguish. By the application of the test; is the knowledge they claim to posses; a measure of belief enhanced by popularity or power among the following, or of verifiable facts they can demonstrate with no margin of error?

The cult following is inspired by theoretic calculations not of known events or absolute measures, but of believed measures, which could vary, however will not be allowed to vary, based in the citation methods of research depositories, in collecting like minded conclusions. Conclusions of limited observational projects and statements, which suit the old boy's Industry network and its continued dominance of the process.

Many among them reveal obvious bias in the statements made, forming their conclusions, which include the wording "science has established" this or that, as an empowering argument, seemingly attempting to be seen as part or subservient to the culture, which will allow only certain statements to be published which meet with predetermined beliefs, equally with few exceptions, in spite of actual observations. [See Enstrom and Kobot]

The truth of the validity in what is being presented to the public as "irrefutable proof"? it has a foundation in very loose terms of precision.

Just as the EPA attempted to loosen the level of accuracy to ten percent to increase the validity of what was being presented. Few could argue if Epidemiology were held to an accuracy of one percent, which in reality considering the ways it is being used, should actually be the true standard, under that one condition very few if any of the second hand smoke theories would survive.

All one has to do is to examine the term "cigarette smoke" and the huge variation of products that could describe and consider how loose the methods of accuracy which are employed, to understand the true nature of the "science", as a belief above any level of knowledge, which to be credible requires a lot more certainty or at least a reasonable level of accuracy.

Small errors in knowledge of initial conditions can result in arbitrarily large deviations from predicted behavior.

How many errors are possible in respect to how cigarette smoke impacts society, just comparing the unknowns to how many known facts are being utilized is cause for concern? The long list of confounders and their impact are immeasurable, so how do you account for them in a statistical model?

It may be acceptable in mechanics to allow a five percent margin of error when designing a motor control however it would be an indictable offense, if building an aircraft on which peoples lives depend.

So in dealing with the realities of cigarette smoke the standards should be as precise as humanly possible and that standard has never been accepted or even considered. In place of that precision we have the "precautionary principle" which is not based in proof but speculation of how bad things could possibly be. Leading us to a future, living in controlled bubbles apparently.

Precision was never a standard demanded, largely because they knew going in; the cult following and its demands for highly precise levels of protection, would never have been satisfied by precise modeling, and what it would find.

To move from a belief of association to a determined cause, is highly deceptive and a proof of a cult, with no credibility or self respect.

The determinist creation of smoking bans and global warming should be legitimately perceived as proof of how defenseless the scientific community actually are, in the face of politics and greed.

If we could predict the movement of every atom in the universe, we could see the future and solve every mechanical and biological problem you could imagine. Since we appear to be about a Billion years away from that knowledge, why are we following a path of enthused dogma, which is certain to take us 10 or 100 billion years away from that knowledge?

What we do know of biology and science at this moment, is sustained not by creation of knowledge, but more significantly in what was found by accident.

The false piety of the smoking ban culture can be illuminated with the questions. Do you consider Steven Hawkins severely disabled or as highly gifted? Is he a benefit or a burden to society as a whole?

Had the eugenics movement been allowed to continue their dominance in society, the case would have been closed and he either would have been aborted or killed shortly after his birth.

Had he not been allowed access to the knowledge of the world and a means to convey what he had learned, he would likely be living out a miserable existence in a care facility and known only as a burden to the rest of us.

What in a similar supposition would be the result of a person evolving as a savant due to the chemicals found in cigarette smoke? Would we reject them as heretics and abominations or would there be a rush to the tobacco shops in hopes of finding similar advantages?

Smoking bans are dependent on re invention of old eugenics principles. Encouraging the worst in the human condition; inspiring hatred while comparing one group of people to another and declaring superiority.

That can never stand as dominant or credible if any of us have even an ounce of self respect.