We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Days of our lives Tomorrow is national No Smoking Day. Whoopeeeeeeee!!!!
I shall mark the occasion by puffing my way through at least one pack of my favourite Belgian cigarettes (not contributing to the cavernous coffers of HM Treasury makes the experience so much more enjoyable) while blowing great, billowing clouds of grey, acrid, carcinogenic fumes into the air.
I shall consider quitting if and when we ever have a national No Nagging, Preaching, Hectoring, Finger-Wagging, Pecksniffing, Condescending, Nannying Or Sanctimonious Sermonising Just Bugger Off And Mind Your Own Fucking Business Day.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
I shall consider quitting if and when we ever have a national No Nagging, Preaching, Hectoring, Finger-Wagging, Pecksniffing, Condescending, Nannying Or Sanctimonious Sermonising Just Bugger Off And Mind Your Own Fucking Business Day.
LOL. Well said!
I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow when I light up my first cigarette of the day, oh, about 30 seconds after I wake up and before I even put the kettle on for my first cup of tea of the day…
I haven’t smoked for eight years but I am tempted to also have one because I am hacked of with people telling me what is good for me and what is not.
I’ve just received a threatening letter from Lambeth Borough Council. Apparently (from a date they choose not to disclose) I am obliged to forbid all staff and visitors to my office to smoke. (Though it is already a non-smoking building, on the insistence of the landlords, whom I suspect may have adopted the policy on being threatened by the fire brigade, from internal evidence in the language of the notices.) Permitting them to smoke.
Though everyone in comercial premises and vehicles in the country (from some date to be announced) will be forbidden to smoke, and might be expected therefore to be aware of that fact (painfully aware, if an addicted smoker), Lambeth Council wishes me to know it will be a criminal offence not to display a no-smoking sign at the entrance to our office.
I almost wish I smoked. Cigars, preferably.
Smoking is really no joking matter.
It kills. But, before it kills, it degrades your body’s integrity.
An example:
A healthy lung looks like an expensive, fine sponge, slightly damp, a light gray with pink overtones. With emphysema from smoking, the lung looks like a piece of swiss cheese, and it’s dark black. And, it feels like an old, damp rag or an old, ratty sponge lying at the bottom of the sink.
Think of that image next time you see a beautiful woman smoking. Very sad.
Nothing marks a person as being out of touch with reality more than smoking.
As in … my body if I smoke… not yours. So now please MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS. Is that really so hard to comprehend?
It seems like we have a member of the medical profession in our midst to wag a finger at us. Hi Joel!
Smoking DOES kill, and it takes a long time. My own mother died from lung cancer, so smoking is bad. So is the government telling you what to do. I wonder if anyone could conduct a test to see if more people are killed because of Government interference than smoking? I remember an article by Mark Steyn a while back about the affect that speed signs had on traffic in, I think, Holland. They upgraded a highway, but didn’t put in signs, and people naturally travelled safer when not being hectored by the state (OR when not having to read signs whilst driving!).
Agreed, with one condition, you *only* smoke on your private property or private property in which you have been given permission, not in public. Smoking in public does have an effect on MY body and thus seriously pisses me off. Pubs are (to me at least) a grey area, on the one hand they are private and thus have a right to dictate policy, but it doesnt mean I have to like it.
I have little respect for smokers, but even less for the nanny state. Now im off to get on a plane while I can still afford to.
I haven’t had a smoke in weeks and I’m DYING!
Just a little, a teensy little drag, it’s all I ask for!
I basically quit cause the State of Texas hiked the cig tax and now it costs five bucks a pop. Not that I ever really smoked that much to begin with, but the nickles and dimes do add up and I don’t really make that much money to begin with. It was as good a reason to quit as any.
However, if anyone would be so kind I am quite willing to take donations.
Smoking may indeed kill – and?
Smoking, like much else, is not really the legitimate business of the government.
It is clear Nu-Lab would like nothing better than to have complete control over all our lives. Just because they would like to does not make it legitimate.
Even if they make it (yet another) law it still does not make it legitimate.
I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I enjoy the occasional cigar after dinner, especially on National No Smoking Day. I shall make sure today maintains that tradition. The only thing that makes me hesitate, is the thought of all the tax I shall be paying now that I’ve run out of the stock a friend brought me from his holiday.
Unless I am a serf belonging to Joel I cannot see what my health could possible have to do with him, and I’m fairly sure someone would have said something if I was indeed a serf.
How about if it were “no smoking around other people day”…..
Otherwise known as “be free to kill yourself, but have some respect for others day”
No problems, right ?
Personally I find BAT’s succouring of the Burmese regime more of a disinsentive to smoke than any nanny state hectoring
Perry, it is indeed your body and I’m not a fan of a government telling me off, either. But to what extent are you really exercising free choice when you’re addicted?
Take a hypothetical. A well-known fizzy drink retailer secretes into their product a – harmful – substance that is addictive and which makes us thirstier, sooner.
Would it be ok for the goverment to intervene or would you asssert that it was a question only of freedom and individual liberty?
I’m going to quit tomorrow. Not because the gov’t says so but because I’m beginning to feel the effects that smoke inhalation is having on my general fitness. Having to run around after a toddler, I owe it to him to be as fit as possible (without going overboard of course, I won’t be joining a gym). I carried him the half mile to my sister’s house yesterday and actually felt physically sick and exhausted when I got there. I don’t want to feel like that any more. I’d also like to have more money and pay less tax.
To all those telling joel to shut up, hear hear. We have all had it drummed into us from a young age that smoking is bad for us, we know. Telling us over and over again doesn’t make your point any more valid. We are all adults and as such should be free to decide what we do with our own bodies, whether its bad for us or not.
Anyone having an expensive cigar tomorrow, have a good long pull for me.
It is totally a matter of free will. Is kicking an addiction hard? Hell yes (seen that up close). Is it possible? Hell yes (seen that up close too).
The only issue is “am I being poisoned under false pretences?” If the answer is yes, then an assault has occurred. If it is labelled with the the ingredients, then no problem, ditto if the effects are simply common knowlage.
There is an implied contract when you go into a restaurant that the restaurant will not serve you food that is likely to kill you in a direct manner (rotten food for example). However a craving can come from damn near anything so unless we are talking a narcotic added to a food WITHOUT TELLING YOU then I see no problem. Alcohol is both a poison and addictive but we all know it is in wine and beer, so who cares? You know what you are getting and if you end up an alcoholic or die of liver disease, that is your problem and your fault. Ditto cigarettes: in this day and age no one can reasonably claim they do not know cigs are addictive and bad for you so if you smoke them, the consequences are entirely yours. There is no role for the state here.
It is a matter of freedom and liberty for the reasons stated.
I suppose this is where my libertarian instincts waver.
My wife, being French, smokes, although even she is quitting when the pub ban comes into effect (so she says). So thanks to government nannying, my chances of not seeing her die an extremely unpleasant premature death are somewhat higher. My uncle died just last week from a lifetime of enthusiastic Gauloise-puffing. He couldn’t remove his oxygen mask long enough to even eat for the last six months of his life.
So while I’ll be puffing one of her rollups this evening through sheer Gallic bloody-mindedness, I think that pub bans and taxation are, on balance, worth the loss of liberty. Sorry.
Then by that logic, presumably you do not think people should be able to do any life endangering thing with their own bodies that they enjoy? What gives you the god damn right to tell me what I can do with my body?
manuel, pubs and restaurants, which are privately run enterprises, are private spaces, to which people enter and work of their own free will. The public may use them but they are not “public” in the sense that a government has the right to legislate on how the owners of those places run them. If I go to my local Italian and it allows me to smoke a cigar after dinner, how exactly is that something that the state has any right to ban? If, on the other hand, I am in a public space paid for by my fellow taxpayer, such as a nationalised railway station, then of course the government can decide what to do.
The whole issue comes down to property rights and how these are bundled and negotiated. I am the owner of my body, and so I can decide what substances to ingest or inhale into it. If I own a boozer or a restaurant, the same applies to the rules of the house.
This is why property is so elemental to the libertarian theory of how humans could and should interact. The smoking issue demonstrates this well.
Love it! Absolutely LOVE IT! I don’t smoke or drink (figgered-out in my teens they were stupid – about the only thing from that wretched era I was right about (met the Missus in my ‘twenties)), but if I did I’d light-up and raise a glass to you. Well Said, Sir!
But…
I keep wanting to come back here and join in the debate again, but something interferes…
and…
Perry, your personal nemesis is likely going to be not smoking but high blood pressure, and soon. Take a pill, okay? Please? Are you actually still trying to persuade others to your point of view? If so, Confucius say:
Jim+
Well, there’s the issue of a kid choosing to smoke and becoming addicted before an age we would normally accept people become responsible, for a start.
And additionally, whilst you may know the consequences and addictiveness, you might well not understand – and by the time you do, or when you wish to quit the habit, the addiction might make it very difficult to exercise you new, freely made, choice. By the time I’m addicted, I’m not entirely free, or as free as I was, subsequently to make any other choice.
The addictive quality reduces freedom of choice, doesn’t it?
Somewhere along a continuum from death through unconsciousness and addiction to conscious mindful uptight sobriety there must be a point where you’d allow state interference, surely?
I don’t smoke, but frankly have considered taking it up to annoy the nanny state. Instead I went and bought a 4×4 and it’s great!
Buy a proper motorcycle – much more fun! Much better than a cigar too!
That is what parents are for. That is also what social pressure is for.
That is a code word for ‘not agreeing with you’ actually (and I am not trying to be insulting). I do not think you ‘understand’ the implications of what you are suggesting in terms of denying people self-ownership, but I am under no illusions that this does mean anything other than ‘you do not agree with me’. The difference is you want you view imposed by force and I do not want mine (or yours) imposed by force.
That is actually a fallacy. Just because a choice becomes more difficult, that does not mean you do not have a choice. We all have to make difficult decisions in life, some forced on us by circumstance and some by our own actions.
guy,
Had a similar experience here. Manchester council took it upon itself to send my wife a letter advising her on how to make her business “smoke free”. She’s a freelance translator and sole-trader. No customers ever visit because the entire business is online. She often has a smoke while she’s working and she often works in a dressing-gown. Now explain this one to me: how can the City of Manchester justify the expense to me of sending a letter out to my wife to tell her to make her place of work (which is also her home) a smoke-free environment? This is bonkers. It isn’t about the nanny-state or anything other than a gross misuse of public funds.
No there isn’t. This is a harsh response, but it is not the job of the state to prevent people killing themselves. Nothing wrong in trying to prevent that by persuasion, however.
As for young children, the argument is a bit different, but as is so often the case, protecting the kids all too often becomes an excuse to regulate the lives of adults.
David Jones:
I started smoking when I was fifteen. I quit when I was thirty.
Starting was, in retrospect, a stupid, stupid choice. I mean, it was arguably the most insane thing I’ve ever done.
That being said, it was MY dumbass mistake. It’s not the job of the state to fix it. It MAY be the state’s role to protect children, but fifteen is the awkward period where people aren’t really adults but not really children either. In any case, I see it more as a matter of parenting than governing.
And they’re MY lungs. Not Governor Ritter’s. Not the local health inspector’s. MINE. How well they work are a matter for me, my doctor, and my employer. Not the professional scolds. My stupid moves, smart moves, good decisions, and fuckups are mine.
Oh, and Perry? Take a deep breath. Going into an NHS hospital emergency department with chest pains…nothing good can come of it. The Big Mommy people aren’t worth it.
Sunfish-
As far as I understand a libertarian’s position, it’s claimed to be the case that nobody knows better than an individual what is good for that individual. I only think I understand that because it is such an obviously false claim I’m wondering if I’ve missed something.
Let’s agree upon the right of some agency to intervene in the case of kids. Perry and you both seem ok with that. Perry accepts that parents may intervene though he doesn’t say what should happen if the parents are feckless rubbish. You accept that up to some age it’s ok.
Why? Because children in some sense aren’t fully responsible for their actions or fully capable of understanding the consequences of their actions. But why is that consideration age dependent? If you allow intervention – and in some necessary cases, state intervention, too, Perry – then you’ve accepted the principle and are quibbling about the details.
Hey Mike!
But that? A proper motorcycle?
A mate of mine gave me the keys to his a few weeks ago and insisted I take it for a spin.
Speaking as someone who used to be a Despatch Rider in the 80s, but only did CBT in 2002, it was a brave and totally illegal move on the part of my friend.
The bike was a Honda Fireblade 900 with a few tweaks(well a lot of tweaks) which pushed it over 190 mph.
I took it for a spin.
There’s a picture on my site in last month’s archive.
Sadly my mate hit a patch of diesel on the Elland Road link, and the bike was totally destroyed.
Oh, and he broke his arm.
And as for these people actually attempting to argue against statements of personal preference, they must imagine that we, like them, were born yesterday.
They are like computers with a corrupted boot segment that prevents them from recording any long term archiving, and their dissatisfaction is such that they try(seriously) to argue for their own fascist imposition.
In other words-“Do as I say, and admit that I’m right too!”
Re- DAVID JONES-
‘Libertarian’ means different things to different people. The three major brands are ‘Minarchists’ and ‘Anarcho-Capitalists’ and ‘anarchists’. Minarchy wants to reduce the scope of the state, but not do away with the state, whilst anarcho-capitalism wants to do away with the state, and let everything be for sale. anarchists want to end the state, and have everything up for vote, and we’d all live communally.
As for intervention, both minarchists and anarchists would have some age of adulthood, and below that you could be taken care of by society in some way. An Anarcho-capitalist would leave it to the (extended?) family of the person to look after pre-adult individuals.
I think that’s a fair summary, using broad brush-strokes. Have I missed any major sects out?
I don’t know who “a libertarian” is, so I can’t speak for him. My position is that how I conduct my life is none of your concern. Is that a false claim?
What if the parents are feckless rubbish? What if my aunt had testicles, would she then be my uncle?
I note that you seem to be conflating “some agency,” “parents,” and the state. If you truely can’t draw a distinction, then you have a far greater problem than merely the inexcusable nosiness you’ve demonstrated thus far.
Adults are responsible for their actions. That’s in the definition of ‘adult.’ Unless a neonate is similarly responsible as soon as mom squeezes him out, then the distinction needs to be drawn somewhere. The alternative is that either everybody is an adult, period, or nobody is, period. There’s nothing magical about some number of revolutions about a large naturally-occurring nuclear reactor. Society just needed a way of drawing a distinction, and age was no worse than some other options I could imagine.
Perhaps someone noticed that the ability to make a decision and exercise judgement correlated at least a little bit with age?
I’m a little confused as to the dog that you have in this fight. Did someone hold you down and force a fistful of Copenhagen into your lip? Or will you not be addicted after all, if you convince yourself that someone else made you do it?
P.S., today is now the 16th, so what happened to you on No Smoking Day (The 14th)? The public has a right to know!
Sunfish –
How you counduct your life may be of some concern to me in some circumstances so as it stands yours is a false claim, yes. But it’s beside the point.
I’m not conflating agencies, I’m rather wondering, if you allow parents to intervene in a child’s choices, what is your recourse when the parents themselves are irresponsible and/or make poor and damaging choices for the child. You seem to accept intervention constrained by an arbitrarily drawn limit of familial relationship. I think, on the other hand, another agency might properly step in and sometimes that agency has to be the State. That’s my imperfect solution. What’s yours?
Thinking about the reason you and I would allow intervention in a child’s choices: it isn’t age per se, is it? It’s that responsibility and understanding are approximately correlated with age, as you correctly point out. But you’re incorrect about the definiton of ‘adult’, as a matter of fact. And as a matter of fact there are degrees of understanding and levels of responsibility, as you seem to go on to accept.
As for myself, I started smoking when I was 17 and gave up, very easily, when I was about 32 through the simple expedient of not buying fags. I’ve since contemplated writing a self-help manual: Quit Smoking: It’s a piece of piss.
Personally speaking, I’m really pleased that the government is banning smoking, because that will mean that I’m going to live forever.
What? You mean it doesn’t? You mean, whatever I do, whatever regulations I obey, and whatever the government-funded global warming scientists say about abstinence, one day I’m still going to die? (And probably from a nasty MRSA infestation in a filthy NHS hospital, where all my skin falls off because none of the bastards will sack any nurses who don’t wash their hands between treatments.)
Well, if I AM going to die one day, in my rat-infested NHS wonderland, whatever the strictures of the Guardian-Reading class, I may as well enjoy myself and go out in style.
So could you please make mine a ‘Romeo y Julieta Reserva Real’ cigar please, before they make them illegal and put all those other taxes up to make up the duty shortfall and pay for the extra pensions of all those longer-living non-smoking state-employed parasites? No; better make that a box of fifty.
And while you’re there, could you get me a few bottles of Blackbush Irish whiskey, too? Well, it is nearly St. Patrick’s day! 😉
Thank you, Sir Thaddeus, for putting me straight.
You being a pokenose with reference to what other people do or don’t smoke, is exactly the point. And I’m just a little curious to how much of my life is your business. Do you disapprove of my sidearm in my sock drawer? Should I have hung a rifle over the bedpost instead? Should I have bought a bed that has bedposts? Do I need your approval to have a third beer? Are you disappointed that I bought a Toyota rather than a Hyundai?
What do you mean, ‘allow’ a parent to intervene? Are you suggesting that parents should be prevented from doing so? And if the parents don’t get to intervene, does anyone? And what delusional crap are you experiencing that makes you able to decide when a total stranger is being an you disappointed that I bought a Toyota rather than a Hyundai?
What do you mean, ‘allow’ a parent to intervene? Are you suggesting that parents should be prevented from doing so? And if the parents don’t get to intervene, does anyone? Who? And what makes you able to decide who is or isn’t a responsible parent?
Pietr – sorry to hear about your mate (and his bike getting mashed). But if you drive a crotch-rocket there’s always a chance of that happening! Actually some people over here (Taiwan) actually drive big cruisers as if they are crotch-rockets… crazy. I remember a Canadian chap telling me how he once took a corner at 80 (so 50mph) only to realise at the last moment the road was covered in sand that had fallen off the back of a truck or something – you can imagine what happened! Big touring cruiser slid right out from underneath him and trapped the poor bugger on the ground skidding along the tarmac for 30 odd feet or so!!
Driving a bike is great, but out here the roads are so poorly put together that you generally have to get to know all their potholes and kinks before you can try anything to blow air up your skirt. But as today is St Patrick’s, I shall be doing nothing of the sort…
“I basically quit cause the State of Texas hiked the cig tax and now it costs five bucks a pop.”
Robert – you know that Nevada and most of the other surrounding states don’t have such a high tax. You could always get together with some buddies and drive over there to buy in bulk. Or order them from the Interweb. If I was living in Texas, I’d be smuggling cigarettes over the state line and selling them for a tidy profit.
Not that I think you should smoke – it’s a filthy habit. But I don’t think the government should prevent you if you want to.
For Guy Herbert and anyone who may be interested there is an almost but not quite politically correct “no smoking” poster here http://www.icanhelpit.co.uk/blog/
Good morning. What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?
I am from Chile and learning to speak English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “This is to protect the part land from consisting out or shifting native to work and to preserve keratin from business to monasteries and dialog – June 21, 2008, 5:52 AM Nintendo cleaning super mario bros.”
Thanks for the help :P, Merle.