All freedom-loving Americans should take a real interest in the reasons behind the ubiquitous smoking bans all around us, because the primary rationale behind these bans (tobacco smoke is one of approximately 65 known carcinogens) is an open invitation to a greater and greater micromanaging of our lives by an already activist and increasingly incompetent and out-of-control government.
Today the National Institute of Health’s Report on Carcinogens (RoC) lists 246 entries, 58 of which are listed as known to be human carcinogens, with the remaining 188 being listed as reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens. SEE: http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/go/19914
And view the current list at: http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/eleventh/known.pdf
So according to the NIH, there are about 60 "Known Human Carcinogens" and yes, tobacco smoke is one of them.
As are, as you well might expect, asbestos, benzene (a major ingredient in gasoline), Radon, Dioxins, various steroidal estrogens and human papillomas viruses.
However, you might NOT expect to find alcoholic beverage consumption, wood dust, X-Ray radiation, sun lamps/tanning beds and solar radiation or sunlight on that SAME list...and yet, there they ARE!
Can anyone NOT imagine the incredible amount of mischief an activist government could do by “regulating”/limiting access to alcoholic beverage consumption, wood dust, X-Rays, tanning beds and...sunlight?!
The door to doing just that is certainly wide open, in the wake of our government’s justifying its smoking bans based primarily, if not solely on the fact that tobacco smoke is on that very same list of “known human carcinogens” as are alcoholic beverage consumption, wood dust, tanning beds and, yes, sunlight!
Today all our government needs do is to merely step through that already open door.
Today all our government needs do is to merely step through that already open door.
So, what of the very real prospect of our own government actually limiting access to things like wood dust, X-Rays, alcoholic beverages, tanning beds....and sunlight?
Well, they are ALL on that VERY SAME list of “Known Human Carcinogens” as tobacco smoke is, so there is technically NOTHING stopping them from doing precisely that.
To paraphrase a famous admonition, “First they came for the cigarettes, but I didn’t care because I didn’t smoke...then they came for wood dust and I didn’t care because I wasn’t a carpenter, then they came for the alcoholic beverages, and I didn’t care because I rarely drank such beverages...and finally they came for the sunlight....and the world went dark.”
4 comments:
With normal folk, such a notion is ludicrous; if they socialize hellthscare, and with the nannyist inclinations (coupled with the appetite for control), a ban on access to sunlight is not beyond this current pack of liberal control freaks.
The issue really is CONTROL.
Unfortunately, one human seeking power/control over others is a psychological disorder in virtually ALL cases. It is, in fact, a pathology.
But that is what motivates the "control-freak Left."
They revile the messiness and chaos that is the free-for-all of the open market and free people interacting as they please.
Once government pays for ALL healthcare (with OUR money....not any of government's) then they'll find rationales for micromanaging virtually EVERY facet of an individual's life - what you eat, how much exercise you're required to do....and yes, due to the risk of melanoma, how much sunlight you can be exposed to.
This is a "fight to the death" between this country's real producers (who've been, up til lately too busy working/producing and caring for families to engage in petty politics) and those pseudo-elites - these incompetents who are unfit to control anything.
The PRODUCERS must win this one, their lives and the very future of the human race depends on that.
Such a great post WCC. The sad part is that a majority of Americans believe that all of this is in their best interest. Ban this, ban that, ... oops, now we don't have any personal liberty or freedoms.
"The sad part is that a majority of Americans believe that all of this is in their best interest." (AM)
Yes, that's true, at least to a large extent, although we're so bombarded with so much misinformation.
Like the current attack on high fructose corn syrup, turns out that, "Gram for gram, table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are equal in calories," says Tanya Zuckerbrot, RD, a New York City-based nutritionist. They are also equally sweet. And both consist of two simple sugars — fructose and glucose — in roughly the same proportions (though the two sugars are merely blended together in HFCS, versus chemically bonded in sugar). Your body breaks down both products in virtually the same way, says Michael F. Jacobson, PhD, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He adds, "There's no evidence that high fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar once it's in your body."
That is not to say that a diet high in either refined sugar or HFCS is healthy, it's NOT, it's merely that one is not necessarily worse than the other from a health standpoint.
Much of that misinformation is put out by paid political hacks ("staff members") of various politicians for the express purpose of ginning up support for more government intrusions and more power for their bosses and their ilk. Some of the rest is put out by competing industries trying to undermine other industries...for instance the sugar lobby has strongly supported the attacks on HFCS.
Ultimately, it is up to each of us, as free people, to educate ourselves and eat as healthily as we can.
I've never smoked and everything I've read on "second-hand smoke" is inconclusive, at best.
Now, I don't recommend smoking, but I wouldn't ban it either.
It is up to the individual to protect himself in a free (caveat emptor/let the buyer beware) society.
The only alternative is some form of "health fascism," which is akin to "environmental fascism."
The truly sadly amusing thing is that so many of those who support an ever more intrusive government tend to call those who oppose such fascist sensibilities "fascists."
Shows you how delusional (and dim witted) such people are.
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