Lisa,

In response to your statement “What I don't get is why ‘the People’ are allowing this,” read the below comment by Paul on the USA Today article in context of tobacco control public policy.

“Smokers care about nothing but their stupid smoke which comes first before anything in this world. Get a life smokers you don't belong in this world you belong up north where it is very cold and not inside either outside. I might be saying hate speech yes I am because smokers don't deserve good and friendly speeches at all they deserve what is coming to them.”

Now read tobacco control written policy, published April 1993 in American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (Project ASSIST) in handbooks for then 17 participating states, such as Washington’s “Planning for a Tobacco Free Washington,” Page 22 (see attached):

Strategy: “. . . the most effective way to reduce smoking rates is to decrease public tolerance of tobacco use.”

Policy: “Changing public acceptance of tobacco use will require policy change, a critical ingredient of societal change.”

Media: “Social change requires that people receive persistent and consistent messages from sources they trust. To this end ASSIST resources will be use to generate a variety of media messages that will foster and strengthen public support for proposed policy changes.”

The answer to your question is quite simply because those who post such comments are responding to a decade and a half of “persistent and consistent” media messages that negatively label and unfavorably stereotype “Target” citizens who lawfully consume legal tobacco products. In short, they simply illustrate what is most fundamentally wrong about tobacco control: it is deliberately crafted to inspire and bring to the fore the worst in all of us for special-interest mercantile advantage.

Folks such as Paul who believe “Targets” get what they deserve merely illustrate the remarkable effectiveness of organized, systematic propaganda to inspire hate and intolerance.  Please note that .PDF also contains an excerpt from Washington’s ASSIST action plan to implement smoking bans that dates back to 1993. Members of the Colorado Equal Rights Coalition are experiencing the devastating effects of that nationwide

Those who post such comments about how “Target” citizens “deserve what is coming to them” are blithely ignorant of the fact that when they gleefully vote for new cigarette taxes on smokers they are in fact voting for their own tax increase, as I wrote about in my November 2006 article about California’s recent Proposition 86 published by the Los Angeles Daily Journal (see attached).

The comment by Dave in the UK is also revealing:

“I am a firm believer that government should not dictate, how people behave in their own homes. Except in this case.”

“Except in this case” thinking is always the cultural killer. By definition, “except” distinguishes one group from another. Commenters such as Dave in UK do not grasp the fundamental truth that for special-interest agendas that garner influence and wealth by taking from others there are no exceptions. Once one lets the intolerance genie out of the bottle it cannot be controlled. The except for the smokers goose applied equally to the obese gander, to the thinking of intolerance-mongers-for-bucks. Case in point, see the Washington Post, November 14, 2006, “Smokers, Obese Should Pay More Health Insurance: Poll,” by Kim Dixon:

“CHICAGO (Reuters) - Most Americans believe smokers and obese people should pay more for health insurance . . . Sixty percent of those polled favored higher premiums for smokers while 30 percent felt the obese should pay more. ‘When it comes to personal responsibility, consumers increasingly support making people pay more for unhealthy behavior,’ said the report in the journal Health Affairs. . . . The rate of uninsured, now nearly 16 percent of Americans, has been climbing for years, driven by consumer demand and escalating prices for prescription drugs and hospital care. About 20 percent of large employers are already giving discounts to workers who do not smoke, according to Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, which lobbies for corporations on health issues. ‘The non-smoker's discount is growing in popularity and I think it is going to grow faster,’ she said. As to obesity, ‘I think it will be a while before we get to the point where people begin tying a financial discount to something like BMI (body mass index),’ she said.” (Underline added.)

Does Dave in UK believe the same exception applies to the War on Fat as he clearly believes it does to the War on Tobacco? Whether he does believe that is not relevant: Agenda-Afflicted, Anti-Mentality activists do believe in exceptions for everyone other than themselves, that is the only way they can achieve what they are after. The War on Fat and the War on Tobacco are both foundationed on a simple premise: using orchestrated intolerance as a pretense to justify taking from others is acceptable behavior. That premise boldly proclaims “If I have a socially acceptable excuse to hate you then I can do anything to you to make a buck that want.”

Indeed, both Paul and Dave are not even creative in their thinking. They merely parrot the “all for me and none for thee” mentality that propaganda such as Project ASSIST has inspired. Once one crosses the line to embrace the false, self-serving belief it spreads to all other areas of life and business. For example, see the following excerpt from my commentary about health insurance that will soon be posted to Forces.org”

“From the Seattle Times, December 3, 2006, “The Party’s Over at Kirkland Mortgage Company,” by Elizabeth Rhodes:

“Former Washington Huskies football player Scott Greenlaw led the mortgage company he founded to dizzying heights — 400 employees, a sprawling new headquarters and kegs of beer at staff meetings. Now he's selling his house to avoid bankruptcy as creditors line up with lawsuits. . . . But vowing to put the past behind them has turned out to be not so easy. The sudden demise in May of one of Washington's largest mortgage brokerages has left a trail of angry ex-employees, expensive lawsuits, unpaid taxes and government investigations. . . . ‘It was highly promoted that you overcharged the customer because they're subprime and they deserve it,’ Saulness said.” (Underline added.)

There is a not-so-fine line between overcharging customers for mortgages “because they deserve it” and artificially inflating the cost of some cafeteria foods or health insurance premiums for those deemed to be “unworthy” of discounts. That line is, in fact, nonexistent because in all cases the artificially inflated price is based on a value-judgment about the worthiness of a “Target” person to support a policy that increases income or reduces expenses. Applying this self-serving thought process leads to refusing to hire persons who smoke, employers restricting off-work lifestyle choices such as riding motorcycles or skydiving, not-so-tacit hiring and promotion discrimination of the obese, and justifying alleged savings for preferred employees at the expense of those deemed to be less desirable. But those policies always return to the core issue: putting money in one’s pocket based on a personal-preference value judgment of others. Beyond outdated and stale, as will be shown below such policies challenge state fiscal responsibility and are dangerous to the stability of our health care system.”

But the good news is that this, too, shall pass. See, for example the comments of a nonsmoker, Joe, about the USA Today piece:

“I do not smoke but the ridiculous lengths that these idiots are going to to prevent smoking is really beyond the pale. It makes a person wonder, what's next to ban "for our own good" of course. Well click you heals together, face Washington and yell Sieg Heil!”

Consider also, what Ruby said:

“What a upside down country we live in. Socialism at work. Those that support these laws are eventually going to find their own freedoms eroding and we will be long past being able to turn any of this around.”

The fact is many people are beginning to get it. The debate about self-serving programs that are promoted by the Agenda-Afflicted is increasingly engaged! But of equal or greater importance, intolerance mongers add nothing of value, their hate is no substitute for constructive public policy, and they are incapable of truly earning market share or income through honest competition in a free market. The species inevitably ravages the open market to such an extent that nothing is left. Having consumed all that is of worth and value the species becomes self-extinguishing because it knows no other way to feed. 

The only matter left open to question is how far down the economic and cultural scale the Agenda-Afflicted will be allowed to take us before they die out. Normal people can begin to take us back into the benefits of honest competition with a simple thought as expressed in “Neighbors” attached.

The foregoing is just one example of why your fight against the Colorado ban is vitally important: you are forcing the Agenda-Afflicted to confront the consequence of their dysfunctional behavior. In addition, the more resources they must expend to address legitimate objection to their self-serving agenda the less they have available to continue polluting our cultural and business environments. Finally, your fight is important because important points about Junk Science and constitutional rights that you raise increase the understanding of other citizens and business owners about these important issues.

Finally, you may find one of my first postings for Forces, “Skimmus Activus Lootis” to be good for a chuckle or two. My brother did the illustration. It was true at the time it was first published. In light of what we now know about genetics and DNA compare dot 1997 the USA Today article and its related comments prove to be even more true today.

Be Well, and Best Always,

Norm Kjono