SF bans outdoor smoking.

[Redwolf]

As a smoker I go cheerfully outside any time I want to smoke. I carry along a butt-bag so I do not litter. These rules are not going to improve my health because I am going to be going around pissed off and that will make me smoke more. I cannot understand not permitting smoking in wide open areas where one can distance onself from those who are disturbed by smoke.

Our hospital now no longer allows smoking in the parking lot, even inside one's own car. HA!!! Come and arrest me. I have cooperated fully with reasonable requests, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

I'm with you on this, Cynth. While I stopped smoking two years ago today, I think the government's meddling has gone way too far.

Paul, tobacco doesn't damage the soil, anymore than any other plant does. But tobacco DOES grow well on marginal land and yield a good dollar amount per acre, which is why it's so widely grown in places such as North Carolina, where the soil is (and always has been) extremely poor and most farmers are small family farmers with only a small acreage. There's little else they can grow in sufficient quantities to support their families. When the small farms go out of business, they're snapped up by the big agribusinesses, which build intensive hog and poultry operations on them...environmental disasters.

Try coaxing even a small garden out of NC's red clay soil, and you can see the problem facing the tobacco farmer who has to feed a family from his few acres.

There are two very good options for tobacco farmers, none of which the government will allow them to explore because they are against the official "anti-drug/anti-tobacco" religion. One is the many medical uses for tobacco. The other is the cultivation of hemp, which does well on the same kind of land that supports tobacco growth, and which has almost the same economic potential.

Redwolf

[dubhlinn]

Take the taxes out of Tobacco sales and you have a bankrurpt country..
What is lost on Healthcare is nothing compared to what is gained on tax.

It ain't pretty, but it is true.

Slan,
D.

[The Weekenders]

Gilder, thanks for that post. Very provocative info. As you doubtless know, Hitler was a vegetarian, an enviromentalist, supported euthanasia and gun control. The latter was justified to control "extreme right wing elements" according to propaganda of the day.

People get upset if one attempts to draw parallels to today, but I will say that it's not certain where totalitarianism comes from on the polemic scale.

[jGilder]

• IN THE BEGINNING . . .
  Huron Indian myth has it that in ancient times, when the land was barren and the people were starving, the Great Spirit sent forth a woman to save humanity. As she traveled over the world, everywhere her right hand touched the soil, there grew potatoes. And everywhere her left hand touched the soil, there grew corn. And when the world was rich and fertile, she sat down and rested. When she arose, there grew tobacco . . .

The first tobacco butt.

~~~

I wonder if tobacco was a well placed booby-trap by the Native Americans. Did they know it would eventually consume the White European invaders in so many ways?

• 

Native Americans harvest tobacco -- This drawing shows Native Americans working as slaves on a tobacco plantation run by Europeans. Disease and the hardships of slave labor soon killed most of the Native Americans working on the tobacco farms. African slaves were soon brought to the New World to replace them.

[missy]

due to allergies, etc - I have never tried smoking. I also have a very low tolerance to tobacco smoke - being around it in enclosed spaces will at the least, give me a headache, at the most, full blown asthma.

Tom, however, is a smoker. He does so ONLY outside, even when we are at other places, such as a restaurant, where it is ok to do so inside. He also is a "good" smoker, in that he throws away his filters in the garbage, etc., and his clothes or hair rarely smells of smoke. He makes it through the night without smoking, and I've seen him make it 7 hours (long flight) without doing so. He chooses not to try stopping at this time, and that's his choice (he is also in great health).

I do appreciate private establishments CHOOSING to be smoke free. I do not appreciate the government telling them they must be so. For years, our break area at work was a smoking area, so I chose not to go in it. Didn't bother me one way or the other. I can choose to not go to a restaurant that allows smoking.
I also know some tobacco farmers that would never be able to raise a different crop and make it financially. Tobacco is still Kentucky's largest "legal" cash crop.

As for health costs - I'm not sure that smoking doesn't actually free UP some money. While cancer, etc. does claim lives expensively, it tends to do so earlier than if the person hadn't smoked. So you need to look at the true "costs" of how much a person would have used over the additional years they would have lived if they had not smoked.

Again - it's a choice, one I may choose not to make, but one I don't feel the government has a right to do, either.
But I also think marijuana should be legal - so what do I know???

[The Weekenders]

I mentioned in another thread a book I read, about two years ago, that was an exhaustive study of tobacco and its impact on the world. Its basically the foundation of the rise of corporatism, plantation slavery, unwise land use and so much more. White people certainly did go nuts with it when they got their hands on it, so one could fancifully consider it payback for continental theft and more.

[herbivore12]

Gilder, thanks for that post. Very provocative info. As you doubtless know, Hitler was a vegetarian, an enviromentalist, supported euthanasia and gun control. The latter was justified to control "extreme right wing elements" according to propaganda of the day.

People get upset if one attempts to draw parallels to today, but I will say that it's not certain where totalitarianism comes from on the polemic scale.

Well, not quite on the Hitler/vegetarian thing: he was put on a vegetarian diet by doctors to try to cure problems with flatulence (obviously it just changed the orifice from which his noxious gases emerged) and some kind of stomach disorder, but his own chef reported that his favorite, and most requested, dish while Fuhrer was stuffed squab. So unless pigeon is a vegetable, there's a problem there. And numerous reports have him eating all kinds of meat at state dinners up to his suicide. A small point, but one tires of seeing Hitler being dragged into arguments in wink-wink ways like this to discredit a position; a mild version of the dreaded "Nazi card".

(One always wants to point out how many non-vegetarians have been cruel torturers and killers, too, but it boils down to: one's diet doesn't necessarilly have much, or anything, to do with one's morals. Thank goodness, or I'd have no friends, either being shunned by or shunning everybody else based on diet alone!)

((Bigger Point: Someone's beliefs on any number of individual matters, taken alone, may have little to do with the kind of human being that person is. Which is why it behooves us to treat people who disagree with us on certain points as rational, maybe even [<gasp!>] good people, and to get to know and try to understand them.))

(((Which is to say, I agree with Weeks that scary totalitarianism can pop up in surprising, or non-obvious, places. But still, that Hitler = vegetarian thing is a myth! So there.)))

[Walden]

I wonder if tobacco was a well placed booby-trap by the Native Americans. Did they know it would eventually consume the White European invaders in so many ways?

Here in what was once called Indian Territory, the anti-smoking campaign includes advertisements encouraging tribal members to respect tradition by treating tobacco ceremonially rather than abusing it by smoking cigarettes.

[Jack]

Gilder, thanks for that post. Very provocative info. As you doubtless know, Hitler was a vegetarian, an enviromentalist, supported euthanasia and gun control. The latter was justified to control "extreme right wing elements" according to propaganda of the day.

People get upset if one attempts to draw parallels to today, but I will say that it's not certain where totalitarianism comes from on the polemic scale.

Well, not quite on the Hitler/vegetarian thing: he was put on a vegetarian diet by doctors to try to cure problems with flatulence (obviously it just changed the orifice from which his noxious gases emerged) and some kind of stomach disorder, but his own chef reported that his favorite, and most requested, dish while Fuhrer was stuffed squab. So unless pigeon is a vegetable, there's a problem there. And numerous reports have him eating all kinds of meat at state dinners up to his suicide. A small point, but one tires of seeing Hitler being dragged into arguments in wink-wink ways like this to discredit a position; a mild version of the dreaded "Nazi card".

(One always wants to point out how many non-vegetarians have been cruel torturers and killers, too, but it boils down to: one's diet doesn't necessarilly have much, or anything, to do with one's morals. Thank goodness, or I'd have no friends, either being shunned by or shunning everybody else based on diet alone!)

((Bigger Point: Someone's beliefs on any number of individual matters, taken alone, may have little to do with the kind of human being that person is. Which is why it behooves us to treat people who disagree with us on certain points as rational, maybe even [<gasp!>] good people, and to get to know and try to understand them.))

(((Which is to say, I agree with Weeks that scary totalitarianism can pop up in surprising, or non-obvious, places. But still, that Hitler = vegetarian thing is a myth! So there.)))

I've noticed that on the Internet, the "Nazi card" is played all the time, by people on all sides of the political debate. If you can link your ideological "opponent" to Hitler or the Nazis in any way, no matter how trivial, it's a very popular thing to do.

I hadn't started really noticing it until a few weeks ago, when I made a conscious effort to count how many times I saw it done (I lost count...hehe). If you make a mental note and try to remember each time somebody links Hitler and/or the Nazis to some modern idea or act, you'll see what I mean. It happens a lot.

[s1m0n]

Gilder, thanks for that post. Very provocative info. As you doubtless know, Hitler was a vegetarian, an enviromentalist, supported euthanasia and gun control. The latter was justified to control "extreme right wing elements" according to propaganda of the day.

People get upset if one attempts to draw parallels to today, but I will say that it's not certain where totalitarianism comes from on the polemic scale.

Speaking of polemics, the "gun control" part is sheer NRA propaganda. The widely circulated Hitler quotes relating to gun control are bogus; he never said them. Hitler's actual opinions about guns are not on record, and the supposed nazi gun control law the quotes reference never existed.

The nazis certainly exploited the existing German gun control legislation (originally passed by the previous Weimar government against the Nazi party) to harass their political enemies, and amended the legislation slightly in 1938 to restrict Jews and foreigners from owning guns, but these don't amount to anything that would amount to "Hitler supported gun control".

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhitlergun.html

OK, so the quote and cite are screwed up. What about the supposed law itself? Well, as described in the FAQ, 1935 "has no correlation with any legislative effort by the Nazis for gun registration." (Nor, for that matter, does 1936, the year you mention in your question.) Indeed, there was no need for the Nazis to pass a law like that, because the earlier Weimar government had already passed gun registration laws. When I asked Cramer about his reasearch, he said, "The laws adopted by the Weimar Republic intended to disarm Nazis and Communists were sufficiently discretionary that the Nazis managed to use them against their enemies once they were in power." In other words, they didn't need to pass additional laws. The Nazis did pass a weapons law in 1938, but that only added restrictions to the previous law, especially for Jews and other "non-citizens."

[s1m0n]

Gilder, thanks for that post. Very provocative info. As you doubtless know, Hitler was a vegetarian, an enviromentalist, supported euthanasia and gun control. The latter was justified to control "extreme right wing elements" according to propaganda of the day.

I see someone else got to the "vegetarian" assertion before I did, so it seems you're two for four. I don't know anyone who's for euthanasia as Hitler practised it.

So the only smear left is "environmentalist". Again, this is a distortion. Nazi ideology inherited from the romantics a reverence for nature, but this isn't full-blown "envirnonmentalism"; it was nostalgia.

[Walden]

I've noticed that on the Internet, the "Nazi card" is played all the time, by people on all sides of the political debate. If you can link your ideological "opponent" to Hitler or the Nazis in any way, no matter how trivial, it's a very popular thing to do.

I hadn't started really noticing it until a few weeks ago, when I made a conscious effort to count how many times I saw it done (I lost count...hehe). If you make a mental note and try to remember each time somebody links Hitler and/or the Nazis to some modern idea or act, you'll see what I mean. It happens a lot.

Seems I got flamed worse than anything, one time on this board, when I opposed someone equating Nazism with conservatism.

[jGilder]

As you doubtless know, Hitler supported gun control.

Speaking of polemics, the "gun control" part is sheer NRA propaganda. The widely circulated Hitler quotes relating to gun control are bogus; he never said them. Hitler's actual opinions about guns are not on record, and the supposed nazi gun control law the quotes reference never existed.

A few facts always ruin a good story.

[Jack]

I've noticed that on the Internet, the "Nazi card" is played all the time, by people on all sides of the political debate. If you can link your ideological "opponent" to Hitler or the Nazis in any way, no matter how trivial, it's a very popular thing to do.

I hadn't started really noticing it until a few weeks ago, when I made a conscious effort to count how many times I saw it done (I lost count...hehe). If you make a mental note and try to remember each time somebody links Hitler and/or the Nazis to some modern idea or act, you'll see what I mean. It happens a lot.

Seems I got flamed worse than anything, one time on this board, when I opposed someone equating Nazism with conservatism.

Was it by me or Sara (who has been MIA for a long time now...)? I remember something about the Nazis and George Bush and Sara getting upset and leaving because of it...

[jGilder]

As you doubtless know, Hitler supported euthanasia.

Yes, sadly, I knew about Hitler's support for euthanasia. So did 6 million Jews.

• 

The Hadamar Killing Centre with the smoking chimney of the crematorium, 1941 (Photo taken secretly)
On 13th January 1941, the first transport of mentally sick and disabled persons arrived from the psychiatric hospital Eichberg at the newly established killing centre Hadamar near Limburg. After a few hours, the patients were killed by gas, their remains were burnt in the crematorium. Until August of the same year, more than 10.000 people were killed in the gas chamber of Hadamar. This crime was falsely called "euthanasia", meaning mercy killing. In their records, the perpetrator's coldly spoke of "disinfection", thereby simply identifying the persons killed as vermin.

• 

Adolf Hitler's "decree on euthanasia", Berlin 1939 Written on his private stationary

"Officially "the systematic killing of inmates of psychiatric hospitals in the German Reich began with Hitler's "Decree on Euthanasia ". Mass killing of sick people had, however, taken place before in Pomerania and Western Prussia. The debates on the implementation of the "extermination of life unworthy of life "did not start later than July 1939. Only in October of the same year did Hitler sign the authorisation as a secret decree on his private stationary, thereby evading all legal rules and governmental agencies. Upon his urging, a copy of this document was handed to Dr. Franz Gürtner, Reich Minister of justice, only on 27th August 1940 by T4 leader Philipp Bouhler.

Dating back the "decree" to 1st September 1939 was done on purpose: since the war was also the beginning of the extermination of European Jewry, it was easier to trigger a "campaign" against sick and disabled persons for whom there should be no room in the victorious Reich. The "decree "did not have any legal force. It is true that there were debates on a law concerning "euthanasia in the case of incurably sick persons" until the autumn of 1940. However, the proposal was then rejected by Adolf Hitler who wanted total secrecy in this matter. Although this killing operation was illegal according to Nazi law, the courts - with the exception of a few courageous but unsuccessful judges - did not intervene.