Calabasas: The Fourth Reich
By Terri Kauffman
becomes the truth.” -- Goebbles
I don’t smoke, I don’t like that some of my loved ones smoke, and I don’t particularly like being around people who are smoking. I don’t really care at all about smoking as a matter of fact, but I care a whole hell of a lot about people’s right to do so. But is it fair to compare Dennis Washburn, the Mayor of the California city of Calabasas to Adolf Hitler? That depends on the details of the comparison.
While a public smoking ban in Calabasas in no way resembles the scope of Hitler’s tyranny, I believe there are similarities in the content of their oppression. Both believed they were creating a “better society” by serving a universal truth, which in the case of Calabasas is that “there is no safe level of secondhand smoke”, as told by the anti-smoking campaign’s master of propaganda, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
I was in middle school when I discovered that the anti-smoking campaign had no connection with reality; they said that “passive” or “involuntary” smoking is actually worse for you than “direct” smoking because smokers have the added benefit of a filter. Give me a fucking break. I think they’ve stopped making that particular ludicrous claim these days, but the problem with liars is you can never tell exactly where the truth ends and the lie begins.
So what about the claim from the U.S. Surgeon General (by the way, Richard Carmona is neither a “surgeon” nor a “general”) that there is “no safe level of second-hand smoke?” Doesn’t it follow then that there’s also no safe level of exposure to the sun, the smog in Los Angeles, campfire smoke, alcohol, caffeine, and cola drinks? And is there any “safe” distance you can drive in an automobile? Of course not, but there’s a certain amount of risk, it turns out, associated simply with being alive. But the anti-smoking propaganda machine has numbers to back up their claims, right?
On the website for the City of Calabasas, their FAQ sheet states that “More than 4,000 chemicals have been identified in mainstream tobacco smoke; however, the actual number may be more than 100,000.” Since we’ve already entered the land of make-believe, why not say there may be hundred-bezillion-gazillion-million cancer-causing chemicals? Also, depending on the source you check, the number of non-smoker smoking-related deaths range from 3,000 to 50,000 (or maybe more!). That would be an odd discrepancy, if these numbers were based in any kind of reality. But it’s bad to smoke, (right?) so the ends justify the lies.
Another local government, this one out of Wisconsin, also has it out for the smokers. They titled their fact sheet “Unbelievable but True Facts about ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke).”
In case you were confused, these are “true” facts, not the “false” facts you might have been expecting. The Marinette County website blames smoking for everything from crow’s feet to childhood hearing loss to macular degeneration. The website also states that “Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, care crashes (sic), illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.” Maybe they purposefully misspelled “car crashes” in order to make the statement more of “true” fact and less of a false one. After all, nobody I know ever died of a “care” crash. I guess spelling doesn’t count either in the land of make believe.
Dana Reeve, late wife of the late Christopher Reeve, died at 44 of lung cancer. Some articles suggest, though do not make the claim, that her being a singer (which apparently, she was) and spending all that time in smoky nightclubs must have been what caused her cancer, since Reeve herself was not a smoker. Science offers other possibilities, like exposure to radon gas, asbestos or other cancer-causing pollutants, but propaganda is rarely rooted in science.
It’s shameful, really, that the anti-smoking propaganda machine would go so far as to trot out the memory of such a beloved advocate of human rights just to further their own cause. But it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t believe the regime really cares about the truth or people, just about their own cause. (Kind of like another tyrannical despot, who shall remain nameless.)
Put this in your pipe and smoke it: for every 44-year old non-smoker they say has died of lung cancer, I can trot out 10,000 smokers that outlived Dana Reeve by a decade or more. Some even more than that! Or maybe less. But who cares – I just made it all up anyway.
I think one of the things that I am most troubled by is that the precedent behind the smoking bans in restaurants and bars is so wildly misunderstood. The bans are not to protect the consumers, who have the rights to leave the bar any time they like, but rather for the people who work there. It’s the same basic reason you can’t smoke inside of office buildings or courthouses or classrooms. People have the right to be able to work at their jobs without bringing a danger to their own health and safety. Unless, of course, the danger or health risks are inherent to the job you’re being paid to do. Just ask a coal miner or a fireman or a member of the military.
(By the way, I’m calling my boss tomorrow and letting her know I will no longer be leaving my apartment because there is no safe exposure to the sun and no safe distance I can drive in my car. My life is at stake, she can’t argue with that, right?)
The question isn’t whether or not some jobs include necessary risks to our health, but rather whether or not secondhand smoke, assuming consistent exposure does in fact provide some risk to a person’s health, is a necessary risk of being a waitress or a bartender at a bar where people smoke. What if bars are no longer allowed to serve alcohol because they find that waitresses and bartenders are becoming alcoholics at an alarming rate? I believe people make choices every day and should bear the bulk of the responsibility for those choices. Choosing to be a cocktail waitress or a bartender carries risks, just like falling
asleep at the wheel at 3 o’clock in the morning, or abusing alcohol because it’s readily available. There’s a reasonable argument to be made for protecting employees from unnecessary ETS, but a public smoking ban is an outright abuse of power.
The Marinette County website states that “43,384 people live in Marinette County. Total number of smokers: 8,390” and then it asks “Why do we breathe secondhand smoke in public places for only 19% of our population?” It seems like a reasonable question at first. After all, the U.S. Surgeon General says there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke. But the premise of this statement implies that because the majority of people agree on something, the minority should bend to their will.
Should we create laws by majority rules like a game of kickball on a playground? People are stupid and easily influenced by things such as, well, propaganda. Don’t forget, at one time in the history of this country the majority of its citizens supported slavery and refused women the right to vote. The only thing you can be sure of by allowing the majority to rule is that the laws will benefit that same majority. Want me to prove it? Ask ten people if they support helmet laws for motorcyclists. If they do, ask them if they would still support the laws if it extended to people who were driving cars as well. The answer will be “no” in all cases. But doesn’t it stand to reason that wearing a helmet while driving any automobile would be safer than not wearing one?
The real truth is that the majority of people drive cars, and the majority of people don’t want to wear helmets while they do. Therefore, there will never be helmet laws to protect the drivers of automobiles, no matter the benefits to the health and safety of our citizens.
The opposing force contends that bans on smoking in all public areas would create a better society for all of us. Smokers would ultimately smoke less (which is better for them), and non-smokers wouldn’t have their health constantly jeopardized by the million-bezillion cancer-causing chemicals in ETS. But if the only criteria for creating laws is the betterment of society, I’ve got a few bills to propose.
First, no driver’s license for anyone over 65. Sure, it sucks if you’re over 65, but better for the rest of us. Second, I’ve got plans for a massive sterilization program, and the sterilizees will be determined by me. Third, I would eliminate the homeless problem by eliminating the homeless. I would supply them with massive amounts of their drug of choice. Problem solved. I would also make it illegal to serve fast food to people over 250 pounds, abolish all civil lawsuits, and inflate gas prices to $10 a gallon to solve global warming and ease traffic congestion and accidents. Finally, I would create a government health plan which would provide a quality and quantity of healthcare in direct correlation with your contribution to society and your value as a human being. It might be a “better” society, but it wouldn’t be one I’d want to live in. (Well I would, since I made the rules and all, but you wouldn’t.)
Smokers should have taken a page from the NRA handbook years ago. Does anyone in the NRA really care if guns that can shoot down commercial airliners are
legal? Not really. But the brilliance of their strategy is that while we spend the next twenty years trying to get them to budge just a little bit on Uzis and AK-47s, they’re never going to even have a conversation about the legality of hunting rifles and handguns. Smokers gave up too easily, first agreeing not to smoke in offices and public buildings, then airplanes and non-smoking hotel rooms and restaurant sections. I’m sure they never, in their wildest dreams, imagined that one day they might not be allowed to smoke on their own balconies! But here we are, defending smokers against the absurd.
The problem with giving the majority the right to start eliminating freedoms is that eventually they’re going to get around to eliminating the ones you care about. The men who founded this country gave us the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but nowhere in the constitution are we guaranteed the right to never be inconvenienced or annoyed or even offended. Whether we like it or not, there is a way things should be, and a way things are. It would be nice if people would exercise their freedom in a way that was considerate of others, but since we live in the real world and not the land of make believe you shouldn’t hold your breath; unless you’re outdoors in Calabasas, where the second hand smoke waits patiently to get in your lungs.
becomes the truth.” -- Goebbles
I don’t smoke, I don’t like that some of my loved ones smoke, and I don’t particularly like being around people who are smoking. I don’t really care at all about smoking as a matter of fact, but I care a whole hell of a lot about people’s right to do so. But is it fair to compare Dennis Washburn, the Mayor of the California city of Calabasas to Adolf Hitler? That depends on the details of the comparison.
While a public smoking ban in Calabasas in no way resembles the scope of Hitler’s tyranny, I believe there are similarities in the content of their oppression. Both believed they were creating a “better society” by serving a universal truth, which in the case of Calabasas is that “there is no safe level of secondhand smoke”, as told by the anti-smoking campaign’s master of propaganda, U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
I was in middle school when I discovered that the anti-smoking campaign had no connection with reality; they said that “passive” or “involuntary” smoking is actually worse for you than “direct” smoking because smokers have the added benefit of a filter. Give me a fucking break. I think they’ve stopped making that particular ludicrous claim these days, but the problem with liars is you can never tell exactly where the truth ends and the lie begins.
So what about the claim from the U.S. Surgeon General (by the way, Richard Carmona is neither a “surgeon” nor a “general”) that there is “no safe level of second-hand smoke?” Doesn’t it follow then that there’s also no safe level of exposure to the sun, the smog in Los Angeles, campfire smoke, alcohol, caffeine, and cola drinks? And is there any “safe” distance you can drive in an automobile? Of course not, but there’s a certain amount of risk, it turns out, associated simply with being alive. But the anti-smoking propaganda machine has numbers to back up their claims, right?
On the website for the City of Calabasas, their FAQ sheet states that “More than 4,000 chemicals have been identified in mainstream tobacco smoke; however, the actual number may be more than 100,000.” Since we’ve already entered the land of make-believe, why not say there may be hundred-bezillion-gazillion-million cancer-causing chemicals? Also, depending on the source you check, the number of non-smoker smoking-related deaths range from 3,000 to 50,000 (or maybe more!). That would be an odd discrepancy, if these numbers were based in any kind of reality. But it’s bad to smoke, (right?) so the ends justify the lies.
Another local government, this one out of Wisconsin, also has it out for the smokers. They titled their fact sheet “Unbelievable but True Facts about ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke).”
In case you were confused, these are “true” facts, not the “false” facts you might have been expecting. The Marinette County website blames smoking for everything from crow’s feet to childhood hearing loss to macular degeneration. The website also states that “Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, care crashes (sic), illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.” Maybe they purposefully misspelled “car crashes” in order to make the statement more of “true” fact and less of a false one. After all, nobody I know ever died of a “care” crash. I guess spelling doesn’t count either in the land of make believe.Dana Reeve, late wife of the late Christopher Reeve, died at 44 of lung cancer. Some articles suggest, though do not make the claim, that her being a singer (which apparently, she was) and spending all that time in smoky nightclubs must have been what caused her cancer, since Reeve herself was not a smoker. Science offers other possibilities, like exposure to radon gas, asbestos or other cancer-causing pollutants, but propaganda is rarely rooted in science.
It’s shameful, really, that the anti-smoking propaganda machine would go so far as to trot out the memory of such a beloved advocate of human rights just to further their own cause. But it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t believe the regime really cares about the truth or people, just about their own cause. (Kind of like another tyrannical despot, who shall remain nameless.)
Put this in your pipe and smoke it: for every 44-year old non-smoker they say has died of lung cancer, I can trot out 10,000 smokers that outlived Dana Reeve by a decade or more. Some even more than that! Or maybe less. But who cares – I just made it all up anyway.
I think one of the things that I am most troubled by is that the precedent behind the smoking bans in restaurants and bars is so wildly misunderstood. The bans are not to protect the consumers, who have the rights to leave the bar any time they like, but rather for the people who work there. It’s the same basic reason you can’t smoke inside of office buildings or courthouses or classrooms. People have the right to be able to work at their jobs without bringing a danger to their own health and safety. Unless, of course, the danger or health risks are inherent to the job you’re being paid to do. Just ask a coal miner or a fireman or a member of the military.
(By the way, I’m calling my boss tomorrow and letting her know I will no longer be leaving my apartment because there is no safe exposure to the sun and no safe distance I can drive in my car. My life is at stake, she can’t argue with that, right?)
The question isn’t whether or not some jobs include necessary risks to our health, but rather whether or not secondhand smoke, assuming consistent exposure does in fact provide some risk to a person’s health, is a necessary risk of being a waitress or a bartender at a bar where people smoke. What if bars are no longer allowed to serve alcohol because they find that waitresses and bartenders are becoming alcoholics at an alarming rate? I believe people make choices every day and should bear the bulk of the responsibility for those choices. Choosing to be a cocktail waitress or a bartender carries risks, just like falling
asleep at the wheel at 3 o’clock in the morning, or abusing alcohol because it’s readily available. There’s a reasonable argument to be made for protecting employees from unnecessary ETS, but a public smoking ban is an outright abuse of power.The Marinette County website states that “43,384 people live in Marinette County. Total number of smokers: 8,390” and then it asks “Why do we breathe secondhand smoke in public places for only 19% of our population?” It seems like a reasonable question at first. After all, the U.S. Surgeon General says there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke. But the premise of this statement implies that because the majority of people agree on something, the minority should bend to their will.
Should we create laws by majority rules like a game of kickball on a playground? People are stupid and easily influenced by things such as, well, propaganda. Don’t forget, at one time in the history of this country the majority of its citizens supported slavery and refused women the right to vote. The only thing you can be sure of by allowing the majority to rule is that the laws will benefit that same majority. Want me to prove it? Ask ten people if they support helmet laws for motorcyclists. If they do, ask them if they would still support the laws if it extended to people who were driving cars as well. The answer will be “no” in all cases. But doesn’t it stand to reason that wearing a helmet while driving any automobile would be safer than not wearing one?
The real truth is that the majority of people drive cars, and the majority of people don’t want to wear helmets while they do. Therefore, there will never be helmet laws to protect the drivers of automobiles, no matter the benefits to the health and safety of our citizens.
The opposing force contends that bans on smoking in all public areas would create a better society for all of us. Smokers would ultimately smoke less (which is better for them), and non-smokers wouldn’t have their health constantly jeopardized by the million-bezillion cancer-causing chemicals in ETS. But if the only criteria for creating laws is the betterment of society, I’ve got a few bills to propose.
First, no driver’s license for anyone over 65. Sure, it sucks if you’re over 65, but better for the rest of us. Second, I’ve got plans for a massive sterilization program, and the sterilizees will be determined by me. Third, I would eliminate the homeless problem by eliminating the homeless. I would supply them with massive amounts of their drug of choice. Problem solved. I would also make it illegal to serve fast food to people over 250 pounds, abolish all civil lawsuits, and inflate gas prices to $10 a gallon to solve global warming and ease traffic congestion and accidents. Finally, I would create a government health plan which would provide a quality and quantity of healthcare in direct correlation with your contribution to society and your value as a human being. It might be a “better” society, but it wouldn’t be one I’d want to live in. (Well I would, since I made the rules and all, but you wouldn’t.)
Smokers should have taken a page from the NRA handbook years ago. Does anyone in the NRA really care if guns that can shoot down commercial airliners are
legal? Not really. But the brilliance of their strategy is that while we spend the next twenty years trying to get them to budge just a little bit on Uzis and AK-47s, they’re never going to even have a conversation about the legality of hunting rifles and handguns. Smokers gave up too easily, first agreeing not to smoke in offices and public buildings, then airplanes and non-smoking hotel rooms and restaurant sections. I’m sure they never, in their wildest dreams, imagined that one day they might not be allowed to smoke on their own balconies! But here we are, defending smokers against the absurd.The problem with giving the majority the right to start eliminating freedoms is that eventually they’re going to get around to eliminating the ones you care about. The men who founded this country gave us the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but nowhere in the constitution are we guaranteed the right to never be inconvenienced or annoyed or even offended. Whether we like it or not, there is a way things should be, and a way things are. It would be nice if people would exercise their freedom in a way that was considerate of others, but since we live in the real world and not the land of make believe you shouldn’t hold your breath; unless you’re outdoors in Calabasas, where the second hand smoke waits patiently to get in your lungs.
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