[Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with facts."
Sunil Ramalingam
sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
Fri Jul 24 11:05:52 PDT 2009
Gary,
Do you have an answer to my original questions?
Sunil
From: lockshop at pull.twcbc.com
To: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:55:02 -0700
CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with facts."
Is mis-stating my position really the only way you
can think of to try and make a valid point?
As I have said repeatedly, I believe that if
homosexuals can find someone who is willing to pronounce them man and man, wife
and wife, or man, wife, wife, or any permutation thereof then swell, I wish
them the best. What I am not in favor of is in my or the state being forced to
recognize it.
With regard to the abortion issue though I've
really got to admit that you've got me caught on the horns of a
delimma. How could I not see the similarity between making a choice that
has a 1 in 15 chance of potentially damaging the health of the
person doing the choosing and making a decision that has a
100% chance of killing an innocent party?
In both of your examples the decision extends to
others who will not be given a choice to participate. Bar patrons and employess
do get to make an informed choice and as a result your comments seem a trifle
lame.
g
----- Original Message -----
From:
Joe
Campbell
To: the lockshop
Cc: TIM RIGSBY ; <starbliss at gmail.com> ; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do not
continue to confuse people with facts."
You don't even think that ADULTS are able to make decisions about whom to
marry or whether pr not to have children, so stop pretending to respect a
person's right to make decisions for him or herself!
Sent from my
iPhone
On Jul 24, 2009, at 12:11 PM, "the lockshop" <lockshop at pull.twcbc.com>
wrote:
It would seem that you, Mr. Moffet, and our city
council have a mighty low opinion of the intelligence of the patrons and
employees of bars and taverns. I can't speak for your students but, I find
it very difficult to believe that by the time a citizen reaches the age of
21 in the United States he hasn't heard the anti-smoking mantra to
the point of nausea.
How lucky we are that there are people out there who
will take it upon themselves to prevent emancipated Americans from making
their own decisions with regard to the risks they take in life.
g
----- Original Message -----
From:
TIM
RIGSBY
To: starbliss at gmail.com ; vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 7:47
AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] "Please do
not continue to confuse people with facts."
I would like to add the idea of this saying,
"Don't
let the facts get in the way of a good story."
Either way Ted, you
brought up some very valid points that tend to be forgotten when people
discuss tobacco/smoking regulation and legislation. What scares me
as a Health Teacher is when I hear my junior high and high school aged
students talking about how safe, they think anyway, Hookah bars are.
When asked if they would ever smoke cigarettes, they claim that they
won't. Yet what these students don't realize is that they are
actually smoking tobacco at the high school hookah parties. What is
even scarier is a lot of the parents think that hookah is a safe
alternative as well.
The hookah bar closest to my house in
Boise is constantly packed with young people all of the time. Often
times, other substances are being laced into the tobacco as well and these
young people are unknowingly smoking illegal drugs along with their fruit
and tobacco mixture.
I predict in the not so distant future, Boise
and possibly the State Legislature will enact legislation to
regulate/control these hookah establishments.
Here is a question to
ponder. By definition based on Idaho Code, what is a hookah bar
categorized as? A restaurant, a bar, a private club? If it
falls under the bar definition, then people under 21 should not be allowed
in. It seems as though hookah bars would fall into an undefined gray
area of the Idaho Clean Indoor Air Act. However, Moscow seems to
have covered hookah bars in their recent ban of smoking, I could be wrong
though.
" 'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.'
That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it
the hard way. Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President'
has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid
War on the other side of the World -- or been beaten and gassed by Police
for trespassing on public property -- or been hounded by the IRS for
purely political reasons -- or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a
broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your
ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or
Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted." - Hunter S.
Thompson
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:39:45 -0700
From: starbliss at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject:
[Vision2020] "Please do not continue to confuse people with
facts."
The "Off List" response referenced, from someone I regard as one of
the most educated and honest Vision2020 participants, that I received
to my post below on tobacco regulation, is in total what is stated in the
subject heading of this post. Wise words, no doubt, that I ignore at
my own risk...
Notice there is limited or no discussion of some of the critical
facts my post presented: that tobacco (nicotine) is a
physically addictive drug, with underage tobacco addiction common,
raising questions if whether adult "choice" is in effect regarding
employees or consumers in tobacco related decisions; that tobacco is
the leading cause of premature death (nuclear waste or energy or even
nuclear weapons production is not even close as a cause of premature
death); that other drugs doing less harm to society than tobacco are
criminalized and prosecuted aggressively, involving civil and human
rights violations, yet who among those opposing regulation of
tobacco, will as aggressively advocate for these drugs to be
managed by free choice and the marketplace, rather than a government "Big
Brother?" Some, perhaps... While there are others who should know
better playing some on this list as fools, for the sake of debate, or
political advantage, or popular image or whatever... Or they are as
deluded as those they are debating with...
My response to the "Off List" comment discussed here:
Ummm... OK, I guess... However, being an idealist in belief that
expressing the truth is morally mandated (where did I get that dangerous
idea? I''ll end up in serious trouble! Oh, I forgot, I already
am...), I may not comply. I recently read a variation of this
same expression in James Lovelock's "Revenge of Gaia:" "Don't confuse me
with the facts, my minds made up." Lovelock was referring to this
mentality regarding the rejection of nuclear power by many in the
environmental movement.
Ted
Please do not continue to confuse people with
facts.
-----
Original Message -----
From:
Ted
Moffett
To:
Moscow Vision 2020
Sent:
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 1:55 AM
Subject:
[Vision2020] Tobacco: Targeting the Nation’s Leading Killer: Centers
for Disease Control
Tobacco (nicotine) is a physically addictive drug. Once
addicted, "choice" becomes a problematic concept. And many
people become addicted while underage, encouraged to continue their
addiction in bars, where cigarettes are often shared between
customers.
The fact tobacco is physically addictive is absent from the
comments of many opposing the smoking ordinance, as are the facts
regarding the magnitude of the damage. Comparisons
to other harmful behaviors are drawn (fatty food, etc.),
suggesting that a slippery slope of regulation will lead to government
control over too many aspects of life, but many of these
behaviors do not involve a drug addiction. Of course
alcohol has dramatic negative impacts. But workers in bars are
not forced to drink the drinks the customers order, as
they breathe the smoke of the customers.
I find it incredible that the health of workers exposed to an
addictive drug when they breathe in the workplace is approached so
callously. They can work elsewhere, it's announced with smug
authority, as if in this economy workers have the luxury of choosing
whatever job suits their fancy, rather than an urgency to take
whatever work they can find. If it was cocaine or heroin or
methamphetamine that workers were exposed to, the attitude might be
different.
Profits from exposing workers to addictive drugs in the workplace
should be protected based on free market, free choice, adult
responsibility? If this is the logic, where are the protests
against laws imposed on those selling cocaine, heroin
or methamphetamine, et. al., to consenting adults, which can
result in long prison sentences? Let the free market
decide! Why stand in the way of profits and the free choice
of adults?
If those opposing the smoking ordinance were consistent in their
outrage against limits on the free market, their ideology might have
more intellectual credibility. Instead, the libertarianism
proposed is inconsistent and conformist. Or perhaps those
opposed to the smoking ordinance will now protest that bars do not
allow legal cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine use? Think of the
profits to be made! And remember, tobacco prematurely kills more
people than those three drugs combined...
If attempts were made to criminalize tobacco like cannabis is,
resulting in prison sentences, home invasions, for sale or use, I
would oppose this vehemently. But an ordinance regulating
smoking in bars does not stop any adult from legally using tobacco
products in settings where they do not expose workers.
If worker freedom of choice was a valid argument to justify the
exposure of workers to tobacco smoke in bars, than OSHA could be
mostly eliminated. After all, if workers exposed to hazards
monitored or banned by OSHA don't want to work with those risks, they
can work elsewhere, as long as signs posted in the workplace inform
them of the risks. A "Big Brother" government bureaucracy
gone.
--------------------------
http://www.cdc.gov/NCCDPHP/publications/aag/osh.htm
The Burden of Tobacco UseTobacco use is the single most
preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United
States. Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from
smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million have
a serious illness caused by smoking. For every person who dies from
smoking, 20 more people suffer from at least one serious
tobacco-related illness. Despite these risks, approximately 43.4
million U.S. adults smoke cigarettes. Smokeless tobacco, cigars, and
pipes also have deadly consequences, including lung, larynx,
esophageal, and oral cancers.
The harmful effects of smoking do not
end with the smoker. More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans,
including children and adults, are regularly exposed to secondhand
smoke. Even brief exposure can be dangerous because nonsmokers inhale
many of the same carcinogens and toxins in cigarette smoke as smokers.
Secondhand smoke exposure causes serious disease and death, including
heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmoking adults and sudden infant
death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more
frequent and severe asthma attacks in children. Each year, primarily
because of exposure to secondhand smoke, an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking
Americans die of lung cancer, more than 46,000 (range: 22,700–69,600)
die of heart disease, and about 150,000–300,000 children younger than
18 months have lower respiratory tract infections.
Coupled with
this enormous health toll is the significant economic burden of
tobacco use—more than $96 billion per year in medical expenditures and
another $97 billion per year resulting from lost productivity.
[A text description of this graph is also
available.]
The Tobacco Use Epidemic Can Be StoppedA 2007 Institute of
Medicine (IOM) report presented a blueprint for action to “reduce
smoking so substantially that it is no longer a public health problem
for our nation.” The two-pronged strategy for achieving this goal
includes not only strengthening and fully implementing currently
proven tobacco control measures, but also changing the regulatory
landscape to permit policy innovations. Foremost among the IOM
recommendations is that each state should fund a comprehensive tobacco
control program at the level recommended by CDC in Best Practices
for Comprehensive Tobacco Control
Programs–2007.
Evidence-based, statewide tobacco control
programs that are comprehensive, sustained, and accountable have been
shown to reduce smoking rates, tobacco-related deaths, and diseases
caused by smoking. A comprehensive program is a coordinated effort to
establish smoke-free policies and social norms, to promote and assist
tobacco users to quit, and to prevent initiation of tobacco use. This
approach combines educational, clinical, regulatory, economic, and
social strategies.
Research has documented the effectiveness of
laws and policies to protect the public from secondhand smoke
exposure, promote cessation, and prevent initiation when they are
applied in a comprehensive way. For example, states can increase the
unit price of tobacco products; implement smoking bans through
policies, regulations, and laws; provide insurance coverage of tobacco
use treatment; and limit minors’ access to tobacco products.
If the
nation is to achieve the objectives outlined in Healthy People
2010, comprehensive, evidence-based approaches for preventing
smoking initiation and increasing cessation need to be fully
implemented.
CDC's ResponseCDC is the lead federal agency for tobacco
control. CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) provides national
leadership for a comprehensive, broad-based approach to reducing
tobacco use. A variety of government agencies, professional and
voluntary organizations, and academic institutions have joined
together to advance this approach, which involves the following
activities:
Preventing young people from starting to smoke.
Eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke.
Promoting quitting among young people and adults.
Identifying and eliminating tobacco-related health disparities.
Essential elements of this approach include state-based,
community-based, and health system-based interventions; cessation
services; counter marketing; policy development and implementation;
surveillance; and evaluation. These activities target groups who are
at highest risk for tobacco-related health
problems.
-------------------------------------------
Vision2020
Post: Ted
Moffett
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