Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

TERRY’S TIDBITS by Terry Gray
January 31, 2004

“Lead them by political maneuvers, restrain them with punishments:  the people will become cunning and shameless.  Lead them by virtue, restrain them with ritual:  they will develop a sense of shame and a sense of participation.”                                                                                          Confucius

DEAR GEORGE

          I just received an email from Oppression International, DBA Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.  The want me to forward this letter to President Bush:

          “Dear Mr. President,

Don’t let Big Tobacco off the hook.  I urge your Administration to aggressively pursue the government’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry, which will stop the tobacco industry from marketing to kids.

Please say no to special protection for Big Tobacco and give the American people their day in court.

President Bush, please fully fund the lawsuit and don’t settle for anything short of fundamental changes in Big Tobacco’s harmful marketing and manufacturing practices.” 

Let me translate this letter for you:

          Dear Mr. President,

If you let Big Tobacco off the hook we won’t get any more money.  We urge your administration to aggressively pursue our money.  We’ll use it to keep the tobacco industry from marketing to kids this time, we promise.  No more big cars and lavish parties.  No more aggressively pursuing oppressive ban legislation.

Please say no to special protection for Big Tobacco and say yes to more money for us.  Give the American people their day in court so we can get more money.  You should know that with more money comes more power; we need more power.

President Bush, please fully fund the lawsuit so that we can get more money.  Don’t settle for anything short of getting more money for us.  With more money we can get more people to join our cause and then we can get even more money.

How is Big Tobacco protected?  They just gave up hundreds of millions of dollars in tobacco settlement money to get these morons off their backs.  If they had been “protected” they would have just told these Nazis to get off their backs and saved a bundle.

How is Big Tobacco marketing to kids?  There aren’t any Marlboros in boxes of Rice Crispies.  There aren’t any smoking Care Bears.  There aren’t even any more candy cigarettes or cigars.  Rumor has it that Cabbage Patch Dolls entertained the idea of Tobacco Patch Dolls but a flip of a coin quashed it.  Tobacco can’t advertise in any medium except the U.S. Mail, the same folks who have taken tobacco for a billion dollar ride.

Why should Big Tobacco market to kids?  Kids can’t legally buy cigarettes.  It would be like advertising roller skates at a paraplegic convention.  Kids who buy cigarettes are buying them from other kids who either steal them or buy them on the black market from people who have either stolen them or otherwise bypassed all the taxes meant to keep cigarettes out of the hands of kids.  There is no retail market for underage smokers.  There is however a growing employer of kids – the black market trade in tobacco.

The American Legacy Foundation is mounting a campaign to ban smoking from private homes and cars where kids may possibly be present someday.  “Gassing”, a subject that I covered previously (Smoking in Homes), is blamed for vicious nicotine hiding in our draperies and car seats and attacking children, an act that must be stopped, according to the nannies.  And all along they’ve been telling us that they don’t want to come into our homes.

NO WORK FOR ADDICTS

          Twenty one states do not have lifestyle laws.  Lifestyle laws protect individuals in the workforce from being discriminated against for how they live.  Smoking is included in lifestyle laws in 29 states and forbids discriminatory hiring and firing practices against smokers.

          Michigan has no lifestyle protection laws.  Four healthcare employees were recently fired in Lansing, not for smoking, but for refusing to take a test to see if they were smokers.  A person can be fired for smoking at home in Michigan.  He can also be fired for not proving that he was or wasn’t smoking.  I thought we had a 5^th amendment for such things.  Weyco, Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos Michigan gets the Golden Cigar award for just being asses.

           "To have an employer monitor legal behavior is going over a line that we just can't cross. It's going toward that Big Brother mentality that we just need to stay away from," asserted Joni Thome, an employment attorney at Halunen & Associates in Minneapolis who hopes the recent Michigan policy prompts state legislatures to adopt lifestyle statutes.’  Thanks Joni.

          Police departments in several cities and counties in Florida won't hire people who are smokers, cigar users or tobacco chewers, even if they only indulge when off-duty. Sworn deputies already on the force will be encouraged to toss their Marlboros and Camels whenever on duty and in public.

          Howard Simon, Executive Director of the Florida ACLU says, "We're talking about what people do on their own time, in their own back yards," Simon said. "On some days, people might like to pig out on their couch watching football with a quart of ice cream. That's unhealthy, too, but people have a right to do that.  At some point, we have to draw the line between what is an employer's business and what isn't."

          Mr. Weyer, CEO of Weyco says that for every smoker who quits because of his policy of Nazi oppression there will be family members and friends who will be thankful that their loved one isn’t going to an early grave, unless he or she gets real fat and explodes.  Of course one can’t rule out the frequent fatal stabbings in Weyco’s parking lot.  “That hasn’t happened for a few months – people have stopped dressing like me.” Then there is the cyanide in the coffee intended for him.  “Life is a chance we take here at Weyco.”

          Kentucky has a lifestyle law and even with all the garbage that can be dished out to employees in states that do not have such laws, I don’t agree that the government should be able to tell an employer that he can’t fire or not hire whomever he pleases.

CATCHING ON FIRE

          We keep hearing about all the bans being proposed across the country.  Many of them amount to nothing with the exception of nannies puffing up while displaying great plumes of their own smoke.  Nannies remind me of a little boy with his first pair of real underwear.  They parade around shouting about how great they are and they still pee their pants.

          However, the fervor is growing and that is okay.  It won’t take too long before the law becomes so restrictive that governments begin to lose tons of money, smoking ban Nazis lose more funding, kids become more involved in the ever more popular tobacco black markets, non-smoking citizens who never complained about smoke will take offense that they have been used to get bans passed, cancer research will suffer from declining funding, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the American Cancer Society will see their funding cut and their contributions fall off, politicians will be looking for work, disregard for smoking laws will be the norm, and all of this because people like Mike Kuntz and Ellen Hahn got greedy for power and money and people got sick(er) of their ilk.

          The inspiration for bans comes from studies and surveys, mostly bought into by former good citizens who fell into the black hole of politics and got elected to some city council.  These studies are funded by groups like the American Lung Association who get a lot of their money from Big Tobacco.  Then there are surveys that are conducted “independently” by universities and groups like the American Lung Association.  The surveys conducted by universities are usually conducted by people who are affiliated with cancer research at the universities.  They get money from Big Tobacco.

          The University of Kentucky nursing department, a department which receives money to prove the dangers of tobacco, recently conducted a survey in Lexington which showed that support for the new smoking ban has increased since the ban took effect.  Ellen Hahn, a vocal ban supporter, is an Associate Professor in the College of Nursing.  She is the fox guarding the henhouse. 

The survey showed that 64% of those surveyed either strongly or somewhat supported the ban, 36% strongly or somewhat opposed the ban.  Had the results been expressed in median terms it is doubtful that there would have been much difference between strong support and strong opposition, especially considering the margin of error is 3.02%.

A survey conducted by the Lexington Herald-Leader in the same time frame as UK’s showed that 50% of those surveyed opposed the ban and 47% supported it.  That is quite a difference between the two surveys, one receiving funding to prove the dangers of tobacco and supporting smoking bans and the other supposedly not having a bias. 

Many of our leaders buy the biased surveys and attempt to legislate accordingly.   

IT AIN’T NO GOSH DARN TAX

Wisconsin wants to raise the tax on cigarettes by $1.00 a pack.  That tax would bring in $250 million in state revenue and the funds would be used to fund anti-tobacco programs and to offset a $121 million deficit in the state’s Medicaid program.  Ignorant, smelly, obnoxious smokers, many of who don’t use the Medicaid program are going to bail out a failed health plan because tax and spend state government can’t be responsible with budgeting.   

These folks have gone past any attempt to make us believe that extra taxation of tobacco would be used for tobacco education.  They get right to the nitty gritty and admit that the money would be used to fund Nazi propaganda and support tax and spend in government.

There is at least one lawmaker in Wisconsin who feels the need to justify however.  His name is A.J. Hines, and he heads the Assembly Health Committee – go figure.  He says, "I don't consider the money paid on cigarettes a tax because nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head and telling them they have to buy cigarettes."

          I wrote to Mr. Hines to let him know that nobody is holding a gun to anybody’s head to make them go to work to pay income tax and social security tax, to make them buy gasoline, to make them buy homes, to make them use electricity, to make them buy shoes, or to make them buy booze, all of which are taxed.  I let him know that I thought he was dumber than a box of rocks.  I copied the message to Forces Coalition and got the response that I shouldn’t insult rocks.

LIGHTERS ON FIRE

          You cannot carry lighters on any kind of flights now.  You can have matches but not the “strike-anywhere” kind.  This originally began with the shoe bomber who was too stupid to blow himself up.

          Anti-smoking groups jumped on the bandwagon and claimed victory when lighters were banned from flights.  Personally, I don’t think that airline security people care one way or another about fanatic anti-smoking groups or their victories; they have bigger oppression in mind.  And why are matches allowed?

          This lighter fiasco has, shall we say, upset a few people.  Some Zippo lighters are worth lots of money; some are family heirlooms.  There are 800 Zippos auctioned online every day. The Zippo commanding the highest sales price ever was a 1933 Zippo that sold for $18,000 at a Tokyo swap meet in 2002.  TSA inspectors confiscate Zippos right along with cheap Bics and they are forever separated from their owners.

          However, if you are aware that the highly regarded security people are stealing lighters at the airport, you have two options:  Don’t take your lighter to the airport, or bring a self-addressed stamped container to put your lighter in when they catch you.  Of course, the USPS won’t ship it because it contains fuel.  Leave your lighter at home, stuff a piece of Red Man chewing tobacco in your mouth, and move on.  Just don’t tell them it’s Red Man; you’ll be soooooo politically incorrect.

NASCAR

          Whiskey and such is now allowed back in the NASCAR game as advertisers and sponsors.  Tobacco is gone from NASCAR, as in The Winston Cup.  Society is very much against drinking and driving, yet Jack Daniels can sponsor a car that moves around a track at excessive speeds while tobacco is banned from the venue.  Help me understand.

HOMELAND INSECURITY

          I don’t have much to say about this garbage.  I just want it known, and this makes sense, that if I’m expected to give up a little freedom for security, I want a guarantee.  Where is the contract?

Don’t give me this stuff about how you’ll take care of me and to stop complaining that my freedom is suffering and then not hold up your end of the bargain.  I know how you are, and I don’t like it.  “Okay folks, we have your back, but you have to make some sacrifices too.” 

Would someone please show me what the government has sacrificed?  Would someone show me how I’m safer?   Should there be a security breach and a bunch of us wind up dead, where do the rest of us go for refunds? 

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest /  White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN