I told my Taiwanses wife we can retire in Taiwan one day…

I married a Filipino gal. One day, I plan to move overseas to retire on beautiful Mindanao Island. I does seem like that day is going to be much sooner than I expected it to be!

As it’s been said before – elections have consequences…

Well, add one more industry to the list of the DemBama unconstitutional takeover roster. Big tobacco. On Friday, the House voted by a 307-97 margin (full roll call vote here) to essentially take over the tobacco industry by fiat and smothering FDA regu…

Heh. I left out a lot of things. Fingers get tired after a while typing such lists, though.

The “your freedoms end when they start costing me money” is the wedge issue the statists use perhaps most effectively……….and we willingly bear them or we loose freedom.

Agreed completely, and the point I was trying to make with dear Hipp…er…..Happy with my comment of resenting the birth and education costs of her children. *sigh* Should have realized I need to be more blunt with a person so “intellectually honest” as to refer to tobacco companies as the “death industry”.

The best part is that Happy and friends defending the legislation seem not to understand or care that this deal was brokered between TFK and Philip Morris.
PM loves the deal because it essentially freezes the market share in their favor and permanently.

It also places such a burden on the release of new products that it nips the concept of safer cigarettes or reduced harm products in the bud. Unless, of course, it’s a new “cessation” aid coming from Big Pharm. See the tobacco control anti-”E-cigarette” press releases for examples.

In other words, TFK loves the deal because it preserves the “cessation” (or really, replacement therapy) market share for their funders, the pharmaceutical companies.

On June 12th, 2009 at 7:05 pm, sonofdy said:
TOS, try not to sound any more stupid than you already do.

sonofdy, how can you be so blind?

The Chinese flag has stars, our flag has stars. The Soviet Union had a sickle, Islam’s symbol is a crescent.

Can’t you see the Sandinistas are using us all as puppets?

/sarc (just in case they’re reading this and you know they are.)

It’ll come to the point where the government will have us all wrapped up in a nice safe cocoon that won’t allow any bad things in to hurt us, and we’ll be fed warm happy thoughts to think 24/7, and we won’t have to worry about anything anymore.

Which reminds me of the Disney movie Wall-E.

And just think…he only took his first Oath a mere 5 months ago. He still, technically, has more than 3.5 years to go. At the rate Der Fuhrer is going, just where does everyone think he will be by Christmas…if in fact we will still be allowed to celebrate Christmas, that is?

On June 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm, taboo said:

Our county outlawed burning leaves back in the early ’70′s. We never did that ourselves (my parents made us carry the leaves about a half-mile into the woods to get rid of them), but on crisp fall days I used to enjoy the smell from the neighbors burning theirs.

Both of my parents were smokers; however, my mother quit, and she’s still with us and going strong. She had the will power to just stop. She could fight the urge to smoke, and she said that it wasn’t very hard for her at all.

On the other hand, my dad went through heart attacks, a stroke, several operations to repair the circulation in his body, and he STILL kept smoking–until he was essentially bed-ridden and couldn’t get out to do it anymore. His own physical disability forced him to quit, but at that point his days were numbered.

I do not blame the cigarettes for my dad’s ultimate demise. He could have quit using them if he cared about the rest of us enough to do so. My dad was the sort who did whatever HE wanted to do, and it didn’t matter to him how it effected the rest of us. If it hadn’t been the cigarettes, it would have been something else, so I’m totally opposed to imposing fascist controls on everyone because of stuff like tobacco.

On a lighter note, I think that the “South Park” episode regarding this issue pretty much nailed it (it’s several years old, but it pretty much nails what’s going on today).

On June 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm, taboo said: Cars, planes, alcohol, mountain climbing, skydiving, almost all food, and water should be illegal too if you want to judge it all by the same criteria.

Yup. Just taking a walk out of doors increases your chances of something happening to you, so THAT must be curtiled too.

It’ll come to the point where the government will have us all wrapped up in a nice safe cocoon that won’t allow any bad things in to hurt us, and we’ll be fed warm happy thoughts to think 24/7, and we won’t have to worry about anything anymore.

Of course there will be malcontents (like us) who will oppose to being “safe” and utterly compliant, so we will be blamed for everything that goes wrong. Isn’t the lefty’s world a wonderland?

Why dont you just admit you are a smoker?

Cars, planes, alcohol, mountain climbing, skydiving, almost all food, and water should be illegal too if you want to judge it all by the same criteria.

You left off motorcycles and kitchen knives.

The “your freedoms end when they start costing me money” is the wedge issue the statists use perhaps most effectively.

They tie us to each other in myriad ways via a social program, and then we tear at each other.

All of man-kind is, of course, interrelated. Nobody is saying otherwise. But freedom of choice CANNOT be analyzed in terms of what my freedoms cost you, or visa versa. Rights ALWAYS have…on the other end of the tetter-totter…OBLIGATIONS.

For instance, your right to free speech puts me under an obligation to permit your speech, even when I find it hateful to do so. I don’t have to listen, but I can’t force you to shut up, either.

Consider the inverse: I smoke cigars, which entails an obligation of some kind or another on you, so you exercise the power of government to outlaw my smoking of cigars. Many things flow from that arrangement, including my right to look closely at all you do for something that imposes an obligation on me, and invoke the power of government to forbid that conduct. You can see the spiral that sets up.

Who wins in that scenario? Government. And every living American, and their children, loose.

Put another way…freedom is not without costs, and we willingly bear them or we loose freedom.

Is everyone here addicted to nicotine?

Typical meaningless anti-tobacco “smokers are addicts so they have no mental competence” drivel.

Are you all in denial about cigarette smoking leading to increasing your risk of contracting lung cancer?
Cigars and chewing tobacco lead in increase your risk of contracting cancers in the mouth.

FTFY.

Cigars, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco should be illegal.

Cars, planes, alcohol, mountain climbing, skydiving, almost all food, and water should be illegal too if you want to judge it all by the same criteria.

And, lest we forget, cell phones, high power transmission, microwave ovens, campfires, leaf burning, anything burning, watching tv, using a computer, vaccines, stress, working, being poor, being rich, being american and travelling all have rather high risks according to actual peer-reviewed studies.

FTFY. Judging from your comment you never were a “conservative”….just another moonbat.

BTW – Your freedom stops at the line where it costs me money.
We pay for health insurance for our family and our employees.

Actually, I quite agree with this one…..let’s all pay our own costs for everything. As a non-breeder I resent paying for the high costs of your family giving birth, as well as my taxes going on education of your children. Let’s start there, shall we?