All week long on the radio people have been all a-frenzied re: the cigarette tax going up. $2.75 in NYC, I believe. "An outrage!!!!"they say, or "ooooohh, now people will quit smoking!!" Which is funny to me, cause you could charge people one week's pay and a smack in the head with an aluminum bat for a pack of smokes, and they're still buying 'em.
Smoking is one of the more affronting vices we have in society, isn't it? It's gotten better since the smoking ban in bars 6 years ago, maybe they've come to realize a bit what dickheads they were being, but there was a time you simply could not tell a smoker that the shit was bothersome to you, a non-smoker. They'd crankily dismiss you "oh, it doesn't bother anyone!" as I was being coated with another layer of their smoke. You don't see such indifference from someone who pours a beer all over you, do you? Likewise, if some drunk plowed over someone and killed them, I would assume they'd feel awful. Meanwhile, if you tell a smoker that their lifetime of smoking would kill, say, 0.5 people (a completely made up number) you'd get a big "oh that's bullshit, second-hand smoke doesn't hurt or bother anyone, fuck you!!"
So now I'm thinking. Instead of raising taxes on cigarettes, let's make them absolutely, 100% FREE! Even if only for, say, a four-year period. You're a smoker? Great! I'll personally bring cases of cartons over to your house, encouraging you "smoke, smoke! smoke up, buddy!" My goal being of course to get you dead as quickly as possible. The more dead smokers there are, the less chance I have of dying from the shit, right? It's like if Dracula's chasing us - I have don't hafta outrun DRACULA; I just hafta outrun YOU.
9 comments:
yeah and that whole thing about a legal act and telling businesses who they can and can't serve and all that crap, we'll just chuck it. No one ever had one too many cigarettes and killed a family of four on the way home from the bar.
I'm an ex-smoker and I know it kills but I also know stats have been mainpulated on smoking deaths, second hand smoke and everything else related to it.
Leave it up to the bars on who they do and don't want to serve. And maybe we can ban pizza while we're at it.
And finally, we're not all meant to live until we're 90.
1) see how defensive even an EX-smoker is about this??!?!?
3) maybe on the 90, but a) who're you or anybody else to say? b) i don't think that means you deserve a prize for making sure i don't reach that age by blowing smoke into my lungs.
3) maybe youre confused about the term "modest proposal." light(en) up! :)
I can understand in theory why people dont want the government to tell them what to do, but if this is their stance, do they really think we should just open the doors for everything?
No speed limits.
No limits on porn or violence on tv.
No age limits on alcohol.
No limit on wives for Xmastime.
With regards to number one, that falls under the old, whoever brings up Hitler first loses the argument. There are no limits on violence on TV....I can argue that 21 for drinking is idiotic. Number four has no application.
I am a smoker. Have been for decades. I enjoy it and have no desire to quit.
I have no problem not being allowed to smoke in public buildings, offices, places of worship, sports and concert arenas, restaurants, etc.
I don’t smoke in the vicinity of children.
I’ve never lit up in the home of a non-smoker, nor have I asked their permission to do so, even during a party where alcohol is being served.
So, it irks me to no end that there is a smoking ban in effect when it comes to bars where, by definition, NO FUCKING HEALTH-CONSCIOUS ACTIVITY is going on. We couldn’t have ONE place? ONE? Not even the place where PEOPLE VOLUNTARILY GO TO POISON THEIR BODIES WITH ALCOHOL? We can’t have that one? No?
As anyone who’s seen the smug wine and cheese crowd in the media condescendingly turn up their noses at the mention of smokers—who are seemingly just slightly less disgusting than Bin Laden, pedophiles, and OJ Simpson—this tax increase is one of the more elitist, bullshit moves I’ve seen in my lifetime. Let’s make it fair, non-smokers: how about, from now on we tax a six-pack of Bud so that it costs $24 at the corner bodega; a bottle of cheap wine or spirits a minimum of $50. Hey, a sin tax is a sin tax. And the economy could sure use a jolt, right?
"No one ever had one too many cigarettes and killed a family of four on the way home from the bar."
Even if you live long past 90, Rambler, you will NEVER get a coherent counterargument to that statement.
"I can argue that 21 for drinking is idiotic."
You haven't lived until you hear someone try to validate the fact that an 18 year old can legally drive a car, get married, sign up their life to Uncle Sam and possibly die in a foreign land, but shouldn't be allowed to have a beer. It's genius, man.
good point re: bars Kiko - its not like Im in there doing pushups mapping out my Master Cleanse for the week.
BUT your Bud/bodega stuff does not apply; someone drinking beer does not automatically mean he's gonna get into a car and plow over my kids. there's a chance, but not a great chance. but a smoker next to me means there's a 100% chance there will be smoke in my personal space.
and, i believe my original premise was the OPPOSITE of a sin tax.
The point I was trying to make on tax equality wasn't based on the assumption that the drinker was likely to drive drunk. What I was trying to illustrate--clumsily, I'll admit--is that those drinkers who frown on smokers AND cheer this tax are hypocrites, since they'd be up in arms in a heartbeat if the same guidelines applied to their choice of poison. "Yeah, fuck those low-life smokers; just don't tax MY shit."
agreed re: people just dont want you to tax their own shit. just like ive said many times re: govt spending, as in people only bitch about spending when its not being spent on their own shit. which was my point when i pointed out how defensive The Rambler sounded. cause i can read minds.
and i dont cheer the tax - i want no tax so theyll all smoke up and drop dead so i can live to be 150!!! :)
tho with my prediliction for diseases in textbooks from the 1700s im hoping for 40 ;)
also, am I the only one who just loves saying and typing "The Rambler"? cracks me up
I like typing The Rambler too! BTW, just read my new place of employments rule book and while blogging is not prohibited, it does say that it should be the type of material that would not be objectionable...I think I'm fucked.
But THE RAMBLER will ramble on, albeit from the west coast where there are no Duane Reade chains but lots of CVS!
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