Big Tobacco to smokers: Bend over

Amazing how many flaws there can be in one post.

I don't want this thread locked. I really am sick of you going out of your way to pick fights and get threads locked. Why would I want this thread locked when I love what is happening and I'm enjoying watching every poster on the thread tear your side of the argument to pieces?

I'm happy about the tax increase for a number of reasons. Most importantly, tax increases on tobacco products lead to prices going up in the stores. When prices go up in the stores, people smoke less. That is a good thing.

The differences between caffeine and alcohol have been pointed out to you repeatedly. You simply choose to ignore the things that poke massive holes in your arguments.

Most importantly among those differences, if I take a drink, I don't poison everybody around me. If I eat a cheeseburger, I don't poison the people around me. If I were to smoke a cigarette, I would be poisoning everyone around me. Secondhand smoke is a health hazard. It's the discussion that people who try to defend the tobacco industry run and hide from because they know they don't have an answer for it.

 

Nobody has torn anything to shreds - you keep hoping someone can bail you out and help you out since your arguments have been sinking faster than the Titanic all day.

And again -- your attempts to make it seem like I am a serial thread locker is a charming plea for help but it is dead wrong. Dead wrong and I already proved it by counting the locked threads -- an excercise you should try before shooting off your mouth about who is getting threads locked, because it ain't me.

That is a FACT.

As is your inability to admit you are wrong and your inability to not get the last word.

 

Was there one thing in that post on topic? No. You continue to prove me right by trying to turn this into a personal battle. Your performance on this thread reminds me of a boxer popping up 10 minutes after he has been knocked out, not even realizing the fight ended with him on the canvas a long time ago.

The idea that smoking is just "politically incorrect" is beyond ridiculous. Everybody else on this thread sees that. The tax increase and other measures that are slowly tearing down the tobacco industry are a sign that the people of this country are wising up. I doubt a full ban on tobacco will ever happen, but if the tobacco industry dies a death of 1,000 paper cuts, that works just fine.

 

What more can be said on topic that hasn't already destroyed your ridiculous EMOTION-filled rants about smoking?

Seriously, you can't refute the things I've said about the alcohol and fast food and junk food and caffeine-related products industries and you've been reduced to knee jerk reactionism about how "you don't care how un-American it is, you just want those greedy meanie tobacco companies put in their place......"

That might fly on the Bernie Ward show - it doesn't cut the mustard in terms of holding our government accountable when it does things that are un-American, unconstitutional and/or both.

There is simply no defense for it - no matter how disgusting you find smoking to be. Emotion filled rants and pscyhobabble aren't good enough -- and you can't seem to understand this.

 

hey, libertarian, sin taxes are neither unconstitutional nor new. get used to it.

 

Oh, so that makes it right.

I forgot.

OK, now that we have that cleared up...... :

And what is going on here is far more oppressive than a sin tax.

 

You are every bit as emotional in your attacks on taxes that you disagree with. We have seen it on this board time and again. You are the one attacking people rather than discussing the issues. You are the one getting upset. Perhaps you should re-examine your own emotional issues.

We all have our motivations and most of them are very personal to us. The key is to accept them, examine them intellectually, and then go forward. Your points have been refuted repeatedly. You just refuse to accept it, and you keep avoiding the points of mine that you have no answer for (second-hand smoke, for example).

 

I haven't attacked anybody. You may feel attacked but that's because you are making this issue (1) personal and (2) emotional. And neither work when discussing the law, the constitution and what is and isn't American.

And unfortunately for you, I have a lot of history and precedence on my side in terms of what taxes we as Americans should and do disagree with.

And taxation of this form on any other industry would be destroyed and any politician who tried to float this kind of taxation on another industry would be committing career suicide.

 

This is quite exciting.

Who will get the last word?

 

Yes, attacking the intellect of other posters repeatedly is just friendly conversation.

No other industry is as uniquely deserving of this kind of taxation.

 

Sorry, you make it as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

And again, you not liking or agreeing with an industry is not a good enough reason for you and other citizens to let the government run roughshod all over it and tax it to death.

What happens when an industry you do like, agree with, or worse, depend on for a paycheck, is next in the cross hairs?

And don't say it couldn't happen because it can and as we've seen with the tobacco industry, it does.

 

Wheeeeeeee! This is fun isn't it? Just like a roller-coaster!