The site put up by the University of Bath that I mentioned yesterday is worth a read. It is, frankly, an exercise in self-delusion. Here, then is an example of these people’s inability to see themselves as they really are. They start by quoting Arthur Schopenhauer:
A last trick is to become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst. It consists in passing from the subject of dispute, as from a lost game, to the disputant himself, and in some way attacking his person … But in becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack to his person, by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.
This is a very good quote. It is perfectly true. Now, where have we seen the tactic used before? Oh, yeah… Tobacco control and the vile legions it has encouraged. How many times do the anti-smokers talk disparagingly of smokers? (Smelly, dirty, unhealthy and so on?). How many times do they talk of smokers being killed in order to stop them? If you want a reminder, Dick Puddlecote has been collecting examples of this psychosis for some while now. Before the University of Bath seeks to claim that those of us who openly despise the anti brigade are engaging in personal attacks, they need to remove that beam from their own eye. Yes, I realise that this is a tu quoque, but the fact remains, the anti-smoking lobby has been using this ploy for denigrating and denormalising those who oppose them for some while. To now complain that others are using it against them is pretty rich – although, to be fair, amusing.
More recently there has been a concerted effort by pro-smoking bloggers to demonise the tobacco control community as “extremists”, “zealots” “fascists” etc. One pro-smoking blogger, Chris Snowdon, even talks about the “Provisional Wing” of the anti-smoking movement, invoking similarities to the Provisional IRA.
Ah, how do the righteous squeal when their own tactics are turned upon them. Although, having read Snowdon’s work, I detect the use of underlying humour – but, then, the quote has been used out of context which is a theme that runs throughout this site.
Then of course we get the claim that they are doing it for our own good, so liberty is not a valid argument to be using. After all, they are on the side of public health. No, they are not. This is not a public health issue. It is a matter of personal health and personal choice. If people wish to smoke tobacco, knowing full well what the risks are to their long term health, then that is their business. It is not the business of the various fake charities, health fascists and clingers on, who cheerfully help themselves to the contents of the taxpayer’s wallet. Yes, we are funding this cancer.
The language is always carefully crafted. The coalition of libertarian groups arguing against Plain Packaging in the UK calls itself the “Coalition of the Sane”. This infers that a public health measure which is designed to protect children from smoking is somehow insane.
That is not twisting language at all, it is being accurate. This is about personal liberty – and of course, we get the standard righteous tactic, as they roll out the “for the children” argument. The last refuge of the righteous scoundrel.
And, yes, they are Nazis. Intemperate language may seem extreme, but is necessary when describing people who have consistently used the tactics of untermensch in attempting to further their cause. This is the result of their behaviour – this is what they have encouraged. How dare they now complain when people point out the truth – that they are Nazis. How dare they complain when people merely use their methods to argue against them. They and they alone are responsible for this evil.
XX The language is always carefully crafted. The coalition of libertarian groups arguing against Plain Packaging in the UK calls itself the “Coalition of the Sane”. This infers that a public health measure which is designed to protect children from smoking is somehow insane. XX
I am glad you put that in, it has dragged my brain into remembering something that always “worried” me. Something I knew was buried in there, but this has brought it out.
I don’t know about other towns, Schools, whatever, but it was a well known, and established practice, for those that smoked to buy “Loosies”, which were kept under the counter by the shop keeper, and were the remains from broken packets.
(It was, and as far as I know IS illegal to sell “loosies”. Therefore “under the counter”)
This, from personal experience, was still going on when I left Britain 20 odd years ago.
Therefore, hardly a single cigarette smoked in my school was even IN a packet, plain or otherwise. It is the case, that the fact they were NOT in marked packets, made them MORE atractive to the “small buyer”!
Something that may be worth bearing in mind when collecting figures/info for this.
I cannot claim credit for coining the term ‘provisional wing’ in reference to anti-smokers. I borrowed it from George Davey Smith, an internationally respected epidemiologist who wrote an article about the limits of epidemiology in 2000. Discussing correlation and causation, he notes that smokers are more likely to be murdered.
“Smokers of two packs or more per day were more than twice as likely to be murdered as nonsmokers. Unless the provisional wing of the health educationlobby has moved on to a direct action phase, during which they shoot smokers, this association is very unlikely to be causal.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/95704761/1-Reflexions-on-Limitations-to-Epidemiology
I wouldn’t expect the pseudo-scientists who created tobaccotactics.org to be familiar with this article, nor indeed to accept that epidemiology has any limits. The site’s editor, Anna Gilmore, once noticed that heart attacks had been falling for many years and published an article in the BMJ attributing the post-2007 to the smoking ban of the same year.
XX “Smokers of two packs or more per day were more than twice as likely to be murdered as nonsmokers…..”XX
And EVERY person that is murdered, or even just snuffs it, is a milk consumer, or an ex milk consumer.
I always said milk is bloody DANGEROUS stuff, so it is.
Oh yes. And the anti-smokers accused Davey Smith of working for the tobacco industry after he expressed scepticism about secondhand smoke. He didn’t/doesn’t.
http://archive.tobacco.org/resources/general/030601daveysmithretraction.html
Top article, LR. 🙂
It’s not just out-of-context text grabs and cherry-picked smears either. The thing is littered with elementary errors, and I’ve only looked at about a dozen pages so far. Fail.
Frankly, you could write a book.
Every time I read it, though, I can’t help being reminded of this. 😉
“they roll out the “for the children” argument.”
However, they never do get around to saying why being a smoker would be bad for a child.
There are NO DEATHS from the smoking ’caused’ diseases that happen below the age of 35. At least none are claimed by the American CDC.
The average age of death for smokers from the smoking ’caused’ diseases is about 73 years of age. According to the American CDC.
If they are going to die from a disease ’caused’ by their smoking, those poor cheeeeldren smokers will have to smoke for over 50 years before it will probably happen!!!
That is not what one would call a ‘clear and present danger’.
Gary K.
‘Think of the septuagenarians’ doesn’t have quite the emotive ring to it.
Excellent piece. In a nutshell. Despite of all this, that damn video that shows a smoker getting beaten to death is back on youtube even after we told the local PCT that it would encourage extremists. http://patnurseblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/why-i-distrust-tobacco-control.html
Can’t agree with you, Pat. I think the “encourage extremists” is a bit of a stretch and, in any case, I don’t believe such general incitement to violence arguments justify restrictions on free speech. I’d be more concerned if taxpayer funds had been used to make such propaganda.