Originally Posted by barfly  The Extreme Selfishness of Antismokers
the anti-smoker has become the supreme selfish egotist with little regard or concern for the momentous damage that they inflict upon others. So let’s consider some of that damage.
A particularly worrisome and very recent instance of anti-smoker evil pertains to Senators Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. These two allegedly keen anti-smoker gentlemen have announced a proposal to increase the federal cigarette excise tax from thirty-nine cents to one dollar per pack in order to fund the State Children’s Health Insurance (S-Chip) programme which is up for reauthorisation this year. Whilst on the surface it may appear that this is a great idea that serves two purposes - reducing smoking and providing revenues to fund health insurance for children - a closer examination reveals that the idea is severely flawed and unacceptable from a public health perspective.
Essentially, what the proposal does is make the coverage of children's health care dependent upon the continued sale of cigarettes. In other words, it asks smokers to take on the responsibility of funding children's health care and it depends on smokers continuing to smoke in order to continue the funding whilst, at the same time, they continue to be vilified by Kennedy and Hatch and other individuals and public bodies.
The tax is an unfair one because it places the burden of funding children's health care entirely on smokers, yet the benefits of the tax do not accrue to smokers at all.
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Our Politicians are soooo ignorant! And Gullible! They are told HUGE falsehoods by the Anti's and they believe all that they hear! A good example would be Eliot Spitzer - who was AG for the state of NY in 2006 and then Governor of NY - he was told that kids are able to get cigarettes and other tobacco products easily from the internet! That is absolute HOGWASH. Kids CAN'T get cigs from the internet anymore. Spitzer told the US Postal Service that they were responsible for shipping millions of illegal cigarettes to Kids! He tried to say that the Post Office don't need the revenue from all these shipments to people (smokers like me who order online)! That revenue amounts into the BILLIONS of dollars! The USPostOffice asked congress for 300 billion dollars to cover the shortfall they have for this year! Of Course they DO NEED THAT REVENUE or else they become what? Joe the plumber? Need a huge bailout? Take away the shipments of cigarettes from over 700 online retailers from around the globe and that is a lot of missing Priority Mail and Global Priority Mail revenues!!! Now add to that the "New" cost of enforcement of HR5912 (the PACT act) and you have a Postal Service that is strapped for revenues even more!
Spitzer clearly had it wrong! The whole time he was spouting off for the Anti's, Mr. Spitzer was involved in a "REAL" criminal enterprise - Prostitution! Look at the corrupt politician trying to put the KO on online tobacco orders with ridiculous lies about who can get tobacco shipments and how much revenue the USPS can afford to lose. Thank god the Post Office don't think its a good idea to be messing with First Class Mail matter. Other delivery companies though have been "Black-mailed" by State officials into stopping deliveries of legitimate tobacco shipments to consenting adults (like ME). I voted for McCain because he is a friend to tobacco. Obama already appointed a high-ranking Anti-smoker. So what now, Obama gonna keep smoking in private, but get rid of a bunch of online tobacco jobs. Just because its online, don't mean there is nobody working there.