The U.K. Smoking Ban Is Illiberal
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Although I don’t want to undersell the addictiveness of weed, like many people do, it is still psychologically very easy to form an addiction.
You still have the right to bodily autonomy. What sellers don't have is the right to sell something that kills their clients and has obvious consequences en mass.
Just grow your own tobacco, cure it, process it, and roll your own cigarettes. Think of it like building your own Linux distro. You always had that ability, but didn't exercise it. Now you can.
Just grow your own grapes, ferment them, distill them, and bottle your own whiskey.
Just raise your own cattle, slaughter them, butcher them, and prepare your own steak.
Just raise your own cows, milk them, pasteurize the milk, and produce your own cheese.
But don't expect other people to make everything easy for you. If you really want to, you can. Laziness is not an excuse.
I could demand you sell me your clothes. Just as absurd.
The point of this question is that I own my clothes, but the government does not own the tobacco. Unless you think the government owns everything.
Ownership is a fabrication of human mind. If it was part of the universe we would be able to devise an instrument that mesures it. We've done a very good job of reifiying it and telling people that it's part of the natural order, but humans are very very good at constructing ontologies and forgetting they are the authors.
But anyway, $20B / 30M smokers give only $666/person. A $2 tax per pack covers it with a proficit.
But I like the idea, no meat for people born after 2009.
Driving a car is also bad for the air. Cycling is much better.
To be fair, you've left out
* Just build your own furnaces and make your own glass [check]
* Build your own aircraft [check]
* Fell trees for firewood and lumber [check]
* Make your own spear and catch your own food [check]
etc.
I was sitting down and eating the muffin, while a dude was standing in front of me, chatting and smoking a cigarette, and mostly holding the lit cigarette behind his back and in front of my face.
I believe that “No Smoking” signs were posted around the convention center. There were no ashtrays anywhere. So as I finished eating, I had the wrapper in my hand: a thick oven-safe wax paper. So wrapped up my fingers, took aim, and snatched the cigarette away, cherry and all, snuffing it with the wrapper.
The smoker guy was surprised and gave me a dirty look. He didn’t light another. I mentioned it later to my friends, who said that I deserved to get punched.
But at least many birds and other animals will definitively not touch it twice, as well most insects, and you can always use it as an pesticide if one decided that smoking it is not that great.
Here's something else that's argument-destroying: the ban doesn't apply to the people born after 2009, it applies to anyone trying to sell them tobacco or vapes. This falls under the aegis of regulation (can't sell heroin either) and applies to all sellers regardless of race, age, sex, etc, so it's not even discriminatory. Claims destroyed, nice try token conservative at liberal outlet.
But finally, Friedersdorf talks about the dignity of making choices and dealing with the consequences. I'd love to see him make this argument to people dying slowly of COPD and emphysema, people with mouth, throat, and lung cancer, people who will die before meeting their grandkids, etc. Just, chilling detachment from humanity.
The argument that smokers were victims who didn't know hasn't held any water for decades...
If you ever struggle with addiction, you'll know that decision making is no longer well-reasoned or thought through. Such is addiction.
It's not a personal decision to stay addicted. Let me tell you from experience. I wanted to stop. Yet, the cravings didn't let me until I had external forcing factors. Why should we deny other addicts that same help?
This is a terrible argument. Imagine a law that prohibited ALL vendors, regardless of age, race, sex, etc from selling to people of a certain race. Would you claim that such a law is not discriminatory, because it affects vendors of all races equally?
> particularly lazy article
> just a bunch of trying to troll the libs
> Here's something else that's argument-destroying
> Claims destroyed, nice try token conservative at liberal outlet
> Just, chilling detachment from humanity
I don't agree with CF on many things, including this smoking ban, but I'd point out these kinds of flourishes do nothing but weaken your overall point.
This isn't the same thing; race is a protected class; "birth year" isn't. Also is this a flourish: "This is a terrible argument"??? I welcome you to the land of polemics and hyperbole, united against the soul-eating bland vomit of AI compositions.
I note that the US concept of "protected class" has absolutely no relevance to the UK; the British parliament is sovereign and not bound to care at all about whichever random characteristics are enumerated among America's "protected classes". (The roughest European equivalent is the ECHR, which prohibits discrimination "on any ground", making the idea of protected classes even more redundant in this conversation. The British Equality Act explicitly does mention age. Of course, none of this is really relevant. The British parliament has the power to make its laws as discriminatory as it wants, unlike in the US, under the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty.)
A law that imposes a general obligation to discriminate against a specific group is obviously discriminatory, and no amount of juvenile word games makes it not so. The question isn't whether this is or is not discriminatory - it clearly is - the question is whether this discrimination is justified.
In thirty years, if this law stands as is, we'll have forty-seven year old men and women who cannot legally buy a product, and forty-eight year old men and women who can. We've not really had many laws like this before, so it's worth considering whether this discrimination is justified (or even workable). It's a good question, and one I don't have an answer for. It is also the question engaged in by CF in TFA, and a much more interesting question than the relatively much less sophisticated arguments you've very bombastically put forward.
> united against the soul-eating bland vomit of AI compositions
This seems like a total non sequitur to me. AI exists, so you don't have to comment in good faith? AI exists, therefore you get to couch bad arguments in overheated rhetoric? AI exists, therefore you get to deepen the partisan divide by lazily dismissing CF as a 'token conservative', when he's not even talking about a left-right issue?
You said "would you claim" and I said no based on US statutes and case laws as a US citizen. You can't discriminate against a non-protected class, for example ignorant HN posters. You'd probably get a different answer from a bona fide European. Friedersdorf is also American, so eat that one too.
> In thirty years, if this law stands as is, we'll have forty-seven year old men and women who cannot legally buy a product, and forty-eight year old men and women who can.
No one cares even a little about this. Of course the best thing to do is to kick anyone selling tobacco or vapes to anyone of any age into a lake of fire. This is the next best thing.
> AI exists, therefore you get to deepen the partisan divide by lazily dismissing CF as a 'token conservative', when he's not even talking about a left-right issue?
Friedersdorf is trying to outflank the libs while simultaneously painting the UK as some sort of fascist hellscape. It's craven and pathetic. The nicest thing I can do is deploy hyperbole.
The only one taking things to such extremes is you. You've largely ignored the content of the article, countered with barely coherent counter-arguments that you're awkwardly couching in Twitter-circa-2014-style "dunks", and ultimately you're the only one walking away with a feeling of hyperpartisanship, because it is what you've arrived with, and what you're projecting onto the world around you.
> ignorant HN posters
> eat that one too
> craven and pathetic
You imagine everyone else as being at the bottom, and so you race to the bottom yourself to meet them. Except they were never there, that was just your hyperpartisanship blinding you to the nuance and good faith of others. And in the end, the only one who ends up on the bottom - lashing out in bad faith and trying to drag everyone else down with them - is you.
I have given Friedersdorf's article and subject more attention than he did:
> Of course, although the law may reduce smoking, it won’t actually yield a smoke-free generation any more than Prohibition yielded a gin-free generation. Black markets for cigarettes will expand. Many people will buy them, even if they’re unregulated and potentially more dangerous than legal cigarettes (and end up enriching criminals).
Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drug laws. In particular, this is an argument against all laws, which is reductio ad absurdum, and the type of faux intellectualism we've come to expect from the right.
> The law’s design raises equal-protection concerns too. At first, it will affect only people ages 17 and younger.
Addressed: not an equal protection concern as it applies to vendors, not buyers, and "birth date" isn't a protected class. This is the kind of lazy "dunk" the right loves ("oh I thought you haaaaaated discrimination, what hypocrites!"), albeit in cozy-writer-sweater Atlantic form. Friedersdorf is the one lowering our discourse here, not I.
> It will violate the liberal principle that although the state may initiate force to stop an adult from harming others, it should not do so to stop an adult from harming themselves.
Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drugs, requiring seat belt laws, etc. In this case, it would be "the state has a vested interest in its people being healthy", which the UK discovered when they had practically no healthy men in the wake of WW2 and birthed the NHS. This is the kind of historical ignorance we've learned to expect from the right.
> There is inherent dignity in making choices and living with the consequences
Addressed: there is no dignity in suffering/dying from what tobacco and vapes do to you.
> As I see it, the conviviality that cocktails, wine, and beer add to meals and social life is worth the health risks, whereas the costs of smoking cigarettes far outweigh the benefits.
Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drugs. In this case, all drugs aren't created equal, i.e. tobacco isn't comparable to alcohol. Alcohol contributes to ~178k deaths/yr in the US. Tobacco contributes to over 490k/yr, 2.75x. Secondhand smoke exposure causes 1.2 million premature deaths annually worldwide. In 2021 alone, exposure to second-hand smoke was linked to nearly 8.45m years of healthy life lost in children worldwide due to respiratory infections and tuberculosis. Why should children suffer the consequences of their parents' decisions here?
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/health-professionals-communities/c...
https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/tobacco/adult_s...
https://www.fda.gov/tobacco-products/public-health-education...
https://europeanlung.org/en/news-and-blog/children-lose-8-45...
> Although a majority of U.K. citizens support the smoking ban, more may come around to Hockney’s position if, as I suspect, the paternalists in Parliament are emboldened rather than satiated by their ban on cigarettes, and expand their ambitions to a broader array of unhealthy behavior. I’d hate to bet on what exactly they might attempt to control next.
Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drug laws. In this case, it's a slippery slope fallacy. Actually, this article is something of a menagerie of fallacies.
---
Maybe you think I'm rude, dismissive, arrogant, privileged even. Maybe I am. But that's nothing against a guy wielding his vast influence to try and addict, sicken, and kill untold numbers of people. I am 1000% over conservatives/MAGA/libertarians fucking literally everything up with their idiotic takes and hot trash ideologies. Take my example. Save your ire for people doing actual bad things.
Friedersdorf has expressed his thoughts on drug laws elsewhere, and they are consistent with his other beliefs, in that he thinks drug laws as a form of regulation do not really work. This is hardly an uncommon stance - the general public views the war on drugs as having failed. This is a false application of a reductio ad absurdum, and the insult adds nothing.
> Addressed: not an equal protection concern as it applies to vendors, not buyers, and "birth date" isn't a protected class. This is the kind of lazy "dunk" the right loves ("oh I thought you haaaaaated discrimination, what hypocrites!"), albeit in cozy-writer-sweater Atlantic form. Friedersdorf is the one lowering our discourse here, not I.
Addressed earlier in my posts, this argument is fallacious. A law that forces the general public to discriminate against a specific group is still discriminatory to a specific group. Protected classes do not exist in Europe, and yet where specific characteristics are enumerated, 'age' is one of them. The insult is again unnecessary and adds nothing.
> Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drugs, requiring seat belt laws, etc. In this case, it would be "the state has a vested interest in its people being healthy", which the UK discovered when they had practically no healthy men in the wake of WW2 and birthed the NHS. This is the kind of historical ignorance we've learned to expect from the right.
This is the same point as your first one. For the third time, the insults add nothing.
> Addressed: there is no dignity in suffering/dying from what tobacco and vapes do to you.
Agreed (for my part). I suspect CF sees dignity in letting others decide in what confers meaning in their lives.
> Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drugs. In this case, all drugs aren't created equal, i.e. tobacco isn't comparable to alcohol. Alcohol contributes to ~178k deaths/yr in the US. Tobacco contributes to over 490k/yr, 2.75x. Secondhand smoke exposure causes 1.2 million premature deaths annually worldwide. In 2021 alone, exposure to second-hand smoke was linked to nearly 8.45m years of healthy life lost in children worldwide due to respiratory infections and tuberculosis. Why should children suffer the consequences of their parents' decisions here?
Isn't this again the same point as your first one? Drugs are significantly more destructive than tobacco and CF favours their legalisation too (along with a focus away from legislating and towards treatment).
> Addressed: Friedersdorf fails to address similar arguments against drug laws. In this case, it's a slippery slope fallacy. Actually, this article is something of a menagerie of fallacies.
The menagerie of fallacies appears to all be the same one point you repeat over and over again, together with schoolboy-level insults.
You're claiming a lot of world-weary familiarity with libertarian talking points, and yet you seem unaware that libertarians do generally support drug legalisation, or any of their arguments in favour of that stance (they tend to believe people will consume drugs no matter what, and it doesn't help anything to also put them in prison).
> Maybe you think I'm rude, dismissive, arrogant, privileged even. Maybe I am. But that's nothing against a guy wielding his vast influence to try and addict, sicken, and kill untold numbers of people. I am 1000% over conservatives/MAGA/libertarians fucking literally everything up with their idiotic takes and hot trash ideologies. Take my example. Save your ire for people doing actual bad things.
I think you've decided that CF has bad intent, and this utterly blinds you to the possibility that he actually genuinely wants what's best, and he thinks over-regulation does more harm than good. I don't necessarily agree with him on tobacco, but it's a perfectly valid stance for someone to take without wanting to murder puppies.
I think you take this worst-case, worst-intentioned version of CF and then give yourself license to just absolutely spit venom back. The problem is, this is a style of politics that absolutely does not work, and in fact really turns people away from what you're arguing for. There is not a person on Earth who's ever been convinced to turn their politics around by being called a moron over and over again.
I think overall this is indicative of the fact that you treat politics as a game, as a little fun sport to win or lose at, which - yes - smacks of privilege. As someone in a vulnerable minority group I do not have the luxury of spitting venom at the other side and just being sort of fine no matter who wins. It is much more significant to me that political argumentation is effective, because I want to turn moderates towards my politics and build a lasting coalition to secure my rights. Nothing repels moderates more than this kind of partisan bombast. From my perspective, you're the person doing the 'actual bad things', because the more of you there are, the more repellent left of centre politics becomes, and the less secure my rights get. You're actively working against my existential political interests, so by your logic, shouldn't I be absolutely spitting venom back at you? Would you find this persuasive? (And if not, why do you do it then?)
TLDR: An effective politics requires a willingness to understand other viewpoints. Spitting bile at everyone else may feel very cathartic for you - so if personal catharsis is the goal of your politics, well done! - but it's politically ineffective. It convinces no-one and achieves nothing. I respectfully suggest that you consider the possibility that others actually mean well, even when their actions seem inexplicable to you, and that if you try to understand them, you may actually be able to reach them. A much bigger win than some petty online sniping, no?
I don't think he has bad intent. I'm just saying his idiocy is so rampantly virulent anyone who reads one of his articles should be treated for brain damage; like Typhoid Mary he should be banned from his chosen profession in the interest of public sanitation; anyone who really believes ignorance is bliss should spend an evening with Friedersdorf's catalog and wake up the next morning happier for it.
> Friedersdorf has expressed his thoughts on drug laws elsewhere, and they are consistent with his other beliefs, in that he thinks drug laws as a form of regulation do not really work.
Our correspondence has regrettably required me to ingest Friedersdorf's oeuvre of articles on the war on drugs. You're right, he doesn't think it's effective, and he doesn't think the collateral is worth it. I agree! But he doesn't think we should put drug dealers in prison, which is nutso. He also doesn't have any plan for the additional treatment that would be required, which is irresponsible.
Let's imagine a world where tobacco is illegal, like cocaine. Some libertarian somewhere is like "hey, imagine a world where we don't terrorize an entire continent in service of proscribing tobacco; how do we get there?" And the answer, unbelievably, is that you decriminalize usage, treat users, and punish sellers. That is this regime. But Friedersdorf prefers merely to whine about the grotesqueness of it all. He's getting what he wants! Can't he see this is the entree? (Narrator voice: "No, he cannot".)
> Protected classes do not exist in Europe
You've been wrong about this for maybe 16 years or so: https://www.local.gov.uk/our-support/workforce-and-hr-suppor...
> and yet where specific characteristics are enumerated, 'age' is one of them.
"birth date" is not "age".
> [libertarians] tend to believe people will consume drugs no matter what
Legalization advocates argue constantly equate relatively small numbers of users with huge numbers of users. Cannabis use has skyrocketed since legalization: https://www.addictiongroup.org/resources/marijuana-use-stati.... Imagine the effect cocaine legalization would have on a society that couldn't even handle Four Loco. Again the kind of rattling skull brilliance we get from the right.
I'd also love to hear a libertarian explain how we're gonna pay for all the treatment that'll be required, given that we won't have any taxes on anyone under their regime. Wait, no I wouldn't, I need to hang onto the few functioning brain cells I have left.
> There is not a person on Earth who's ever been convinced to turn their politics around by being called a moron over and over again.
Hey, I believe all people deserve love and respect, no matter their intelligence level. Friedersdorf clearly didn't find his calling, but that's OK! Maybe he could do better as a prompt engineer or something.
In seriousness, Friedersdorf isn't in conversation with anyone. Most people on the right are Clarence Thomases: they've made up their mind and they're not changing it. They are not in conversation with us; they're not looking to be convinced by us, they're not open-minded; they're not acting in good faith; they're in the town square solely to trumpet their ideas, not to hear ours. Again I don't think in Friedersdorf's case this is malign intent. I just don't think he has the mental flexibility to conceive of the world any other way.
> An effective politics requires a willingness to understand other viewpoints
I couldn't disagree more. Most viewpoints are pretty bad. Ideally you educate/persuade people out of them, but at some point you're fighting. I don't think in a million years I'll ever convince Friedersdorf or most libertarians they're wrong. My hope is I convince passersby that the ideology is bankrupt and foolish, a playpen for small minds with small dreams.
> I want to turn moderates towards my politics and build a lasting coalition to secure my rights
Vote Democrat. Leftists, MAGA, conservatives, libertarians, they all want to strip your rights in service of their weirdo ideology. Simple as that. Or, decide we're too rude and shamble into the gulag. Whatever I guess.
That's just it, you don't, when your arguments are poor and your tone hostile. The only people who support you are people who already agreed with you; everyone else (the passerby moderate) is automatically repelled.
> Vote Democrat. Leftists, MAGA, conservatives, libertarians, they all want to strip your rights in service of their weirdo ideology. Simple as that. Or, decide we're too rude and shamble into the gulag. Whatever I guess.
It was very recently that Bill Clinton was signing in "welfare reform" and the Defence of Marriage Act, and minorities were told to shut up, it would be even worse under the other guys. It's pretty obvious when someone sees minorities as an adornment to their politics, and considers their actual needs and interests an irritant.
Consider what kind of messed up version of left wing politics would talk that way to the people it ostensibly exists to represent.
Nah, dude. Politics is lifestyle brand to you, and online toxicity is your form of cathartic self-expression. The actual messy needs of the underprivileged are an inconvenience to your "right side of history" posturing. There's nothing noble about this. The MAGA crowd are just the red flavour of people like you.
You have no way of knowing this.
> your arguments are poor
You've yet to refute any of my arguments, focusing only on optics.
> your tone hostile
I call it like I see it, in good faith. If you're offended, feel free to engage on the substance. Or you can make any real changes on your end contingent on meaningless tone changes on mine, but that would put you in the same basket as Friedersdorf, Thomas, et al: unwilling to engage in conversation and good faith debate.
> It was very recently that Bill Clinton was signing in "welfare reform" and the Defence [sic] of Marriage Act, and minorities were told to shut up
That was over 30 years ago. Remember that one time we elected the first Black president, ran the first woman candidate for president, elected the first Black woman vice-president? Remember that one time we put the first Black woman on the bench? Remember that one time we got marriage rights for the LGBTQ community? Remember that one time we pushed for years to decriminalize and legalize cannabis and spare thousands and thousands of Black men meaningless prison sentences? Remember when we pushed through sentencing reform? Remember all our efforts to reform the immigration and asylum systems? Etc. etc. etc. If this is your summation of the benefits Democrats have had on minority populations since and including the Clinton era you are woefully ignorant.
> Nah, dude. Politics is lifestyle brand to you, and online toxicity is your form of cathartic self-expression.
Of the two of us, only you have resorted to personal attacks. Every accusation is a confession.
Really? I suggest re-reading the exchange.
> Of the two of us, only you have resorted to personal attacks
That's a little rich, given all of your posts above are absolutely steeped in schoolyard insults. Do personal attacks somehow not count if they're directed at a third party? Is CF not a person to you?
> Every accusation is a confession
Wow, criminal prosecutors must commit a lot of murders then. This is the problem with your posts in a nutshell: all rhetorical flourishes, no substance. Nothing hangs together as a coherent argument, because it's not meant to, it's just meant to sound bombastic online.
Anyone reading here can see all the points you let stand, from anything about reductio ad absurdum, to drug laws, to the intransigence of the right. Are we to the part of the thread where you just say things that are clearly untrue and hope no one has a memory longer than 5 seconds?
> That's a little rich, given all of your posts above are absolutely steeped in schoolyard insults. Do personal attacks somehow not count if they're directed at a third party? Is CF not a person to you?
In the same way I don't think a libertarian fortune cookie program is a person, I don't recognize Friedersdorf's personhood, no. I will crush his weird body like a dry snack and consume him for energy and pleasure, such is my appraisal of his full and total worth and consideration.
> This is the problem with your posts in a nutshell: all rhetorical flourishes, no substance
Of the two of us, I'm the only one who's cited 3rd party sources and Friedersdorf himself.
I think if you're honest, you'll admit you're envious that I bring both style and substance. Not everyone can be great, Friedersdorf is a prime example of this, and I think he and others like him should take at least a minute to consider what a burden it is for people like me to shoulder the envy of the world.
This solution at least lets the current addicts maintain their addiction, but there are much safer ways to get nicotine these days if you want it, lozenges, vapes, pouches.
Want to die? Die fast, not in a way that waste everyone’s money, and don’t take others with you.
So I'd say things are already exactly as you wish.
I'd be interested to see this - you have a source you can link for it?
Most of the price of a pack of cigarettes in the UK is tax. It is fairly well known that revenue is higher than cost to healthcare service (NHS, which is funded via general taxation), and data are public and very easily found. My previous comment with data was indeed literally the result of two Google queries (revenue amd cost) and were from official sources, which I mentioned.
You don't like the data? Fine. You want to do your own detailed research and enlighten us? Fine. I didn't comment to be cross-examined to death...
"The NHS’s expenditure on smoking-related health issues remains high, corroborated by the reported £20. 6 billion cost to public finances in the UK in 2022, with approximately £2. 2 billion attributed to the NHS" [1]
It seems NHS spending is only a part of the story. Also note that I'm only quoting cost to public finances, the overall societal costs are cited as being much higher.
[0] https://ash.org.uk/key-topics/the-economic-impact-of-smoking
[1] https://themaplesrehab.com/how-much-money-does-the-nhs-spend...
Second, I debunked the argument that illness treatment is paid by the tax payer, when indeed the data show that this is not the case as tax revenue far exceeds cost
Then, adding fuzzier and fuzzier unrelated things and add them up all equally as "costs" (like a very widely defined "economic cost", and peolple do not exist to maximise their labour output) to tilt the balance the other way is not an honest take, it is fudging the numbers to fit a narrative.
Frankly that fits the overall thinking on this topic and others: people cannot decide for themselves reharding their own lives, things must be banned, dissenting opinions are "wrong" and must suppressed. And we are back to exactly what the article is about!
Even if they don't die from a directly smoking-related cause, smokers experience more chronic illness than non-smokers, and it tends to start earlier in life. Non-NHS costs include sickness benefits, absences from work, and reduction in lifetime earnings. And then there are the opportunity costs from whatever else they might have spent the money and time on, not to mention what they might have achieved in life had they not developed emphysema in their early 40s.
It's certainly possible to argue about the exact figures, and ASH are hardly a neutral third-party. But it's more dishonest than not to pretend that they don't exist.
How can you add that like-for-like to actual financial cost to NHS? (Which was the otiginal issue of the discussion, remember?)
Shifting the topic and trying to add random things as "cost" is fudging the numbers, so dishoneest, indeed. It is obvious and I am hoping you see it, too.
Bottom line is that smokers do pay for the cost of their healthcare so this is a fair system and people can then make their own decisions regarding their own lives (which is what a free, liberal society is about).
Well, no, the cost of their own smoking-induced illness isn't the only cost, as mentioned before what about the healthcare costs of people who pick up 2nd or 3rd hand smoke?
I think the point we are making thay you don't want to acknowledge is that the cost to society, healthcare or otherwise, simply cannot be made up for with sin taxes on cigarettes. If we tried that, a pack would need to cost like 10x or more of what it does now, and even then it's debatable.
We have already established that healthcare costs are more than covered by existing tax.
Arguing and trying to make up additional "costs" is, again, just fudging the numbers and clutching at straws at this point...
Live and let live.
Except, you know, the "don't take others with you" part.
That is a crucial, fundamental part of liberalism that people often skip over. Everyone only seems to remember the "I have the freedom to do whatever I want" part and skip over the "until that freedom impedes the freedom of others" part.
Good job everyone!
> I vehemently insist on the right of my fellow humans to smoke.
And I vehemently insist on the right of my fellow humans to live a healthy life. My Grandpa died of an horrific lung disease directly linked to his decades of smoking. I was robbed of decades of his company, all so a few fucks could make a quick buck.
I sincerely believe that selling tobacco to someone can and should be compared to murder. No one would argue that banning murder is illeberal: the right to a long, safe and healthy life is the best of all negative freedoms. Smoking is a small positive freedom we would all fare much bettter without.
Was pretty surprised to see the U.S. bump up smoking age to 21
These efforts seem like the opposite of progress and promote irresponsibility and dependence
Not in the UK but in Sweden. Smoking is already banned in restaurants, on train platforms, mostly all in public.
With health care being tax funded in regions, I dont want to pay for smokers bad health.
"oh but do you want to tax or prohibit unhealthy foods!!??"
Yes, first remove all drinks with sugar or heavily tax them. Not needed. Zero sugar drinks only.
2nd - price hike on snacks, chips, nuts, chocolate, "pick n mix" candy, sugar candy
3rd - BMI based health. Want any help for pain, surgery, whatever and your BMI is over 25? Lower it and you get it. Do you smoke? Stop. Do nicotine? Stop. Any hard drugs? Stop.
American but speak Danish and almost moved there a couple of times.
I make a new account and it is immediately shadowbanned + real banned for evading in 24h. Even with a VPN. They are crafty.
Anyway Reddit is leftie infested too, so they don't like me ether but I liked some specific hobby and work subreddits.
As below said we have that hardcore protestant work ethic, not suitable for everyone. Only Germans do it better.
My point is we have a functional society, healthcare, public transport, schooling and world leading companies, one of the highest HDI in the world etc. We are just the best :)
We banned smoking in public in 2005 and have had a special government alcohol store since 1955.
Nationalist is a bad word nowadays but then people cannot deny where people want to live is in the north or western Europe or USA/Canada. Maybe Japan and SK also.
The thing is, I still don't see how any of that matters. This is a pointless nationalist dick measuring contest that leads nowhere. You're not going to convince anyone of the superiority of Sweden, nor are you likely to be convinced of the superiority of other places, so what is the point of the discussion?
lol
Please name one of those? Especially if it was a Spanish-speaking nation?
> 2nd - price hike on snacks, chips, nuts, chocolate, "pick n mix" candy, sugar candy
I love being proven right.
Sweden does not have a sugar tax but Norway does, they go over the border to buy candy.
The big limit here is alcohol, over 3.5% is only able to be sold in special regulated stores https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget
I assume you are american, must be very blackpilling to visit Sweden. Imagine living in a functional democracy and society where things work like public transport and holidays.
But they have a crazy amount of calories. Nuts are not a thing to snack on, if you eat more than one handful, but it is easy to eat an entire bag and at that point just eat chips.
"A small 1.5-ounce serving often contains 240–300 calories, while larger bags (e.g., 100g) can range from 570 to 750 calories."
Calories are not created equal.
The seed oils in chips are a blinding differentiator alone.
Other contaminants often make chips a much worse choice.
Unless, this being an international forum, you meant “hand cut potato”, not potato crisps - those are a little harder to compare.
And I mean potato chips as in crisps. I mean like Lays.
What if I look like Michael Phelps?
> In terms of weight
Haven’t you ever wondered what the swelling is above the eyes, and in the head in general, of the people on shows like “My 600 Lbs Life”?
I’ll give a hint: it’s not fat. The head doesn’t really store fat like that. It has to be something else.
The “something else” is my concern, here.