No Smoking… In Your Own Car

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Soon, they’ll be coming for your cigarettes.Bland image

In your car.

See Sandra Bland.

Or, the study released by the CDC that characterizes “second-hand smoke” as the latest threat to “safety” and (of course) “the children.” It urges what you’d expect: That it be made illegal to smoke in your own car, at least, if “the children” are present.

Possibly even if they’re not.

See Sandra Bland.

Or Daniel McIsaac.

Both were ordered by armed government workers – law enforcers – to put out their cigarettes while sitting in their own cars during a traffic stop. Maybe for “officer safety” (second hand smoke being a “threat”) but probably just to clarify who’s boss.

In the above notorious instances, what the armed government workers did wasn’t legal.

Not that it mattered.

But soon, it may matter even less.

Whenever you hear a government organ eruct about “safety” and mention “the children” in the same eructation, you ought to (by now) know what’s coming.Hero stop

“There is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke,” the CDC study states.

Really? No risk-free level of exposure?

None at all?

The merest whiff?

Is the CDC going to claim that – just off the top of my head –  a 17-year-old (legally, a “child”) who buys a used car that was smoked in previously is exposing himself to a measurable danger thereby? If he accepts a ride in an adult’s car – the adult having smoked a cigarette a few hours previously – have the kid’s chances of becoming emphysematic or developing lung cancer increased intolerably or even measurably?

Yes, exactly.

And then some.

General Zod was sent to the Phantom Zone for actual crimes. We are being criminalized for phantom crimes. Hypothesized (and ever-attenuated) “risk” – but no actual harm caused.  As in the VW Situation, where an entire line of cars was criminalized for … what was it, exactly? Emitting “up to 40 times” more NOx emissions. This sounds very ominous but when you look into it amounts to a fraction of a percent uptick per car and well within the exhaust emissions standards for cars made circa 2000. Which as far as can be ascertained haven’t killed anyone via their exhaust byproducts.

Or even given them a rash.

 Stalin’s secret police chief Lavrenty Beria said, “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”beria

This isn’t a defense of smoking.

It’s a plea for the restoration of sanity.

Notice the quasi-religious aspect, too.

You can almost hear the high-pitched sermonizing of these latter-day Elmer Gantrys:

“The car is the only source of exposure for some of these children,” says the CDC’s Brian King. “So if you can reduce the exposure, it’s definitely advantageous for health.”

As with the jihad against alcohol – which metastasized from reasonable concern over cavalier attitudes toward drinking and driving into the hysterical (literally) characterization of any drinking before driving as “drunk” driving – smoking cigarettes anywhere, anytime, is becoming the object of a puritanical jihad.

It is very interesting to note here the parallels between what’s going in America and what went on 70-something years ago in Germany – where health Nazis were just as over-the-top as the regular Nazis.

Der Fuhrer didn’t like smokers, either.

As in the Reichskanzlei, It is no longer enough that smokers refrain from smoking in public areas. If there is any chance whatever that a non-smoker might catch a whiff, then it becomes a matter of public concern. Smokers are already frequently prohibited from smoking even in their own apartments or condos because someone might be exposed to “second-hand smoke.”smoking cartoon

It is likely you will be forbidden to smoke in your own vehicle for the same reasons. Doesn’t matter that you have the windows rolled up – and don’t have kids. What about the poor attendant at the parking garage who might be exposed to the dangerous remnants of your anti-social choice to smoke?

Or the child who might buy your ex-car three years from now?

There is no way to objectively tell whether a car was smoked in last week – or last year. Or five minutes ago. Hence, it is likely that any evidence of smoking – ever – will presently become the next excuse to harass and collect. For armed government workers to pull people over, man “checkpoints” and hand out tickets. 

If I’d written this rant twenty years ago, everyone reading it today would call me crazy. But today, it’s America that’s gone crazy.

Criminalizing adults for “exposing” a kid to a distant whiff of this morning’s Lucky Strike … or last year’s Lucy Strike.

The erosion of our personal space continues. Wait until Obamacare really kicks in. It will not end until we have no personal space left – because in the minds of the authoritarian collectivists (the Clovers) who control this country, there is no such thing as “personal” space.

As they see it, anything you do that might affect someone else – a hypothetical someone else – is ample justification to control/restrict/forbid/punish what you do.

Mandatory calisthenics in front of the TeleScreen can’t be too far down the road… .

It’s important to recognize that the jihad against smoking is not really about the “risk” of “second-hand” smoke. Just as the jihad against having even trace amounts of alcohol in one’s blood is not really about “drunk” driving.

It’s about the imposition of a Cloverific puritanism that seeks absolute control, using as the pretext for this the elimination of all risk, no matter how remote – and no matter the cost to our liberty. As Kyle Reese explained to Sarah Connor in the first Terminator movie, “…they can’t be reasoned with or bargained with and absolutely will not stop, ever.”

Unless, of course, we finally stand up and tell them we have had enough.

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141 COMMENTS

  1. One thing we don’t have yet, is the annual TV license fee that funds the BBC.

    Instead of paying $18 a month like most of the world. We get our media such as it is, for freeeeeeeeeeeee.

    If each of us designated somewhere to pay this amount, we would then have cause to demand that voice be given our common cause.

    This properly funded voice would remind us that we the commoners and the lords are the rule of law. Not some unmoored food truck-esque minions in the federal and state capitol districts.

    When laws cross the unmarked barrier into blatant douchebaggery. We must then openly and blatantly defy said douche laws.

    We are wealthy only because we band in common cause and divide our labors and skills. No mere jihad script can impoverish us if we refuse to let this East German principle take hold.

    Every car must sometimes be smoked in, and sometimes with children. Find a friend who smokes, get him in the car, get some kids in the car and make it happen. Every kid should no how to roll down the window in the back seat. Wine about it if it bothers him, and so forth. This is mandatory if you are to be a free people.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34402622

    Also teach all kids that around 16 its necessary for them to drink beer, wine, cider on occasion so long as responsible adults are around.

    And everyone should gamble at least a few times a year and tell everyone they do so, and how they do it. Give your kids an aspirin bottle and make teach them to sell “drugs” on the nearest street corner. Have them sell their kisses to strangers out on the street for a dollar.

    By the age of 16 they should have been nude in public. And charged someone a dollar to touch at least the outside of their “private parts.” Only when tens and hundreds of million people in America do these type of things and talk about them, can we be free. Not before.

    Make sure you children know the worst swear words and utter them vocally. Do all this in a non-emotional and reasoned Vulcan way if you prefer. But you must demand it. And it must be done. As also the thousands of other implied acts that must be performed. Only this ensures the next generation will be free.

    This online blogging thing is a fiat spectacle, and may some day become nearly extinct. But since it is the allowed act du jour, take full advantage of it and advocate and document it here. And then perform it in the real world as well. The law is only and always what Bastiat described it as. Nothing more. And nothing less.

    • I completely agree with the last half or so of your post Tor L. I am a former chain smoker who used to smoke around 60 cigarettes per day. I do not oppose your childhood exposure to cigarette smoke idea really. I just do not think it to be necessary.
      Should everyone huff paint prior to being allowed to attend a discussion about the topic? How about crack or heroin use? I, for one, do not oppose the use of these things; but I will never partake in them in order to attend a meeting.
      Is there a better way to inform people about the most dangerous of these things without requiring their use?
      I would just prefer the NAP, but you are correct when you say that people need to go beyond their present comfort level before liberty will become possible. The nudity and touching thing are merely irrational psychological barriers. The physically taking harmful chemical products into your own body is what I seek better alternatives for.

      • I’m sure a non-harmful version of even crack could be made easily. Put the safe version in a crack pipe and smoke it up. Kids could learn to make pipes that don’t burn their lips.

        A handgun could be made that shoots non-harmful projectiles. And kids could shoot at each other and have fun learning about firearms.

        The point to be made is not to be infantilized cowards about anything.

        I’ve lived adjacent to the worst neighborhoods in America and spent lots of time in them. If you conquer your fear and gain enough skill and knowledge. It is as safe to be in these ghettos as it is anywhere else. And also very liberating in many ways.

        Some of our conditioning is genetic and biological, these will be difficult, but not impossible to overcome.

        I’m saying even a comically altered Teacup Chihuahua has the ability and even the obligation to reclaim his natural wild free Asian Wolf nature if he could be trained and deconditioned properly.

        One thing Americans still have is their mongrel status. If they act now, they need never be made into Scandinavian Poodles or Japanese Akitas.

        Red-pilled canines can be domestic dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes, or something not yet in existence. As Maslow noted, this self-actualization is man’s highest needs.

        Those who wish to remain domesticated and monolithic are not our enemies. Let them remain as they wish. We are our own enemies. Develop your instinct for what’s possible and then carpe diem. Don’t dither around from fear to fear looking for the warm leg of an Attila or Witch Doctor to cling to.

        What the housepet lacks, is the firm integrating philosophy he once had as a wild and free being. The beagle need not evolve a thumb, grab a kitchen knife and slay his masters in their sleep to individuate himself. He need only to find and reclaim his long dormant inner wolf.

  2. All the controls and rules “for the children” are perfectly understandable – the children belong to the state, not the parents, and tax-producers must be cared for.

    Just as vehicle owners get a Certificate of Title, making the state a co-owner, the children get a Certificate of Birth along with a “VIN”, i.e., Social Security Number.

    What citizen classification do you have?

    http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id71.html

    U.S. v. Anthony 24 Fed. 829 (1873) “The term resident and citizen of the United States is distinguished from a Citizen of one of the several states, in that the former is a special class of citizen created by Congress.”

  3. Hey gang,

    This one really hurts my head so I don’t want to check the numbers myself. Feel free (at least we can still feel free) to post the actual numbers if you have them handy.

    This country has the highest incarceration rate in the world. So I’m going to guess we have a correspondingly high number of those who keep us “safe.”

    I don’t know if the ratio is one to one. But whatever it is, it is.

    If you were to take EVERYONE in the joint(s) and exchanged them with the “safers” would we be better off?

    I mean all the kid touchers, murderers, mother rapers, father rapers, father stabbers, everyone on the Group “W” bench, and put them in charge of the government. Then lock up every Govco worker from the president to the local dog catcher and meter maid.

    Would we be better off?

    Would there be enough jail space? Would we need to invade Canada to obtain more room to lock up the folks from Govco?

    In this scenario Candy Lightner gets a pass, but the John Wayne Gacy types become head of the FAA or NHTSA.

    My reason for asking (and I would really appreciate any honest answers) is because I can understand John Waye Gacy mandating shrapnel spewing airbags. That kind of shit is grokkable.

    However, I have (and continue to have) and exceedingly hard time understanding why thousands of people need to be punished if Eric Peters decides to pull over and take a nap if he feels uncomfortable driving home tonight after consuming adult beverages.

    Eric Peters knows his body better than anyone else. (Excepting perhaps Mrs. Peters if such an individual exists.) The “safers” who have never met Eric, but would put him in a cage that you and I are forced to purchase, claim to know his body better than he does.

    The fact of the matter is that someone like Jeffery Dahmer knows more about Eric’s body than those folks who claim that Eric should be caged for exercising, IMHO, good judgement.

    A Dahmer type at least has the requisite knowledge to get Eric from his tax farm to the table. The heads of the FDA and the DEA, on the other hand, only know how to use a Govco credit card at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse.

    Would we be better off if a Dahmer was in charge of those agencies?

    Would it really be any worse than it is right now?

    Because, as of today, the reality of the situation is a world where Eric Peters, a Tessla, and a few bottles of BBQ sauce…

    • Tuonorea, before I address your question I’d like to ask one. Since I first saw your moniker I have wondered if my pronunciation of it would be accurate enough so that gonorrhea would rhyme with it? No insult intended, it’s just that I have running songs in my head seemingly all the time. It’s not a new thing since I recall it from the earliest age.

      Now to address your question, a very good one in my opinion, I’m going to come down on the side of “not much change”. Dahmer evidently thought fricassee human was superior to beef or other meats and probably much cheaper too. But would Jeffrey actually do everything he could to incinerate and cause wholesale genocide such as your typical Hillary, every chance he/she had? I’m guessing, since I don’t think anyone can know this for a fact, but eating one person at a time is probably a completely different mindset than wanting to create worldwide genocide. Dahmer probably had some sexual thing going but the need for ultimate control and power and greed wasn’t foremost in his mind. Well, too late to find that out now so anyone’s guess is as good as the next I suppose.

      I’m currently reading Night of Light by Phillip Jose Farmer, one of my favs. Now I’d like to quote part of that book as it seems relevant.

      Carmody is the main character just so you’ll know the context. He is afraid of a few things but can’t admit it so he claims to be completely without fear. Well, we’ll see.

      Here goes, from the book. The headthumper at Johns Hopkins thought I was a congenital psychopath, that I was born incapable of even understanding a moral code, I was beyond guilt, beyond virtue, not born with an illness of the mind, you understand, just lacking something, whatever it is that makes a human being human. He made no bones about telling me I was one of those rare birds before which the science of the year of our Lord 2256 is completely helpless. He was sorry, he said, that I would have to be committed for the rest of my life, probably kept under sedation so I would be mild and cooperative, and undoubtedly be the object of countless experiments in order to determine what it is that would make a constitutional psychopath.

      Carmody paused, stepping from the shower, and began drying himself.

      Well, he continued smiling, “you can see I couldn’t put up with that. Not John Carmody. So—I escaped from Earth itself, got away to Springboard—on the edge of the galaxy, farthest colonized planet of the Federation, stayed there a year, made a fortune from sodompears, was almost caught by Raspold—you know, the galactic Sherlock Holmes—but eluded him and got here where the Federation has no jurisdiction. But I don’t intend to stay here; not that it would be a bad world, because I could make money here too, the food and liquor are good, and the females are just unhuman enough to attract me. But I want to show Earth for what it is, a stable for stupid asses. I intend to go back to Earth and live there in complete immunity from arrest. And to do pretty well what I please, though I shall be discreet about some things”.

      He then makes the point that the anti-Social Bureau depends solely upon Boojum, a huge protein based computer that knows everything about Carmody but he intends to prove to this databank, probability computer, that he’s dead. It will then fail to recognize him no matter what he does.

      Well, if Carmody is crazy for doing this then call me crazy too. It’s my most likely unattainable goal to go on living but make the state consider me dead. It’s the only way I’ll ever be able to obtain freedom. I got myself on the database of misfits when I was 21 for organizing war protests. It’s been cat and mouse since then even though I live what most would think a strange but not lawless life, in fact, a very legal life having to jump through all those “legal” hoops a trucker must(no way out of that, esp since many states like Tx. have adopted a no sticker windshield which means you will be stopped and have your papers read if anyone should have the slightest want to do so). No tags on a truck, no way to say they had no business stopping you. A great little idea by some pretty savvy bureaucrats and those who ambush for them.

      Having lived that sort of life you’d think my info on that great federal database would have been relegated to the back burner. But there is no such thing. No matter who you are, where you are, what you do, once on that “list”, always on that list and long after I’m dead, my legacy will live on, not necessarily on a headstone but on that database. Have any doubts about that? I’m tempted to put my SS# on here to just prove no one could make my life worse but somebody probably could. Of course my wife gets to be on the list by proxy even though her entire criminal career doesn’t even contain a speeding ticket. When someone tells you to be careful of whom you merely associate, that’s good advice. In the last 13 years alone we’ve been raided 4 times, the last time being a month ago tomorrow with a single charge out of all this wasted money and dare I say, manpower, but rather, pigpower, political, bureaucratic power, and robbing everyone of you to do so. Money well spent? Hell, it could be anyone. And let me add the clincher….and if this doesn’t make you laugh/cry, you just aren’t paying attention. The head agent said this time is was due to a rumor. Yep,a rumor. I told him just exactly what the rumor was and where and who had originated it, a person up for 5 charges, one being kidnapping and an evil district court DA looking for another name no doubt telling that person they’d get a break. Well, they’ll have to come back again of which I have no doubt they will. After all, planes, helicopters, massive amounts of manpower plus all those vehicles we all paid for need to show some result other than bupkiss.

      If this doesn’t make everyone feel a bit better about their life, then vote for Hitlery and maybe you can get on a list too……or maybe you’ll get on a list just by reading this. Aha, now you’re catching on.

      • Sounds like Harry Harrison.
        Loved his Stainless Steel Rat…

        Wanted to live that sort of life, got sucked into being a cog in the machine, now I’m too dumb to manage it….
        The endless, baseless, pointless, stress…. Just can’t beat them. Except with a stick.
        I’d like to try, anyway…

    • Well, I think you point out the validity of my theory:

      Government is based on an immoral theory: That one tiny group of people has more powers and rights than the bulk of us do, thus the right to control and even kill us.

      As such, government is built o n immorality, and thus will always lead to an immoral enslavement of those who believe or abide it.

      Any problem can be solved by cooperative, non-violent, non-coercive means, that is, morally. Thus, government itself is not only unnecessary, but undesirable.

      • Exactly, Daniel!

        The trouble is, many people do not see this because of the very clever sham of “consent” and “representation.” These mind tricks cause the victim to believe the arbitrary coercion used to control his life is somehow legitimate. Also, that it is legitimate for him to exert arbitrary coercion (by proxy) on others.

        Democracy is arguably the most effective of all the long cons.

        • Eric:

          Sorry to beat a dead horse…but I believe that Our Constitutional Republic has devolved into a Hidden Oligarchy…With a thin veneer of Democracy glued on the surface to make people who slept through HS Government Class think nothing has changed…

          At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) had this to say about “The Fall of The Athenian Republic” some 2,000 years prior.

          “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

          The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence.

          From Bondage to spiritual faith;
          From spiritual faith to great courage;
          From courage to liberty;
          From liberty to abundance;
          From abundance to complacency;
          From complacency to apathy;
          From apathy to dependence;
          From dependence back into bondage.”

          Large swaths of the “Urban Plantation”-Hillary’s America(2016) have already completed the full round trip…and the Oligarchy aims to subdue the rest by Debt Servitude and Militarized Local “Tax Collectors”…

          Hopefully the ICANN fiasco does not allow a Multinational(UN) takeover of the fountain of “the knowledge of good and evil”, which might be the explanation of Apple’s logo…

          In essence, technology has accelerated that Democracy con into a 50 year game (the Great Society until now)…others might assert that the Federal Income tax restarted the machine, and introduced the con…

          • Hello StuckinSoCal,
            You can’t beat a dead horse if it isn’t even there! The oligarchy was responsible for the constitutional convention coup d’etat which violated the superior Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The CONvention was only supposed to amend the AoC, but the oligarchy illegally seized greater central government power by replacing it with the inferior (for individual liberty) CONstitution.
            But even the AoC was crap because it established meritless political hierarchy over individual self-government.
            If I need someone to show me how to do something; I will seek a natural leader who will teach me how to accomplish the task without demeaning or conquering me. I will not seek the sleazy person who is the most convincing public liar and who has accumulated the largest bribery purse for elections. Doing the latter would be completely stupid and irrational! There isn’t a single natural leader in your elected government at any level.
            If you would like to learn what really happened back in 1787; then I highly recommend that you read The Constitution: The God that Failed.
            Insane people keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Those quotes you have posted illustrate that mankind has been acting insanely for about 10,000 years. They have blindly been going round and round within the Statism circle. I believe that the Creator created us as fully functional human beings completely capable of self governance.

          • Hi Stuck,

            Yup.

            I’d only add that democracy is perhaps the most subtle of the tyrannies – because the average person believes he is “represented” and that the government operates with “consent.” He groks the tyranny of one man, but the tyranny of many men eludes him.

    • “My reason for asking (and I would really appreciate any honest answers) is because I can understand John Waye Gacy mandating shrapnel spewing airbags. That kind of shit is grokkable. ”

      The question has been answered by far better than myself:

      “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

      C.S. Lewis

  4. I was on a date and he was pulled over for suspected drunk driving. While they were giving him the “stupid human tricks” tests, a couple of the cops were hanging out by my window, basically flirting with me. I lit a cigarette and they asked me to put it out, saying I might need to take a test later. They said the breathalyzer readings can be affected by a recent cigarette, which sounds like bunk to me. But anyway, I refused, politely saying there would be no tests. If he was jugged for DWI, I would be walking. Miraculously, they let it go and stopped pestering me, too. They also let my date go, so … good times. This was in the early 90s, though.

    • Amy….early 90’s, not only was that a different century it was lightyears away from SOP now. Seems like the last defensive driving class I had was around 90 or so. Back then, the Tx. DPS stated you could have one beer per hour for 6 hours and not be legally drunk. Now you can be legally drunk after one beer or if close enough to the time you drunk it, a quarter beer. Onion, cough drops, spicy foods, and countless other things will show you to be drunk.

      The courts have not allowed anyone to examine breathalyzers citing patent rip-off concerns. In essence, when you can’t check the checkers, there’s dirty pool being played and that’s what we have today.

      At the end of last year I had to go in for a DOT drug test and when it was over I asked if that was all. Yep, that’s it. I’m thinking they must be using the old piss test to check for alcohol so I left. 3 weeks later I was told I had to go back, they hadn’t checked me for alcohol. Now you’d think when I asked them if that was all, they would have realized it wasn’t. I go back and I’m sucking on a Hall’s Mentholyptus cough drop. It was the middle of flu season and my throat had been bothering me. The two bankers, er, uh, women who work there finally showed up and I go in and sign a paper while they diddle-daddle around doing who knows what. The younger of the two, mid-forties I’d guess and bummed out on life evidently, tells me to go to the back room while she fires up the breathalyzer. Then it hits me I have this cough drop in my mouth. A friend briefly worked at the sheriff’s office and we played with the breathalyzer. It showed nearly anything as being drunk and one thing that really made it scream was cough drops. Oops, says I, I have this cough drop and it will show me drunk. Too bad I can’t wash my mouth out or have a bite of food since that’s the only think I’ve had on my stomach today. The younger one goes into a tirade and informs me I can’t leave or have a drink of water or go anywhere and eat, reiterating what I had just said. I knew I could call bullshit on it though and get extra time. She informed me I had ten minutes and then had to take it. Never mind the DOT says you can have a 15 minute break before taking the test. So we wait ten minutes, I blew and it came back 0.00. I pick up the papers, not bother to read them and took them too the yard office. Another 3 weeks or so pass and my boss tells me I have to re-take the alcohol test. I asked why since I had obviously passed. He said because if the tester writes anything on the results the DOT automatically kicks it out. I see the original and she’d written I wanted to go eat and get something to drink which she hadn’t allowed. All lies but her lies that would make her more money. The kicker in this is when I said I was afraid I’d show to be drunk because of that cough drop, the older woman sang out to the rancid bitch doing the test. “Oh, remember, it was a Hall’s Mentholyptus I was using when I failed the test”. This must have really pissed the old gal off. Next thing I know I’m going to another facility to take the breath test again where it showed 0.00….and I’d made sure not to use a cough drop. It cost the company not only two trips to one testing station but another trip 200 miles away for me to go blow a perfect score all because of somebody with a bad attitude.

      Well, I’ll have to do it again next week along with a full physical so if anyone wants to experience the feel of hemorrhoids and an inflamed prostate, let me know and I’ll let you know the date, place and time. I’ve had enough fingers up my ass a few more won’t matter.

      • eric, how do you create the different font you used in “country”? I’m using Winders Ate and one really neat thing they “improved” over XP was the inability to hold Alt and spin the mouse wheel to increase or decrease the size of print on an entire page. Way to go MS or as I call them MF’s.

        • 8 – to get italics enter ‘less than’ then i then ‘greater than’ (w/no spaces between). Then to turn off, enter less than then ‘forward slash’ (on same key as ?) then i then ‘greater than’ (again, w/no spaces)
          Dang, that was harder to explain than to do, because WP would not show the symbols

            • Sorry if I wasn’t clear. You have to turn the italics on, type what you want emphasized, then turn it back off (unless you are at the end of your post)

                • 8 – nothing happens in the screen where you are entering, but if you scroll down just a bit, you should see a preview of your post that will show the formatting.
                  Just make sure, when you do that, to go back up and click on ‘Post Comment’ not on the ‘Reply’ button below the preview. If you do that, your comment disappears into cyberspace – done that more than once when I was trying to proof.

                • Do you know what I mean when I say ‘less than’ or ‘greater than’? They are the ‘left and right arrows’ between the m and the ? If I type them, they don’t show up, darn WP!

  5. re: 16th Amendment:

    Ratification (by the requisite 36 states) of the 16th amendment was completed on February 3, 1913 with the ratification by Delaware. (This empty process as always involved only the minuscule crony minority who held positions of state government royalty.)

    The amendment was subsequently ratified by 16 more states, bringing the total number of ratifying states to forty-two of the forty-eight then existing. (Though there were so many rules violations, many of these should not have been counted.)

    16th amendment not even properly ratified by state level government royalty.
    http://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/notratified.htm

    16th amendment wiki
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

    The 16th Amendment did not give Congress any new power to lay and collect an income tax; rather, the 16th Amendment permitted Congress to do so without apportionment. (Sayeth the authorities.)

    • Well, I went back and read ‘Connie’ and she doesn’t specifically say what I had been led to believe. But prior to the 16th Amendment, the States had to ratify identical versions of the Amendment for their ratification vote to count toward the total needed. In the case of 16, several state legislatures voted to ratify similar, but not identical versions of the proposed Amendment. “Close enough” said the Nazgul in this case.

  6. Hi Eric,

    “There is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke,” the CDC study states.

    But what if a member of the perpetually aggrieved class, upon being “assaulted” by the merest whiff of tobacco smoke, whips their head around so violently, in search of the offender, that they injure their neck? Surely that is a risk.

    I know of no credible study that has ever shown a statistically significant link between SHS exposure and increased morbidity, or any of the ailments associated with primary smoking. The best study done was the 1993 WHO study which found no statistically significant negative link. Their response was to simply lie about the findings. We are constantly badgered with “studies” claiming that SHS exposure increases your risk of this bad thing by 20%, or something similar. What we are not told is that this corresponds to an RR (relative risk) of 1.2. For instance, a study may show that the RR is between 0.9 and 1.3 (1.0 being no effect), this finding will be trumpeted as “proof” that SHS exposure “kills”. But, the finding actually shows that the risk could be anywhere along that spectrum. Meaning that no causal link can be claimed at all. To arrive at morbidity levels, these scientifically meaningless “risks” are simply extrapolated through the population to arrive at the X deaths “caused” by Y nonsense that we hear so much about. This is how the safety nazis can claim that VW will kill people via their emissions “cheating”, while no actual victims need ever be produced.

    It is also important to note that even statistically significant findings of RR < 3.0 are generally considered insufficient to warrant even a claim of strong association, let alone causation.

    "As a general rule of thumb, we are looking for a relative risk of 3 or more before accepting a paper for publication." – Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

    "An association is generally considered weak if the odds ratio [relative risk] is under 3.0 and particularly when it is under 2.0, as is the case in the relationship of ETS and lung cancer." – Dr. Kabat, IAQC epidemiologist.

    It is also important to note that even statistically significant findings of RR < 3.0 are generally considered insufficient to warrant even a claim of strong association, let alone causation.

    "As a general rule of thumb, we are looking for a relative risk of 3 or more before accepting a paper for publication." – Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

    "An association is generally considered weak if the odds ratio [relative risk] is under 3.0 and particularly when it is under 2.0, as is the case in the relationship of ETS and lung cancer." – Dr. Kabat, IAQC epidemiologist.

    Here's a good site to check out:

    http://www.davehitt.com/facts/index.html

    Jeremy

    • Hey Eric,

      I’d love to be able to edit my posts. I managed to duplicate a section in my above post that I’d like to get rid of. Can you see if this feature is enabled for me?

      Jeremy

    • Oh Jeremy – you are being entirely too logical. Cue Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men</i, "You can't handle the truth!"

      • Irony is, I say the same….
        The NAP only applies to those who accept they have no right (or reason) to inflict themselves on others.
        But there are those who don’t see it that way.
        And by the time we realize we don’t want to be protected against things, “for your own good,” we’re herded into camps and “re-educated” to death.

        Maybe a little pro-active violence is necessary now and then. Puts first-world problems in perspective.
        And the hanging politicians are good decorations, and practice pinatas.

        • Hi Jean,
          I realize that you are probably just blowing off steam here, but since there are many more readers here than commenters, I find it necessary to make the following points.
          Starting an armed revolt = giving the state what it wants. Humans lack proper noses for out-rooting hogs! The state is an expert at murder and has layered itself with protection.
          The first layer is the masses, many of whom are on the dole. The masses are going to be on the states side because the media will label the insurrectionists as right-wing domestic terrorists.
          The second layer are the cops and the military, which will be protecting ‘Americans’ from domestic terrorism.
          The third layer is the other armed bureaucrats.
          The fourth layer is the politicians, many of whom have underground nuke-proof bunkers in VA and CO.
          The top layer is the oligarchy. They are widely scattered, and will fly out of harms way long before you get through all of those other layers using conventional methods. The oligarchy should become the first targets if the state initiates widespread attacks on the masses. Where possible, the politicians should be prevented from reaching their bunkers. All airports, large and tiny, must be shut down. Supplies to the scattered oligarchy and politicians bunkers must be blockaded.
          Regardless who starts the widespread violence: Many millions of people will die if the war lasts more than a couple of weeks (which would please the oligarchy which wishes for an 80+% population reduction). The state will cut food stamp debit cards off and blame it on us, which will cause the former recipients to attack us as well. The entire transportation infrastructure will halt due to military blockades and armed robbery by the hungry masses. OTR truck drivers would fear every underpass they approach because of people popping up and dropping large rocks intended for crashing through the drivers windshield and killing him. You think unemployment was bad during the Great Recession and the Great Depression? You ain’t seen nothing yet! The (un)Civil War had zones where no fighting was taking place and the economy could continue. This war will engulf the entire nation, beginning with the cities!
          But lets assume that the ruling class gets ousted. The majority of the people still believes that might makes right! New warlords would arise and attempt to become the replacement state.
          The best solution is to win people over to Voluntarism/Anarchism by using these mental levers.

          • I don’t disagree with what you’ve said.
            I’d rather start at the top – Clintons aren’t the only ones who can make “accidents.”

            trying to move the willfully ignorant masses is a waste, though. Letting them starve, inhumane as it is, is a better solution. And while armed revolt of any sort is certainly what TPTB want anyway, in the end – it will always come to force of arms. We’re dancing to their tune, the only option is which tune they’re calling.
            So I’d rather force them to call the tunes of martial law and witch hunts, publicly, before they’ve indoctrinated every mind, completely. Because part of what they’re doing now is working towards drugged compliance, “for your own good.” Adderol, for instance. Cross-sex gender expressions. (DiEthylStilbesterol is one old example; take a look at the side effects of risperdol, and check out the issues with birth control, which most young women use…. If it causes breast growth in boys and/or promiscuous behavior in girls, it’s a good thing. For them. Combine that with teaching gay & lesbian sex, and transsexuality as “normal,” as early as kindergarten, in a state-run mass “education” center, with the appropriate drugs administered…? )

            I don’t think most people care, let alone are intelligent enough to understand, what is happening. And those who are are more likely to be indoctrinated in passive acceptance, for fear of being drugged.

            Our society depends on most people living on their knees, being sheep.
            I’m tired of kneeling.

          • On second thought, let me make the point briefly:
            We need a Spartacus.
            We need to remind them we outnumber them, and there’s a reason they fear public scrutiny – and we must show them WHY.

            I’m not saying it will go well, or that we will win.
            But we might buy some more time…

            • Educating others by using the mental levers link I provided earlier remains our best option. A Spartacus arising would resemble what is happening now with Donald Trump. He may be better than Clinton, but he has stated that he is very pro-cop which probably means even greater surveillance of everything we do.
              The number of anarchists/voluntaryists has grown massively and exponentially in the last decade. Once that number reaches critical mass, this state will collapse! The state may still lash out against us, but they will not have much public support or tax revenue anymore.
              People with above average intelligence are the ones most likely to be persuaded by reason and are most likely to become the natural leaders in a post state situation. The less intelligent will follow behind once they are convinced that that will be treated fairly.
              Right now, there aren’t nearly enough intelligent people who are aware of our philosophy.
              Spartacus is overrated.

              • I fear the State will crack down, find new laws to pass, to harass us.
                And ensure we look like the “bad guys” in the process.

                Most people aren’t too bright…
                FTAFTFH.
                And lead. Fatal doses of lead.
                Innocents always get hurt in wars; we’re in a war now, just ask the pigs – they’ll tell you! (Google, “It’s a war zone out there” + police.)

                • That seems just what they’ve done and very recently too. I believe they want to tip the scales now before a movement can get too popular.

  7. Most readers here will know the history of the income tax. In a nutshell, the way to get Congress to sign off on prohibition was to offer an alternative, in the form of an income tax, to the various taxes on alcohol that funded the federal government. Once the 16th amendment was ratified it was game on. Of course prohibition was repealed but they somehow forgot about number 16.

    Every year fewer people light up. In fact the majority of “smokers” I know are now “vapers,” mostly because it is a tax-free loophole. At work we have to sign off that we didn’t smoke or consume any tobacco products in the last year(?). If we smoke cigarettes, we get a massive $50/month premium increase. Managers still smoke, techs and customer service reps vape. Now Uncle wants to get in on the action and has decided to regulate vape juice and paraphernalia like tobacco. That of course means it will become illegal to do anything without a license. I’m sure the insurance industry will add a paragraph about vaping to our affidavit when all the new laws regulations go into effect. And Uncle will get a little more tax revenue from the vapers, until the FDA decides that the tax revenue isn’t enough reason to keep the stuff on the market and decides to outlaw it too. Any revenue shortfall will be met with more debt and income tax anyway.

    • “Once the 16th amendment was ratified”
      But it wasn’t, at least not according to the rules in the Constitution itself. The Nazgul just declared that it was ratified, it had come ‘close enough.’
      And who even remembers that ‘income’ was originally defined as corporate revenue?

      • The courts created the “political question” doctrine in order to bless the deviation from that which the constitution requires.

        • And not one spineless Americunt killed a single one as the Nazgul perverted the law, repeatedly…

          Why play to the moral high ground, when the enemy is in the mud?

    • Back in the mid-late eighties I worked for a corporation, the largest wallboard maker in the world. They were front and center of trying to control people’s lives. In a plant in Ohio that made some sort of building product(don’t remember what), they gave the employees six months to quit smoking or using tobacco. I was shocked even though I’ve never been a smoker, that a company could/would do that. I said it wasn’t legal, that tobacco was legal so therefore the consumption of it was legal and it wouldn’t hold up in court. Well, I guess it held up well enough since everyone who didn’t quit got fired. You didn’t have to look for the writing on the wall at that point, it was painted in giant sized letters.

      • Since the late 19th century wealthy industrialists have tried to manage society. First they tried with various private means using the leverage of employment then they went to the government means.

        Ever notice how in the news things are phrased in terms of impact to productivity? That’s very telling as to what we really are considered by the government-corporate partnership.

        As medical care becomes more and more socialized instead of just a corporate cost we can expect the interference with our lives to become greater and greater as the lever of medical cost is used.

        • “Since the late 19th century wealthy industrialists have tried to manage society.” Yes, indeed, it was the elites that were involved in the eugenics movement, which morphed into “Planned Parenthood” when Adolph gave eugenics a bad name.

    • I know several people who have successfully quit smoking by vaping (after failing for years). Now the fucking FDA wants to shut that down, too.

      Between this shit and the criminal actions of the USDA (food pyramid), I’m starting to think they want us all dead…

      • You’re just starting to think that?
        Well, they probably would prefer us as zombies, i.e., brain dead but still ‘functioning.’ But if we won’t cooperate, then …

        • I guess I’ve always subscribed to the old “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

          Now I’m not so sure.

          • When I began to understand the motivations of people with political and economic power I found very little of what they did was stupid. Now they make mistakes but every move they make at least on the surface from their point of view benefits them in the short or long term or both.

            People think those in government do stupid things because they don’t understand their motivations. Once their motivations are understood, what kind of inhuman monsters often occupy office, then it doesn’t look stupid any more.

            • Putting a slight twist on your thought BrentP, I believe they do do stupid things sometimes because they are evil.

    • Oh, but Eric_G, the insurance is even worse than that! They included people who chew tobacco in the $50 additional per month insurance charge. I dip, and $50 per month is considerably more than what I spend on that habit. It is completely irrational that I should pay an additional extremely high tax on an already highly taxed product that can’t possibly cost the insurance company as much health care costs as smoking! Please; nobody reply with the rotted teeth stories. Those are _dental_ issues which the health insurance wouldn’t cover anyway.
      I chased that one up the company HR chain, who gave me a phone number of the insurance company. At every level I pointed out the fact that there is _no_ scientific evidence proving that chewing tobacco causes cancer despite all of the propaganda. The site used various scientific studies which had differing results. The worst case ones indicated that there was a slight increase of a chance of getting cancer while others found no increase what-so-ever. Not a single one of the people I spoke with could refute what I had said, including the insurance company. At each level I stated that the insurance company decision makers have to know these facts; therefore they are committing fraud!
      Shortly thereafter I got a seatbelt ticket and was fired from that water-hauling company. I wondered if my outspokeness contributed to that decision at the company HQ, because everyone at the terminal where I was working at liked me or at least did not dislike me; but I have no proof.

      • One the government has total control of medical care I expect all of my hobbies to be banned because of possible injury. From bicycling to working on cars. And of course internet commenting.

        • That they will want more control over your life, due to your larger “costs” to society, are just about guaranteed. You can count on it. They will want more controls over drinking alcohol and recreational drugs first (well far more then what they have now). Then they will move on to things containing sugar, like soda pop, red meat, then other meats. Your meals will look like those horrid school lunches that kids thank Moochelle for online. Then they will mandate more exercise etc. Failure to do anything will result in being denied an medical care.

          • “Then they will move on to things containing sugar, like soda pop, red meat, then other meats.”

            Rich,
            Have you not been paying attention?
            NYC already did the Soda thing – Das Mayor Bloomberg “decided” obesity was too much of a problem, so no more Big Gulps for YOU.

            Red meat they’re doing a softer approach – pricing it out of the reach of most Americans. Bear in mind, the Moghuls did that in India to the conquered native peoples – it’s part of the Caste system, the lower classes are vegetarian because the reduced cholesterol intake means less testosterone (and other steroids, like estrogen, resulting in lower fertility.) They just used religion to modify the indig’s lives, backed by the force of arms.
            Oh, and there’s the discussion of sin tax for red meats, too. And making cattle ranching prohibitively expensive. And ensuring the factory-farming route (monsanto, et al) gets preferential (cheaper) treatment.

            Why will no one actually take a stand? too enamored of the latest electronic doodad? Pokemon Go takes too much attention?

            I work for the NWO. Nothing fancy, they’re just “people” – nothing dark about their conspiracy (team effort.) They just want to be rich. Best way? Form a group and dictate the rules, like FORCING you to buy things. But if they had the guns and forced you to buy, you might rebel. Instead, it’s a fascist “marriage” – corporations and government, hand in glove. Gov’t provides the guns, the corps write the rules, and the cattle (that’s us) pays in blood and treasure.

            Hence government indoctrination from early years.

            And teachers who want to teach communism, instead of american history (that was in texas.) Islam taught in public schools as “cultural studies.” (Also TX, but VA, WA, and I think NJ, OH, PA as well.) But don’t you DARE read the Bible in school! Even on YOUR PRIVATE TIME! How DARE you be a sexist, racist, misogynistic throwback! Read the koran instead, so you can learn how to stone adulterers (women), and behead the idolators! (That’s any non-Muslim.)

            We MUST start dealing with things. Because those things are messing with us.

          • It’s what the elite have always wanted. Total control.
            Eugenics never went away. “Tomorrow’s Children” isn’t just funny old movie and neither is “Things to Come”.

            But watch all these idiots clamor for single payer. They think this country will be like Sweden. Morons. All of them. All they have to do is learn history. Learn about the american ruling class, where they come from, what their aim is. They think capitalism is bad because of the abuses of the robberbarons and industrialists and think socialism will better with absolutely no clue who will be running their socialist ‘utopia’. The very people they say make capitalism bad. But they can’t grasp that. The problem with a collective is someone has to run it.

            • Hi Brent,

              Yup. And Sweden’s something every American should see. Nice place, nice people. Except most everyone lives a “small” life vs. what (was) typical here. One car per family. A small car. An apartment or condo. A detached single family house with a little land? That’s for the rich.

              But hey, you get “free” health care.

              • The land where a new Honda Accord already costs over forty grand (coming soon to here). They see an Accord like we see a Caddy. The land of the permanent recession. And 90% taxes. The sad thing, so many people see this as the IDEAL for everywhere…………….

                • Hi Rich,

                  Yes.

                  When you factor in all the peripherals – insurance, property taxes and the various fees – a new car like an Accord is already in that ballpark. This is why the average new car loan is now twice what it was when I was a kid in the ’70s/’80s. Back then, a car like my ’76 Trans-Am, which came loaded with almost every available option and which was itself a “top of the line” model and so more expensive than two-thirds (or more) of the rest of the cars being sold at the time, nonetheless only cost about $20k in today’s money.

                  And back then, you didn’t have to pay the insurance mafia (if you owned the car) and the other morditas were fewer and less severe.

        • Hi Brent,

          Either banned – or your costs go up. Because “risk.”

          Insurance for other than catastrophic events is by the nature of the thing financial idiocy. Imagine filing a claim for an oil change or brake job. That’s what health insurance currently constituted is like. It’s beyond stupid.

          People wonder why “health care” (insurance) costs so much.

          This is a big part of the reason why.

          If insurance were not mandatory and if it were limited to cover only major unforeseen and catastrophic events – with a high deductible – it’d be affordable. And if people had to pay out of pocket for routine stuff, rather than this Pretend Free system we have, overall costs would go down because people would not be Perpetual Patients (as many are) and would also be more prudent about their health (e.g., fewer prematurely diabetic/arteriosclerotic fatbodies everywhere, unlike today).

          I hate the government, but I despise the health insurance “industry.”

          • Well, they’ve given us the high deductible.
            I’m in the hole for $10,000 since about January. That’s a high deductible plan – the only kind I can buy through the company now. And I’m paying as much again just to have “insurance” that doesn’t pay a dime until I’m out that total of $20,000.
            That’s more than some people EARN, goddamn it.

            Why don’t Liberals (used in modern sense) understand that? If you can’t afford insurance + medical care, making insurance MANDATORY does NOT add to your wealth? Nor does it guarantee coverage!

              • Jean, you hit the nail on the head. Without the costs associated with working and not getting a bye on food, rent and transportation as illegal aliens do, I’d probably be nearly as well off if I could just somehow collect 20 grand and go to the ER like the rest of the illegals do. Excuse me, I don’t mean illegals since there is no such thing any longer.

                I can’t go to another country illegally and get anything but jailed or killed or deported. It’s no problem in this country though. We feel up children and great grandmothers at the airport while we can’t do enough for illegals.

                If I need some expensive health care I can’t afford, esp. after paying $325 each for my wife and I both to opt out of Obamacare, I can literally forget it. It’s pay up front or die. When I had to go to the ER with my thrice broken leg i waited in line behind illegals who never even had a thought of paying for the service who had headaches. Seriously, I waited behind a 20 year old girl who didn’t feel well, she had a headache. I understand a headache can be the precursor to death but so can a hangnail. I have headaches, and mine was making me look and feel like death warmed over while this young girl just looked a bit put out.

                And here’s one you’ll crack up over. I broke my leg about 5 pm, badly enough that my foot appeared to be a plumb bob, both bones broken and the Achilles tendon pulled loose of the bone it ties into in my foot. My wife started for the local hospital, a futile gesture as she should well have known. When she made a left turn, I shouted for her to stop and asked her where she was headed. After telling me I said that was a totally stupid idea since they’d just charge us a kings ransom and send me to the city hospital 60 miles away just as they did for her…..with her broken foot. So she drives back to the house. She said it was too late to go to the ER that far away and she’d take me tomorrow. I managed to get her to fetch me some crutches, took a handfull of hydrocodone left from some malady and had her bring me a cooler of beer and a big bottle of bourbon. She retired after that and I ground my teeth and cussed womankind. The next day, after waiting behind the girl…with the headache and the various young illegals who just didn’t feel good, I finally got a doc to look at me. He looks at my 63 year old face and then my leg and asks me when this happened. Oh, yesterday I said. Then he said, and I and the nurse couldn’t keep a straight face since it was classic sarcasm “So—–you decided it wasn’t going to get well?”. I nearly fell over laughing except for the pain. The young nurse was really worried about it and wanted to know how it happened. I told her and she still couldn’t believe it, looking more like ‘you got your ass handed to you by somebody with a grudge”. I kept telling her I broke it breaking a limb off a tree to play with my dog. Nobody was buying it but the doc didn’t give a shit(the cops would have raked me over the coals if they’d gotten a whiff of it, even a broken leg is illegal). When it happened it cracked so loud I thought I’d been shot, the feds had given up on me dying. I had to drag myself up a steep bank over grassburrs, cactus and mesquite trees just to get where a car could get to me and then my wife nearly ran over me and would have if I hadn’t rolled away. If I could have gotten it all on video I could have sold it for six figures. When I finally dragged myself into the car, I told her not to back over a powerpole that was close by in the weeds. Of course she back up and the pole stopped the car instantly and tore some trim off the side but at least we got close enough to the house, eventually, that I could use crutches to get inside. I got to experience what a pioneer out on our prairie would have gone through except for some hydrocodone instead of laudanum….and a mattress. Since it took a couple weeks for the swelling to go down enough to have a cast, I got it massaged a few times a day when Cholley Jack would tear across it with his paltry 100 lbs after seeing a coyote out the window. I kept thinking about Forrest Gump telling of his gunshot wound that everybody said was a million dollar wound. Forrest said “I guess the Army kept that money cause I never got a cent of it”. I know how you feel Forrest, I certainly do.

                • Hence my headlong charge into dissolution via combat.
                  Earth doesn’t want me, maybe Valhalla has some space…? (Hell is calling, though, I know what I’ve done…)

          • Mostly true, Eric. Unfortunately, insurance is mostly a scam in this country. What are you going to do when a multi-million dollar conglomerate reneges on its contract? And when they write the contract to be able to exclude providing the services they profess to be offering? They have more and better lawyers than you ever will. Just like the patent trolls- if you’ve ever invented anything you know what that’s really about.

          • If medical care had been left to the free market it would be dirt cheap by now. Everyone would be able to afford all but the most advanced stuff out of pocket. And then people would also be motivated to care for themselves.

            Remember the first medical care reforms were to fix the problem of low prices. Too many doctors. Too cheap. Lodge care. Every reform since has been to keep prices high and move them higher. Every single one. How to squeeze more money out of the population. If Joe can’t afford it, tax Bob.

            I’ll say it again, I fully expect bicycling to be banned or insured out of economic reach shortly after the private passenger automobile is out of the hands of the masses. They’ll point to the cycling injuries to do it. Never mind the health benefits far far far outweigh the risks. The risks of injury low and the increased health dramatic. But a bicycle still allows too much independent travel. I can easily cover a 25mi radius in reasonable time frames. That’s just too far.

      • Hi Brian,

        Yup. I expect surcharges for (as an example) riding a motorcycle, owning a gun, and so on. As the financial pressures mount, they will likely insist on things like genetic testing to “screen” for a likelihood of various problems down the line and charge accordingly and presumptively. As with “speeding,” your asserted “risk” will be regarded the same as the actuality of tangible harm caused. Your dad had a heart attack? Well, that means you might, too!

        Ka-ching.

        Even if you never have one.

  8. Am I the only one that finds the hypocrisy in demonizing tobacco while marijuana is winked and nodded at? Surely, blazing up while driving is far more of a danger to everyone, including the passengers and fellow drivers. I smell marijuana every time I have my windows open on the highway blowing in from other cars.

    The same goes for all of the “tobacco settlement” financed ‘Truth’ ads getting kids to end the tobacco industry forever – yet these same kids are mass marketed the marijuana “culture.” Dean Wormer said it best: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

    Perhaps Dean Wormer would now say: Stoned, stupid and with the munchies…..

    • A few months back I was on my way to a meeting in Denver, stuck in morning rush hour traffic, when I smelled someone enjoying recreational pot. I looked over to see a vehicle (with California plates) with the windows cracked about an inch a thick smog of pot smoke. There were 3 or 4 pot tourists in the vehicle, no idea if the driver was consuming or not. But the smoke was so thick it looked like a Cheech and Chong movie. At 7:00 am. This sort of thing is exactly what’s going to get all the law-and-order types fired up. At least the media isn’t reporting every kid who gets his stomach pumped after eating his mom’s “special candy” as much as they used to.

      With freedom comes responsibility, something Americans don’t seem to understand anymore.

    • Nodded and winked at eh? It’s what keeps the Just Us system in fine health….to the detriment of everyone else. I promise you I never smell marijuana while driving but often see people getting the old search and slap down on the roads of this land. As far as being dangerous, I’ve known lots of people smoking a fag that had a wreck either trying to light one or retrieve a lit one or looking for one. Most pot smokers know exactly where their stash is and even just looking like you might be cool with smoking pot will get you pulled over and get your stashed found should you have one. I see it every day. I go around minorities and young people but since I’m not speeding I don’t get pulled over, except by the DOT who are looking to rob you but seldom search you(I have never been searched), but those young people get pulled over when they haven’t changed lanes or braked nor anything else except probably to give a pig a paranoid look. Don’t look at them says my ex-foreman’s wife, just don’t look. We laugh at her but it’s a good thing to not look except for the glance and back to the road.

      I don’t think I’ve seen anyone get pulled over and searched for cigarettes or any other sort of tobacco or get charged for having tobacco and being underage. I have no way of knowing what most get searched for, probably just anything. It’s not what they did but how they look. It’s hard to look 60 and bored when you’re 18. But having a cop tail you is certainly cause for anyone to be paranoid including me. I’ve been followed from one end of town to the other driving a big rig when I was young….just waiting for me to go one mph faster than the PSL.

      Busting people is big money and counts for a lot more than a simple speeding ticket although they often give a speeding ticket at the same time just so it doesn’t look like profiling.

    • “Surely, blazing up while driving is far more of a danger to everyone, including the passengers and fellow drivers.”

      I’ve got to call bullshit on that.

      It causes people to drive a little slower, leave a little more room between vehicles, lowers incidents of road rage, and ignore clover’s annoying habits.

      IMHO, no one should be allowed on the Dan Ryan during rush hour without taking a few hits.

        • Thanks Phil.

          But probably not a good move.

          My first day of office I’d be droning the 51 capitals like it was a video game of Carry Grant in the North by Northwest poster. Every governor would get to play.

          But thanks for the nomination.

            • That would make a good bumper sticker. Maybe you should order some of those giving the choice of that or clover.

              I’ve heard it said if you stare at Hitlery too long the same thing will happen, you’ll go mad. Maybe that’s why so many people having seemingly lost their minds…..her supporters.

      • In the early 70’s everybody thought pot was about to be legal including cops and few got bent about people being stoned but Nixon’s War on Some Drugs reversed that with a vengeance. Back then a friend was headed home on the interstate in the wee hours and a Nashville cop pulled him over. He said “Was I speeding officer?” The cop said “I pulled you over because you were driving 12 mph”. He let him go on home. That won’t happen now.

        • Hi Eight,

          Yup, exactly. The war on some drugs is one of the many reasons I lost my love (so to speak) for “conservatives.” It’s incredible to me that the adherents of this philosophy – if it can be called that – don’t see the disconnect. The hypocrisy of advocating individual rights (which they claim to) while supporting the criminalization of non-violent personal lifestyle choices that – as such – cause no harm to anyone except perhaps the individual who chooses to participate.

          • eric, Republicans always went after those with alternate lifestyles even if it was only sex. Some of my most tried and true friends of both sexes chose the alternate path. That was one reason I could never come to embrace, so to speak, their Republican raisun detree as some of us liked to say just to poke fun at the stuffed shirt bastards(and bitches). Fish heads for Republicrats and Demoplicans all…..hypocrites raping little boys and girls in the bathrooms and backrooms while coifing their locks and wrapping Old Glory round their rotund middles as they railed against the (fill in the blanks)commies.

            • Hey Eight,

              Family values Republican: “Who I screw is between me and my God, who you screw is between you and my laws”.

              Jeremy

              • Jeremy, with all politicians it always comes down to a double standard. Well, a politicians says, you just don’t understand what a good (boy,girl) our (fill in the blank) is. They shouldn’t be treated as a criminal, they’re just mixed up.

                Your kid on the other hand is just an out and out thug, dope dealer, hell-raiser, etc. etc. Some time in prison should straighten his/her ass out.

      • I agree, Tuanorea –

        Pot tends to calm people down and make them less rather than more reckless. Besides which – as in all things – it varies from person to person. Just as some people are still competent drivers after having had a few drinks (while others are marginal even when sober) so also some people can handle pot and driving better than others.

        My view: There’s only a problem if someone causes harm or clearly gives reason to believe he is likely to. Merely having taken a puff – or a drink – doesn’t qualify, as such.

        • Eric,

          Here is that part that makes my butt pucker.

          You say, “clearly gives reason to believe he is likely to”. You are punishing potential.

          Now the Govco is all about punishing potential. They start in the local friendly government youth propaganda camps. When they see a child with potential (apparently any fucking kind of potential – especially “good” potential) that child is singled out for punishment. They make it a point to flush that little fucker’s brain right down the school to prison pipe.

          Without demonstrable harm, the NAP must rule.

          • I concur on that, rubbed me wrong the first time I read it. Many times when i was young I’d give somebody reason to fear how I might drive and then drive sedately away after I’d made my point. I used to get a lot of that “He’s gonna wrap that thing around a telephone pole” but it didn’t happen. I could drive something sideways smoking the tires and be in control and go where I desired. People without that ability tend to think no one can do it so it’s got to be dangerous.

            There are people that would be horrified to know that under the right circumstances I can drift 18 wheels around a curve. I won’t try it on pavement but a good sandy road is another thing entirely. If someone told me they could do it on pavement I’d go watch and learn.

            • Morning, Eight!

              “People without that ability tend to think no one can do it so it’s got to be dangerous.”

              Exactly.

              Just as true about guns and many other things.

              A person who cannot deal safely/competently with “x” assumes no one else can, either – and so the (low) bar he establishes for himself becomes the bar he demands be imposed upon others.

              • Also note, the drive originates from his fear of himself (or her.)
                They FEEL fear, so it’s “wrong.” For everyone. No one is capable, because when X occurred, Clover felt fear…

                Wolves do not care the opinion of sheep.
                We shouldn’t either. It’s mental cancer.

    • Smoking MJ while driving is not dangerous and any asseveration to the contrary is pure progressive poppycock unsupported by reality.

      • *wink wink nudge nudge*
        Isn’t it the PROGRESSIVES who want MJ legalized…? 😉

        I don’t partake, but I see no reason to bother those who do – when the bullshit produced by those on the take (Truth, DARE, etc) is obviously cooked.

        MJ was the first drug targeted, by a physician who (IIRC) wanted to prevent miscegenation and the Negro culture from taking over his (white) country. He publicized how it would turn the black man violent, get him all hopped up, make him rape innocent white women, etc, etc, etc. (Think KKK.) And he done a study to prove it!
        Then came Vietnam, and those partaking wouldn’t fight…
        So the SAME study was used, to state, OF COURSE we knew it wouldn’t make them violent, MJ’s a “gateway drug” to the harder stuff! which DOES make them violent!

        Makes you wonder who to trust…
        Makes me think my approach is better. If it doesn’t tell the truth? Kill it….

        • My understanding is that it was the elites, particularly John D. Rockfeller and William Randolph Hearst that worked to get marijuana on the ‘unwanted’ list back in the 30’s and hired a Dr. to produce such a report. But it wasn’t the blacks, it was the ‘browns’ from south of the border that we were supposed to ‘fear.’ And it was as early as WW II that the non-coms were telling the officers that the enlisted stoners would not fight.
          Of course MJ was just collateral damage in this fight. The real villain was hemp, a renewable crop that produced oil as useful as crude and pulp for paper more abundantly than trees.

          • Good to know.

            We need fewer people. Less herd.

            I work in finance (for now, after all of today’s posts I might be looking for a new job. It’ll be funny to me, even with the problems – because the trash here won’t allow any searching for the position for 6 months, so if they fire me, they’re screwing themselves. We’re up to our bald pates in the shit as it is.)
            Anyway – they DESPISE risk. HATE it with a passion the KKK cannot even garner for the worst of the worst mass-murderer blacks.
            So they promote Status Quo at all times. The money should just keep rolling into their coffers. Minor shifts in the market, maybe, but we move 10,000 shares of (E.G.) IBM per ORDER. Might move a million of any company in a day. It’s just added links to the machine, if you know the links, you know when to buy and sell (which requires permission for us employees.)

            No real change (innovation) is permitted. No change in how we do business (think of a battleship needing to change course from 50 miles of “full speed ahead / rudder amidships” and it needs to avoid a minefield. THAT is BEST CASE scenario.)

            It’s disgusting. I can’t even control the version of my approved software on my PC. Nor add anything, nor get to the site for those software products we use. All I/O devices are blocked. (CD, USB, etc.)

            We are meant to be consumers.
            I think Hannibal had it right, though…. “Love thy fellow man.” With some fava beans and a nice chianti.
            They’re honestly not too different from cattle. And exercise about as much intelligence as said cattle….

    • Funny that the ‘Truth’ ads are mostly lies…
      The latest I saw, they’re marketing “end smoking… for your pets!” “Second hand smoke kills Fido!”

      • Hi Jean,

        Funny that the same type of people who wish to prosecute and imprison those who express valid opinions about the uncertainty of climate science see no problem with an organization dedicated to spreading lies, misinformation and scientific illiteracy calling itself the ‘Truth’.

        Jeremy

        • They are the Inquisition.
          Always have been, always will be.

          These are the Feminists who want to see Islam come to America. Islam, where women are property, have no rights, can be murdered (killed, their terms) for not pleasing the man, cannot occupy positions of power, in some interpretations cannot even even leave the house without a male escort.

          In the manosphere, the talk is, that feminism (and all its accompanying BS) is just one massive “shit test.” The women WANT men to call them on their bullshit. (another reason Daddy Government wins – no man can stand up to the state effectively, so she wields the biggest hammer, until she goes against the state, and the state puts her in her place. Now, a man can be arrested for domestic abuse if he talks too loud, yells, gesticulates; controls the finances; doesn’t control the finances; meets her wants, or doesn’t; if he defends himself from her, she attacks with a knife? He goes to prison.)
          She WANTS to be put in her place, taken by a firm hand and told what the limits are. And she will still try to push or break those limits!
          So in Islam, she gets beaten, and knows the limits.
          In the west? Man can’t do anything. Even hitting the wall to punctuate things is “assault.” (Talking across a room, hit the table or wall, open hand, to make noise – is abuse. But so is walking away while she’s talking….)

          They don’t care about truth. They want to know their place in the society, the order.

          And they’ve cut off all options for a man to actually be HOH (Head of Household) – but then claim it’s men’s fault.

          It’s the bankers I work for, stating the reason people aren’t saving for retirement is that they haven’t been FORCED to. Social Security is a voluntary program, right…? 😛

          The science on “Climate Change” is SETTLED, how DARE you question the orthodoxy that the SUN revolves around the EARTH!
          But the question of red meat, is BAD, tofu (soy of any sort) is GOOD (actually the other way around, proven by science, known by bodybuilders for decades – soy is a phytoestrogen…. And then, there’s the preparation, which is horrible in the commercial market – not soaked or fermented, just slammed into a case)

          Alcohol and smoking are EVIL… (Red wine especially is known to increase life; nicotine is an appetite supressant and anti-depressant; Alcohol is a depressant, but also relaxes you and reduces stress, and red wine has anti-oxidants, and so do other alcohols. Plus it makes for more socialization. So too with smoking socially.)

          They are Zealots.
          But wont get their hands dirty. They’ll just find a god who ordains them ministers and then force you to pay for your own suppression.

          Massholes abound…

  9. A major contributor to all this, beyond the nanny-state mentality, is that part of science is vastly improved. When I was in school, measuring things in parts-per-thousand might be the standard in organics. Technology has improved so that parts-per-million would now be the standard, perhaps even more precision for some “contaminants”. Basically, that’s a good thing.

    But then the mentality, generally based on Californication, that if something is harmful at parts-per-thousand, it must still be dangerous at parts-per-billion kicks in. Ask VW. I always wear gloves when hanging my Christmas lights now. “The State of California has determined” that they are carcinogenic.

    The upshot is that science is now largely “what we think it should be”, and “what will fuel increased funding with bold headlines”. Publication with minimal peer review, by science-ignorant media types, and few brave enough to be nay-sayers is the norm. After all, scientists have to pay their mortgages. And with the risk of offending a burgeoning, ideologically-driven bureaucracy, who who wants to break up that largely-government-funded party?

    • If you really want to see a ridiculous example of measurement gone crazy, just do some reading up on the Linear No Threshold (LNT) theory for nuclear radiation exposure. Basically, even though we evolved to live in a universe filled with radiation, any exposure to it is bad. And then there’s the nut jobs like Hellen Caldicott, an anti-nuclear activist who talks about the millions of people who died/will die prematurely (despite Europeans living longer than ever in the history of the human race) because of Chernobyl, but no one ever calls her out on it.

      This is what’s in store for the fossil fuel industry. CO₂ is the new gamma radiation. The greens basically destroyed the nuclear power industry through harsh regulation. It will take much longer for them to destroy the fossil fuel industry, but they’re in the long game. The interesting thing is that the industries they’re going after are also extremely intertwined with big government. As long as the politicians can keep dancing in-between both sides they’re going to continue to be the ones who win the game.

      • Yes, there really is NO scientific evidence for this ‘Zero Tolerance’ BS. Just because a lot of something is bad for you doesn’t mean a little is harmful. Shoot, almost anything is harmful in excess.
        But few would listen to a ‘layman’ proclaiming it. And the scientists don’t dare, because so much of the research funding in the USSA is ‘provided’ by Uncle.
        And for many, if not most, ‘contaminants,’ testing sensitivity is now available in parts per Billion.

        • And let’s not forget Uncle continues to subsidize sugar and corn even though most of us are considered obese. So much for actually wanting to keep us healthy…

          • Not to mention that it is probably the HFCS that is contributing to the obesity epidemic.
            Of course sugar, even with the ‘subsidy,’ is 2x as high as the world market, because of Uncle’s protective tariffs. W/o that, HFCS might not even exist.

            • Millions of people all over the world have been murdered for sugar. There have been countless tyrants who purged the country of those who even hinted they’d like a bit of freedom and that included economic freedom, the worst sort to those who did the bidding of the US in keeping the price of sugar products low.

              I was always amazed as a teen by that chart on the doc’s wall that showed me to be overweight. I asked a couple of them about it and they both laughed and said not to worry.

              That was one of those one size fits all things. I wouldn’t have a bit of fat on me when I weighed but was always “overweight”.

              • Yes, the BMI (body mass index) chart does not take into account those who have more than minimal amounts of muscle tissue. Aaaahnold and Sly Stallone, among others have very high BMI ratings.

            • And let’s not get started on what artificial sweeteners will do to you – even sucralose (Splenda), which is made from sugar.
              I do use some stevia (a natural herbal sweetener) and xylitol, a non-caloric ‘alcohol’ sugar.

                  • Have any of you guys read Death By Food Pyramid?

                    It’s a really interesting look at how that pice of shit Food Pyramid came to be. It’s almost breathtaking how irresponsible the assholes who created it were.

                    I wonder how many people that dietary advice killed. I’d bet everything I have that it’s a far higher number than smoking.

                    • My understanding is, the FedGov took the Food Pyramid from cattle farmers.
                      Cattle farmers wanted fat cattle…
                      Ipso Facto, we get fat humans.

                      (BTW, a good approach would be to outlaw sugar, if health was the intent. Meaning, you can’t just add in raw sugar to anything. Same with artificial ingredients, while we’re at it, like food dyes. Let people see and taste what they’re consuming. But that requires a central gov’t, so… 😛 However, the white sugar and white flour and refined beet sugar and corn sugar, those are all problematic, and hidden in damn near everything. Meaning, insulin is all over the place, and the pancreas has to then fight to stabilize blood sugar – which it drives too low, which makes you sleepy and/or hungry, to balance out blood sugar again… Which, in our society, means reaching for more sugars.Further, the idiocy of “if some is good (bad), then more is better (worse)!” means they’d then outlaw fruit juice and fruit consumption, as a “gateway drug to obesity” or some such. You get exposed to more carcinogens grilling than come out of the VW tailpipes, essentially; and guess what, they’re passing laws to force you to keep your grill “exhausts” (fumes) on your own property. I shit you not… and not just for Muzrats complaining they can smell Bacon, either.)

                      The herd needs to be culled…

                    • Drove by the Golden Arches the other day, and the sign proclaimed “Chicken Nuggets, No Artificial Preservatives.”
                      So I’m thinking, “I’m glad they use REAL preservatives instead of artificial ones.”

                    • Follow the money. Contrary to what jean said, cattlemen have little to no subsidy but farmers OTOH are subsidized out the wazoo. The crops subsidized are the most prolific to this country. US cotton is sorry stuff and has no market so we all pay through the nose to have what has become landed gentry produce it and subsidized to the point of “too much to fail”. But wheat and rice, soybeans and corn are easily grown in various parts of the nation and that lobby is powerful enough to create any message they want, hence, the food triangle.

                    • @Eightsouth,
                      Didn’t mean to imply that cattle are subsidized.
                      Rather, certain companies are, and thus exercise far-reaching influence.

                      The reason for meat cost increases? Feed costs are increasing. Herds are costly. Got to make do with fewer cows going to market, means less supply, means higher price point on supply v. demand curves.

                      But cattle aren’t subsidized, no, and I didn’t mean to imply that.

                    • Hi PTB and Jean,

                      Diseases associated with obesity, including diabetes likely “kill” more people than diseases related to smoking. I believe the official figures still put smoking on top, but obesity related mortality is quickly catching up. Also, morbidity figures for smoking are likely artificially high due to the difficulty in controlling for confounding factors such as poor diet, sedentary behavior, etc… Also, obesity related diseases already account for more “years lost” than smoking.

                      The food pyramid came out of George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, which produced the first Dietary Guidelines for Americans report. Apparently, McGovern had become convinced that a low fat, low meat and high carb diet was the answer to chronic disease. As such, he approached the issue with a particular agenda in mind. While it is difficult to believe today, there was a lot of disagreement about diet among scientists. Ancel Keys’ lipid hypothesis had yet to be enshrined as unassailable. Many scientists stressed the uncertainty of the emerging “consensus” on diet.

                      McGovern dismissed those concerns.

                      “I pleaded in my report and will plead again orally here for more research on the problem before we make announcements to the American public.” – Dr. Robert Olson

                      Senator McGovern, speaking for the commission stated that:

                      “Senators don’t have the luxury the research scientist does of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in.”

                      The arrogance of these people and the cluelessness of their defenders is breathtaking. McGovern is still revered as a visionary public health crusader.

                      http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/the-wisdom-of-george-mcgovern/?_r=0

                      Jeremy

                    • “McGovern is still revered as a visionary public health crusader.”
                      Yes, and so is Rachel Carson – the ‘godmother’ of the EPA.
                      Many more people, esp. in Africa, have been harmed by malaria than by DDT.

                    • Yeti, seems I read recently that overweight and diabetic problems had topped what used to be the No 1 cause of death, heart disease.

                      Funny about heart disease too, so many parts of the world have almost no heart related problems. Hydrogenated oil is right up there in contributing to circulatory problems, some say one of the reasons heart problems on a large scale began in this country.

              • The stevia I use is 2% erythritol, naturally made by the human body in minute amounts. Stevia in the Raw is some really bad stuff Wally sells.

      • That is the hysteria applied to everything now. Thousands at risk* Millions of lives etc*..

        Yet, more people are living into their hundreds, when even 50 years ago the average lifespan was in the 60’s. During colonial times in the US, most died in their 30’s despite the everything being “organic.”

        • Actually a lot of the increase in average lifespan has come from more many people living through infancy and early childhood. If you made it to adulthood, you stood a good chance of a long life.
          Very few die these days from measles, mumps, etc. I attribute this to better sanitation and nutrition, not vaccination.

          • The data shows that most of the battle was sanitation and nutrition. However it would have unlikely gone to zero or close to it.

    • with its funding coming from government science has made its transition to religion.

      The ruling class in human society employs intellectuals to tell us what’s best for us. That is the basis of religion, of control, for thousands of years.

      • And when they say that there can be no ‘Establishment of religion,’ they mean other than worship of themselves and/or Gaia.

  10. This is the logical conclusion of the totalitarian healthcare/welfare state. It’s no different than when the Supreme Court ruled that a farmer growing food on his own land for his own livestock was interstate commerce. You’ll even see the same thing in libertarian circles where people advocate for state enforced vaccinations.

    • Hi Geo,

      Yup. When Obamacare really gets rolling, look out. Which – again – is why I reluctantly support Trump. He may do something to gimp it. But it is certain Hillary’s ascension will enshrine it.

      Forever.

      • Colorado has a single payer initiative on the ballot this fall. I’ll vote against it, but I’m fairly certain it will pass. I hear there are parts of New Mexico that are nice. I’ll hate to leave but all the Californian transplants are going to do their damnedest to kill another gold egg laying goose.

      • Morning eric. Define “really gets rolling”. My wife and I paid $325 each to not participate, almost double what it cost the year before to not participate. It might get doubled again this year.

        If you have no insurance, which the majority, a huge majority of people don’t, then signing up for Medicaid if you need surgery or extensive medical care entails for many things, swearing you have no guns or either lose them. If you signed up to get a gun(not a good idea), they look for that and come and take them.

        A friend just crashed into that wall. He said he’d have to perjure himself in receiving that care to keep his guns. Guns? I replied. What guns? I could hear the gears turning in his head. Fortunately, before anything could come to pass his wife dropped dead due to a very bad doctor, an obvious idiot dermatologist that had been treating her for a “rash” for a couple years or more. Turns out it was squamous cell carcinoma and a tennis ball size lump had to develop before he considered it might be something else. By this time it was already Stage 4 but she vowed to fight it except the ensuing surgery and treatment caused her to have a massive coronary.

        That’s as good as it gets for Obamacare because she was white. Think there isn’t a huge difference getting the care you need if you’re white or black? Think again. A friends mother was diagnosed with some life-threatening problems. She had no insurance and was flat out told she didn’t qualify for any assistance, in effect, go home and die. Her next door neighbor and good friend dropped by right after this and found her crying and upset. Once she found out why she said “Give me your phone, I’ll take care of this”. The neighbor woman is black. 20 minutes later and everything is a done deal. She got the care she needed but it took a black person to get it for her.

        No sir, I’d say Obamacare is the greatest. The greatest back door disarmament scheme ever devised, the greatest scheme to pick out YT for no care and create an even greater divide between the care productive but poor white people can get and a minority, regardless of productivity in the past can get. She lives in a county(Bexar, Tx.)where thousands of people from south of the border clog every waiting room and every hospital who have never had a job in this country or paid taxes of any sort except the sales tax taken from whatever they choose to buy on their govt. credit card.

        No man, Obamacare is working just like it’s supposed to work and doing a bang up job too. Hospitals in Tx are broker than a stepped on cookie just like many other states with a huge influx of illegal(now legal)aliens who don’t even speak English. Everything in Tx. is printed in English and Spanish and coming soon, Farsi and Arabic. The Asians can read English just fine thank you and can live an American life as opposed to those who want to change it all to be like the country they fled. Hell, we’re even changing Tx. and Confederacy history to accommodate that. Obamacare: You can’t beat it…..if you’re white.

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