The tax-enhancing Nazification of tobacco
If Hitler came to power today, he'd go after the smokers.
Tax them relentlessly. Make life hard, at home and on the job. Then, in time, round them all up, like the Nazis did to the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped and Commies back in the 30s and 40s, force them to live in certain neighborhoods, then eventually ship them off to concentration camps and start systematically exterminating them.
"Nein smoking uberalles!"
The crowd'd go wild.
For now, though, the crowd will have to be satisfied with ever-spiraling smoking taxes.
Here in Texas, our leaders are preparing to jack up the price of a pack of cigarettes $1.
They want you to stop smoking. It's a health risk. Makes your clothes smell. Assaults the nonsmoking public's olfactory senses if the nonsmoking public is within smelling distance. Leads to littering. And forest fires. And it's just plain annoying having to watch smokers suck on those things outside the doorways to public buildings.
Begone, smokers!
It'll kill you, all right. So will heart disease. In fact, heart disease kills more people than cancer.
But the state is not honestly concerned about the public's health. If they were, they'd start taxing the heck out of concentrated animal fats, simple carbohydrates, sodium and every fast food joint in the state, which are nothing more than delivery systems for death.
Death, I tell you!
They're more interested in revenue streams that'll face the least amount of public displeasure.
That's not to say the State of Texas could not provide itself with a rich vein of tax revenue by taxing heart disease-inducing products. There's a gold mine there.
And there would be added benefits. The public wouldn't be forced to look at so many fat people in Wal-Mart. They are, after all, unhealthy and unsightly. They don't know what's good for them, and they are no more pleasant to gaze upon than yon smokers who dawdle so prevasively in alleys and doorways.
You know what they need. And so do the doctors. Maybe those chubby people wouldn't suck down so much concentrated animal fat, simple carbohydrates, sodium and fast food if the state, in its health-conscious wisdom, put its tax policy where its public-health-promoting mouth is.
WE'RE KIDDING!
That'll never happen.
Why?
There are way too many people who love their concentrated animal fat, simple carbohydrates, sodium and fast food. Millions and millions of them.
That's why smokers, and we all know who you are, are the country's last real minorities, subject to the tyranny of the majority and the tax-hungry whims of your elected lawmakers.
Who'll have the guts to outlaw tobacco outright? It'll fly, we tell you. It's only a matter of time before a new Hitler steps up and seizes the public's imagination.
One problem, though.
After that, they'll have to find another revenue stream.
Enjoy your Taco Bell, your KFC and all the rest while you can, America. That stuff'll kill you, we heard. And it's everywhere.
-
Posts
2 comments:
Banjo, you are not just strumming Dixie, Fries and Burgers here.
Not too far from now diseases related to poor diet and physical activity called metabolic syndrome and all its consequences will surpass smoking as the nation’s number one lifestyle and behaviorial causes of death: Tobacco, 435000; poor diet and physical inactivity, 400000; alcohol, 85000; microbes, 75000; toxic agents, 55000; motor vehicle accidents, 43000; firearms, 29000; sexual behavior, 20000; illicit drugs, 17000 (CDC 2000 stats).
Deaths due to obesity have risen 33% in the last decade and rate is accelerating.
64% of Americans are overweight, one third are seriously obese, 15% between 6 and 19, and most frightening, 10% of toddlers 2 to 5.
The consequence is not only broadly heart disease and stroke, but diabetes, fatty liver, muscle wasting that leads to general slow degradative illnesses as gangrene, blindness, jaundice, hepatitis, cancer, and general organ failure.
Consequences of smoking are mild and limited compared to obesity.
And once obese particularly beginning at an early age, it is magnitudes more difficult to quit than smoking.
And one last point, look at the Nazi-like diversion of attention not only on smoking, but alcohol consumption, motor vehicle accidents (e.g. seatbelts and speedtraps), firearms (second amendment right), sex (particularly AIDS) and illicit drugs.
Maybe the consumption of concentrated animal fat, simple carbohydrates, sodium and fast food can be taxed for just the smokers.
I don't know about anyone else, but I prefer a fit and attractive smoker to a fat non-smoker.
I am not quite sure what the point yeller mouth was trying to make, if there was one, but one stat that flies in the face of all the other "alarming" statistics certain people like to throw around is average life span. The average life span of a human, even with movie theatre popcorn, continues to increase year after year.
Go figure! Kinda makes me think it's all a bunch of BS that busybodies like to bandy about in efforts to make their fellow citizens behave properly.
Post a Comment