# More proof the smoking NAZI's knowing what's best for you. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 14, 2005, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772 "2005-05-14T00:14:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/eada6e/32.png) [@Go\_You\_Big\_Red\_Fire\_Engine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_You_Big_Red_Fire_Engine)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/61 "2005-05-15T10:06:23Z")
Sure, 1 individual smoker tends to respect the rights of everyone else and stand as far away from people not smoking as possible. But never underestimate the arrogance of smokers in large groups. Why people take up smoking in the first place I wil never understand. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/62 "2005-05-15T15:43:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Without all those duffers puffing away, there’d be far fewer cancers of the lung, larynx, esophagus, stomach, kidney, bladder etc. for me to diagnose, and it’d be harder to support my lifestyle, such as it is. I get it now. Ban smoking, and all disease will vanish. Riddle me this. Why do people who have never smoked get cancer anyway? Why do they have heart attacks anyway? Everyone will get some sort of cancer eventually, if they live long enough. Everyone. Some will get it sooner. Some people smoke and drink and raise holy hell, and live to be 100. Some are squeaky clean and drop dead at 20. After years and years of so many “warnings” about this and that, I don’t even pay attention anymore. Eggs are bad. Eggs are good. Meat is bad. Meat is good. Carbs are bad. Carbs are good. Cholesterol is bad. But there are good and bad and harmless too. Wine is bad. Wine is good. Fish is good. Fish has mercury. On and on. Make up your minds, and just maybe people might listen :eek: I think it really is all about this: Some people are consumed by the gnawing fear that someone somewhere might be having a good time. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/63 "2005-05-15T15:52:20Z")
> [@Go You Big Red Fire Engine](#): > > Sure, 1 individual smoker tends to respect the rights of everyone else and stand as far away from people not smoking as possible. I highly doubt that I am the only one. But, it is easier to point out SOME rude smokers as a representative of ALL smokers? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/64 "2005-05-15T16:45:15Z")
I am curious about something that has been demonstrated clearly in this thread - I didn’t realize that smokers are so deeply in denial about the realities of the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke, and are so keen on rationalizing continuing to smoke. If you stop rationalizing, do you have to quit, then? Is that how it works? Oh, and when a pathologist sarcastically tells you smoking is great for you, I suggest he knows what he’s talking about. He’s the guy that gets to look at all the [black lungs](http://www.presmark.com/htmlfile/pictures.htm)of the ex-smokers on his table. Like **jackmannii** said, he has no stake in telling smokers to quit - he only gets _more_ business out of them. Smokers, you have the right to put carcinogens in your body. I really wish you wouldn’t, because it impairs your health, but it’s your right. You have absolutely no right to put carcinogens in _my_ body, however. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/65 "2005-05-15T16:45:36Z")
Nothing, to me, says “I’m an idiot with Internet access” like calling anyone who wants to do anything about anything a “Nazi.” Until you’re put on a train and taken off to a concentration camp, lighten up your metaphors. So you don’t get to make all the laws. That hardly makes you the target of genocide. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/66 "2005-05-15T16:55:11Z")
> [@featherlou](#): > > Smokers, you have the right to put carcinogens in your body. I really wish you wouldn’t, because it impairs your health, but it’s your right. You have absolutely no right to put carcinogens in _my_ body, however. You can make choices. You can step away from a smoker, or ask him/her to step away from you. Nobody is forcing you to just stand right there. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/67 "2005-05-15T17:12:19Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > Nothing, to me, says “I’m an idiot with Internet access” like calling anyone who wants to do anything about anything a “Nazi.” Until you’re put on a train and taken off to a concentration camp, lighten up your metaphors. So you don’t get to make all the laws. That hardly makes you the target of genocide. Fine, I’ll ignore a very common “metaphor” used in the English language. Pray tell, what should I use from now on, O Great One? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/68 "2005-05-15T17:14:22Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Fine, I’ll ignore a very common “metaphor” used in the English language. Pray tell, what should I use from now on, O Great One? “Republican” :d&r: ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/69 "2005-05-15T17:32:48Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Fine, I’ll ignore a very common “metaphor” used in the English language. Pray tell, what should I use from now on, O Great One? It’s not a common metaphor, except among dimwitted, self-pitying assholes who think any mild inconvenience should be likened to the greatest tragedy in human history. Instead of getting defensive, just look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re emaciated from starvation, suffering from tuberculosis, and awaiting torture and murder. If not, back off your name-calling. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/70 "2005-05-15T17:43:59Z")
[http://www.salon.com/sept97/comics/comics1970929.html](http://www.salon.com/sept97/comics/comics1970929.html) ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/71 "2005-05-15T18:05:04Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Fine, I’ll ignore a very common “metaphor” used in the English language. Pray tell, what should I use from now on, O Great One? It’s cool. According to his own cited cartoon, he’s a language Nazi. How many sorts of Nazis are there?!?!? 😃 Now, referring to all the doctors, experts, and wannabe bosses out there. My reply to various cancers, black lungs etc was a (evidently) not very clear response. Are all of you saying we need to mend our ways just because you say so? Are we going to pass more laws because of the “We know what’s best for you” mentality? If that is it, then I ask you to stop helping us. While we are at it, pray tell how I specifically am holding you down and forceably pumping poisons down your lungs? To take it further, how are we destroying all the air on the planet? I’ve heard those arguments before. Once again, nobody prevents you from simply stepping a few feet/meters away from all us smokers. ---
**Author:** ![Arwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/51bf81/32.png) [@Arwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arwin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/72 "2005-05-15T18:15:00Z")
> [@Rufus Xavier](#): > > Sheesh. 20 years ago (and more, I’m sure), a lot of kids started their smoking habit with clove cigarettes, because they smelled good and left a sweet taste on your lips. What I want to know is, what took the tobacco companies so long to figure out this might be a good marketing ploy? Was it a technological breakthrough that allowed them to infuse tobacco with these flavors? Up to now, they’ve been mostly relying on simply keeping enough of one of the most addictive drugs in existence in their product (yes, nicotine is more addictive than heroine). A safer buck couldn’t be made, and so no marketing was necessary. Now the tides are changing, and so, like the alcohol branch, they do what they can to target their most promising clientele (youth). ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/73 "2005-05-15T18:25:00Z")
What’s funny is people who spend loads of money killing themselves, and complain because the doctors “think they know better.” Hint: maybe they do! ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/74 "2005-05-15T18:25:06Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > If tobacco is such a scourge on the republic, why do you not support a complete ban? Don’t fuck around with half measures if you’re so concerned with the health impact. Ban it all, and ban it all now. The fact that a ban would not work and would create other problems has no relevance to the fact that tobacco is a carcinogen, and not just to the people who use it (absent the latter, I’d just shrug it off as another example of St. Darwin performing his miraculous separation of the fit and unfit). ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/75 "2005-05-15T18:53:11Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > What’s funny is people who spend loads of money killing themselves, and complain because the doctors “think they know better.” > > Hint: maybe they do! And, just maybe, it’s not your or anyone else’s business either? If it was only the doctors, then OK. However, it seems the most vocal and often the most deliberately rude and outright insulting ones, the ones making the most noise about banning are **not** doctors. They are the worst of the “I know what’s best for you” side. They don’t really care about the “health and well being” of their “fellow human beings” either. They just personally don’t like it, and want to enforce their dislikes. There are ways to compromise. I’ve been willing to, and have. It’s the “anti’s” who are unwilling to meet in the middle ground. Sometimes I think it has nothing at all to do with smoking. Like all the anti-anythingelsethereis I suspect it’s more about imposing control, making personal prejudice into law, and exerting power. Whether I, a smoker, drop dead tonight or live to be 150, why do you care? Will it affect you in any way? Am I causing you personally, any direct and proveable harm? I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/76 "2005-05-15T19:21:03Z")
I don’t care if you smoke, man. I’m only in this thread because I hate people who throw around “Nazi” like they have any fucking idea what it means (Or think it means anyone who disagrees with you, as Godwin famously noted). My last comment was a throwaway, and your response has nothing to do with it. You don’t refute the medical evidence against smoking with gradeschool accusations against those who oppose smoking “think they know so much!” Most people who oppose smoking are simply sick of smoke. Others have dead relatives they miss a lot. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/77 "2005-05-15T19:44:37Z")
Maybe it IS childish of me. I have severe “issues” with people who think they can decide what I should be allowed to do. When they presume to dictate to me, because they know what’s best for me, it pisses me off. I didn’t give anyone permission to do my thinking for me. If I do something stupid, well then I reserve the right to make my own mistakes and do not want to be controlled “for my own good”. Until the world turns upside down, my doctor can tell me what I need to know, and then I make a decision. It hasn’t reached a point where he can give me orders. **I know who the real Nazis were**. My dad and uncles fought in that war. I’ve met people who had camp numbers tattooed on their arms. Some of them managed to survive, and made it to New York where I grew up. Yeah, I know all about Nazis. Particularly about how they controlled everything, told people what to think and feel and do, and swept aside everyone who was different, “incorrect”, or inconvenient, and sometimes even took the time to pass laws saying they could do it. Sort of like the smoking Nazis? Maybe? Just a little? I also know about the medical evidence, we’ve all been beat over the head with it for years. However, I still am entitled to free choice to do and live as I please. It’s still a free country (that’s what they keep telling us). It’s OK to be sick of smoke. So then isn’t it OK to be tired of the preaching and lecturing and the often grossly inaccurate claims (like the antismoking “commercials”)? Just to be annoying and childish for a bit, nazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazi That was sort of fun. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/78 "2005-05-15T19:51:45Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Maybe it IS childish of me. I have severe “issues” with people who think they can decide what I should be allowed to do. When they presume to dictate to me, because they know what’s best for me, it pisses me off. I didn’t give anyone permission to do my thinking for me. If I do something stupid, well then I reserve the right to make my own mistakes and do not want to be controlled “for my own good”. Until the world turns upside down, my doctor can tell me what I need to know, and then I make a decision. It hasn’t reached a point where he can give me orders. > > **I know who the real Nazis were**. My dad and uncles fought in that war. I’ve met people who had camp numbers tattooed on their arms. Some of them managed to survive, and made it to New York where I grew up. Yeah, I know all about Nazis. Particularly about how they controlled everything, told people what to think and feel and do, and swept aside everyone who was different, “incorrect”, or inconvenient, and sometimes even took the time to pass laws saying they could do it. Sort of like the smoking Nazis? Maybe? Just a little? > > I also know about the medical evidence, we’ve all been beat over the head with it for years. However, I still am entitled to free choice to do and live as I please. It’s still a free country (that’s what they keep telling us). > > It’s OK to be sick of smoke. So then isn’t it OK to be tired of the preaching and lecturing and the often grossly inaccurate claims (like the antismoking “commercials”)? > Just to be annoying and childish for a bit, > nazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazinazi > > That was sort of fun. Every political body in human history has, to some extent, told people what to do. It’s what government does. Throughout human history, too, people have told other people what they oughta think. So your deep first-hand knowledge of Nazis notwithstanding, it’s a poor historical illusion. Preventing companies from selling deadly, addictive, candy-flavored drugs is NOT Nazism. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/79 "2005-05-15T20:00:36Z")
So then you just want a total ban because you don’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2005, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772/80 "2005-05-15T20:01:05Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > Every political body in human history has, to some extent, told people what to do. It’s what government does. Throughout human history, too, people have told other people what they oughta think. So your deep first-hand knowledge of Nazis notwithstanding, it’s a poor historical illusion. Preventing companies from selling deadly, addictive, candy-flavored drugs is NOT Nazism. It’s also a poor historical ALLUSION. :smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-proof-the-smoking-nazis-knowing-whats-best-for-you/303772.md?page=5)