Smoking, health, and freedom

The BBQ Pit
1

I smoke like a chimney; smoked ever since I was 16 (it was legal for 16 year olds to buy tobacco when I started). I also drink whisky each and every day to the tune of maybe a liter a week.

Will my guts get messed up? Probably. But here’s the rub–It’s worth it to me. I like it. Eat right, avoid the vices, die anyway.

Are Jack Daniel and Henry Ford collectively responsible for drunken driving fatalities? Is Sam Colt responsible for gun violence? (Oh yeah, I forgot, some “victim” arsehole is suing gun makers now. My bad.) Is Colonel Sanders responsible for fatarses dying from morbid obesity? If you answered ANY of those questions with a “no”, you cannot support the lawsuits against the tobacco companies with any degree of consistency.

I’d like to see a Constitutional amendment that anyone who sues someone else to avoid blame for his own actions would be stripped of all his Constitutional rights. No voting, no fair trials, no free speech, no nothing. If you refuse to accept the awesome responsibility that comes with being a free citizen, then you deserve to be in chains. Put them all on an island run by a dictator appointed by the President. Better yet, ship 'em all to North Korea, Cuba or China. Then maybe they’ll appreciate freedom.

2

What if you didn’t come to a complete stop at a 4-way stop sign gets hit by someone else who didn’t stop at all? Can you sue?

What if you leave an object lying out on the road knowing there may be a chance someone could hit it and someone else hits it on purpose? Can you sue?

What if you get up in someone’s face in a bar fight and that person takes a swing at you, knocking you unconcious. Can you sue?

What if you purposely walk across someone else’s land and the owner takes out a shotgun and starts firing it at you? Can you sue?

What if you take a medication of your own free will but no one’s told you of its side effects and you end up sick and vomitting for days? Can you sue?

I’ve got a million of these…

3

I don’t see the rant here. What’s your beef? Lawsuits against tobacco companies? That’s been done to death here. And as Enderw24 points out, your Constitutional amendment idea isn’t very well thought out.

Try again, Daddio.