alright damn it- lets talk about it

[Christians4LessGvt]

"I should pay more than the guy who eats at McDonald's 5 times a week"

absolutely yes because McDonalds offer salads, chicken breasts, juices, milk, and other relatively healthy food
your cigarettes are 100% destructive
as stated earlier ciagrettes are in their own category
because it is so defineable
and so 100% destructive with no other value

[Cynthia]

"INVEST IN PEOPLE, not war.  What good is a free public education system if millions of kids are too damaged by poor or inadequate parenting to be able to take advantage of it?  Massive, free, early childhood development organizations should be ensuring that every child gets healthy, productive, motivating personal interaction, stimulation and role modeling so that he or she will be good student material on reaching school age.  More and better teachers' colleges, more money for research and development in pedagogy."


I agree.

[fatman]

You can get salads or grilled chicken at all of the above restaurants

The Dairy Queen near my house doesn't sell salads.  Perhaps we should institute a tax on high fat/low nutrition foods of $2.43 per hamburger/french fry/pack of little debbies.  Think that would work?

So they don't sell exclusively unhealthy products

A bag of Ruffles and a can of clam dip isn't exactly a healthy product either.

Cigarette companies on the other hand only sell very destructive products that serve no other purpose
And yet they're legal.  Tell me why that is again?

A Little Debbie may be not as healthy as something else but it does provide some nourishment

Nicotine shows promise as a treatment for Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, depression, and certain vascular disorders.  So by your argument, cigarettes should be okay because they provide some benefits.

Cigarettes provide nothing but destruction and nicotine high

Tell you what, you don't like it, go ahead and get it banned.  Really, I totally support this.  Ban it altogether.  I'll use my state as an example.  Let's say the average person smokes a pack and a half a day (about right from my personal observations).  That's $3.07 in tax generated per smoker, per day.  Let's multiply that times 365 to get our yearly tax revenue from that smoker.  That totals $1108.69, per year, per smoker.  Now in my state there are 6,395,798 people, per the estimated 2006 census.  Of those, 23.9% are under the age of 18.  That makes the total of adults in WA 4931160.258.  Of this number, 19.5% smoke.  So the total number of smoking adults in WA is 961576.250310.  Per year, these people generate $1,066,089,972.96 in tax revenue.  That's not taking into account the number of minors who smoke.  So go ahead and ban it, and we can see where the state is going to make that billion dollar shortfall from, Lord knows that they're not going to cut anything.  So unless you're willing to assume that financial burden, cram it.  I already pay my fucking way, and I don't need you or any other goody two shoe trying to tell me that I'm a financial burden.

That billion dollars, btw, is why you'll never see smoking banned outright.

Nicotine benefits:  http://health.howstuffworks.com/nicotine-health-benefits.htm

Washington population stats:  http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53000.html

Washington smoker percentage:  http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=5128

[Christians4LessGvt]

whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
talk about putting words in my mouth
and assumptions
i am not at all for banning cigarettes
i think people have the right to many self destructive behaviors
i just don't believe they have the right to ask me to subsidize it
and cigarettes are so clearly defineable
with food they clearly have some redeeming value
sure some food is better than other food
it is established
with cigarettes it is all destructive
sure there could be some rare medicinal value discovered
thats what Rx's are for
we could make the rare exception for someone with a cigarette Rx
like that would be really widepread 
but that is not an accepted established fact
again cigarettes are not really debate-able
it is widely accpted as being all bad

but you certainly have the right to smoke
just don't ask me to pay for your volunteer destructive habit

[fatman]

absolutely yes because McDonalds offer salads, chicken breasts, juices, milk, and other relatively healthy food

I kind of doubt that salads are a majority of McDonald's products sold.  I think the vast majority is rather unhealthy food, soda, french fries (but no trans fats!), greasy hamburgers.  We're talking about McDonald's, not a fucking salad bar.

your cigarettes are 100% destructive

So?  Is the percentage of destruction significantly less for an overweight diabetic eating ice cream?  For a type A personality type at age 48 working himself into a fit?  Is your whole argument based on the percentage of destruction?

as stated earlier ciagrettes are in their own category
because it is so defineable

So you are on the record as advocating control of me using legal, albeit unhealthy, substances in my body?  Because the cigarette tax is a control in every way.  Smoking bans are a method of control.  So are extreme taxes.

and so 100% destructive with no other value

There's your percentage of destruction argument again.  Smokers have a lower incidence of Alzheimer's disease, so I guess it'd be 98% destructive, with a value of Alzheimer's prevention.  Personally, I'd rather go out with lung cancer than Alzheimer's, and I've lost relatives to both.

[Christians4LessGvt]

all your examples are mostly hard to track and still debateable
like what a guy eats in McDonalds....ice cream...ect
cigarettes are much easy and the debate much much clearer and micro not macro

[fatman]

I apologize, I misread the your post and your intent.

just don't ask me to pay for your volunteer destructive habit

But I have to pay for your (theoretical, not personal) volunteer destructive habit of not exercising, eating at McDonald's 5 times a week, eating two cartons of ice cream per week, from which you get lovely all expense paid vacation to Type II Diabetesland.  Then I get to pay for your diabetic treatment and supplies because you refuse to control your disease.

All because ice cream and McDonald's have some redeeming nutrional value?

I'm not buying it.

PS, sorry if I'm coming across too personal, my coffeemaker broke this morning.

[fatman]

all your examples are mostly hard to track and still debateable

It doesn't seem that way to me.  Would you say that an overweight person has an unhealthy lifestyle?  With the obesity percentage quickly rising in this country, wouldn't you agree that that is indicative of poor dietary habits or exercise habits?  With Type II diabetes rising quickly in this country also, doesn't that suggest to you that people aren't taking care of themselves as well as they should?


like what a guy eats in McDonalds

Fast food is bad for you.  Period.  Even the salads aren't particularly healthy.  I think it's a pretty safe assumption that McDonald's sells more hamburgers than salads.  More soda.  More French fries.  Probably more egg McMuffins too.  I don't see how that safe assumption is debatable.


ice cream

I think that most doctors and nutritionists would agree that ice cream is very bad.  High fat, high sugar, with minimal nutritional value.  It is to food what soda is to drink.

cigarettes are much easy and the debate much much clearer and micro not macro

Yes, we all know that cigarettes are bad and that you will probably die from them if you smoke all of your life.  I understand that.  What I don't understand is your argument that because I smoke, and ingest harmful toxins into my body, I should pay more.  More than someone else who doesn't smoke and ingests harmful toxins into his body.  There are more fat people than smokers in this country (though a lot of them are one and the same).  I'd be interested to know the costs of treating obesity related illnesses vs. smoking related ones.  Some of the diseases are common to both (heart disease for one), but a lot of them are restricted to one or the other (Diabetes with no hereditary influences, lung cancer without hereditary influence, etc).  Other than smoking I take care of myself.  I hike, I go to the gym, I work out, I eat healthy (at least 90% of the time anyway), I rarely drink.  Why should I subsidize someone who doesn't do those things?

[Xavier_Onassis]

You can argue that ice cream and fast food are bad for some people some of the time. An occasional scoop of ice cream or an occasional Big Mac is not harmful.
 Cigarettes are harmful all the time.

Still, there are smokers and drinkers who have reached 100, so it depends on the individual even then.

[fatman]

You can argue that ice cream and fast food are bad for some people some of the time. An occasional scoop of ice cream or an occasional Big Mac is not harmful.
 Cigarettes are harmful all the time.    

I don't think that the issue here is whether or not something is harmful,  I think that the issue is the potential harm, and the cost of treating that harm, as that is what insurance premiums are based upon.  Overindulgence in anything is bad for you, I think that we can all agree on that.  With the rate of smokers falling but the rate of the obese rising, who is subsidizing who?

[Lanya]

fatman,
If you have a carafe (sp?), a largish strainer and some paper towels, you can boil water, put a paper towel in a strainer on top of the carafe, put coffee in the strainer and pour the boiling water on it. I've done this several times when the coffeemaker quit. It takes longer, it's messy, but you get COFFEE. 

[fatman]

Thanks for the input lanya, I actually dug through my camping gear (I need to go through it again too, by the looks of it, hiking season is fast approaching!) and found my old enamel camp percolator.  I normally prefer percolated coffee to drip anyway, but drip is more convenient. 

[Amianthus]

If you have a carafe (sp?), a largish strainer and some paper towels, you can boil water, put a paper towel in a strainer on top of the carafe, put coffee in the strainer and pour the boiling water on it. I've done this several times when the coffeemaker quit. It takes longer, it's messy, but you get COFFEE. 

You can at least give me the credit for that one. ;-)

Also, I recommend using a French press. No filters and nothing really to break.

[Xavier_Onassis]

NOne of this has much to do with the kind of changes the country needs. Not even the kind of coffeemaker you use.

I agree that a French Press is hard to beat.

[Amianthus]

That's ok. I was chastised recently for assuming that a thread topic is the topic that we should discuss.

Apparently, thread topics are just a suggestion.