Despite reams of laws, these huge, profitable [though non-taxable] markets
continue to grow. How does the Left explain this? It should be obvious -
DESIRE creates markets, not advertising. All of the laws in the world won't
change that.
I think it's safe to say that it's both.....when I smoked it was the desire.....but advertising works or they wouldn't spend the money.....what is it that is being desired? a change of consciousness?
I'm not sure who has heard the saying "life's not fair" on this list but it was a valuable lesson I never heard at school. I think society can make things more fair.....but no matter what you do for some people they will continue to think they are being treated unfairly. I think to compare smoking with asbestos is a bit out there and I think it's why I tend to cringe around some people on the left and the right.....there are stories of people who have smoked cigarettes all their lives and have lived to a ripe old age.....
I started out the son of two alcoholics/smokers.....was that fair....it was what it was....I smoked and drank for 15 years and I enjoyed most of it.......but I made a choice to quit and that perspective comes with age and I now can instead of having only disdain for smokers, I can have compassion. Let people do what they will to their bodies and let the families sort it out. That's how it happens in the real world.
At any rate, protecting the workers.....how could anyone argue with that....well, then what about gas station attendants.....or police officers or....construction workers or circus performers or bike messengers......I was a bike messenger, a very dangerous job.....the crux is I took the job. I wanted to do it. I took all the precautions I could take. But the air I breathed outside, well, I wish someone was raising the stink about that back then.
At any rate, I think a club or bar that is smoke free could promote itself as such and do well. Just on that alone. People call it the free market, but it came into existence with language.
Meanwhile cops beat up on art-a-whirl attendees and that dies a quick death on this list, what's the deal? I think police brutality is a far bigger problem than banning smoking....
and that can happen to anyone, not just the patron of smoky bars............
Robert Yorga St. Anthony West
"The seeker is he who is in search of himself.
Give up all questions except one:" Who am I? After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The "I am" is certain. The "I am this" is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.
To know what you are, you must first investigate what you are not.
Discover all that you are not - body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that - nothing concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realize that you are the limitless being."
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
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