Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

I just heard this during our local news… (also documented here)

Enforcing the idiotic Ohio smoking ban has cost Montgomery County $70,000 in the past year.

$3800 in fines have been issued.

$450 in fines have been collected.

No word about how much complying with the law has cost private businesses in terms of facility rennovations and lost customers.

Meanwhile, the front page of the Dayton Daily News today moans about the millions of dollars schools are having to do without. Way to prioritize, idiots. 

I’ve wanted to write about the HBO mini-series John Adams for some time now, but I’m not able to put my thoughts together in any presentable way that I would expect others to read and follow. And I have tried. And I’ll probably try again.

This evening, however, I discovered that the soundtrack to the series is available, and I promptly purchased it through iTunes. While waiting for the download, I perused some of the reviews at Amazon and came across this mind-numbing gem of colossal stupidity:

A terrific series with brilliant cinematography! I DO wish that the producers (Tom Hanks certainly had the say) had left out the use of the tobacco drug. We don’t need smoking or other use of tobacco in ANY movie. Otherwise, a memorable series that everyone over the age of 12 should see! I understand that the DVD extras as really supposed to be something. I’ve already got my order in for the set.

Emphasis added.

I responded with this comment, which I want to re-print here before Amazon takes it down:

Of all the unpleasant things depicted in the series that are historical factualities… tarring and feathering, inoculations with a rusty unsterile cutting implement, life-threatening disease of all kinds, graphic tooth decay, chronic alcoholism, amputation of a leg from a man still awake and the associated gore, a masectomy performed on a woman who could do little except bite down on a pencil, and whatever else I’ve forgotten to list… you’ve chosen to complain about John Adams *smoking cigars* as something inappropriate? This is exactly the kind of anti-tobacco zealotry that further reinforces the nanny state which founding fathers such as John Adams would have fought with every last fiber of his being. It seems that the point of John Adams’s life, and the series, are lost on you.

Freedom. The freedom to make mistakes and bad decisions (if you consider smoking such) included. Especially included. Having the personal preferences of others forced upon you by the law is not freedom.

And as a somewhat related stinger, I want to add this for those of you who have seen the series or have any meaningful understanding of John Adams: Think of Adams, his life, his principles, his accomplishments, his obstacles, and his integrity; and then take a good look at the three candidates we’re considering right now. If you don’t feel some sense of sadness, of regret, of apprehension for our republic, then I call into serious question your patriotism, your perspective, and the value you assign comfort at freedom’s expense.

If you show Janet Jackson’s boob for a second during the Superbowl, you create all kinds of controversy and your network gets fined by the FCC.

If you show a pig having an insemination rod inserted into its vagina on Modern Marvels, and follow that up seconds later with a guy jacking a pig off, no problemo. It’s all kosher. Gather the kids around the TV and use the DVR to play it again and again.

Had enough yet?

I wanted to write about this earlier in the week, but life got in the way. Being self employed is great, and at times it has kept me too busy to write or to collect my thoughts coherently enough to make writing possible. Others like Fake Steve Jobs and John Welch have beat me to the keyboard with a similar opinion, but that never stopped me before.

I remember, oh, a couple of months ago when frigtards (to borrow a phrase) sacrificed their dignity to wait in line during the hot summer sun, to wait in line while the rain poured down on them at night, with the hope… the wish!… that they’d be able to get their hands on at least one of the planet changing, magical devices that Christ himself probably was going to stand in line for. And after all their exposure to the elements, after standing and sitting and laying on hard concrete for days or weeks, after being made to look like complete asses in the media, after tying their self-identity to a transient piece of plastic and glass, it turned out that Apple had a shit-ton of the things and the line was completely pointless and stupid.

But the price… Completely worth it. The iPhone was the greatest creation of humanity, it could do no wrong. It cut a tin can as easily as a tomato. It was a dessert topping and a floor wax. It cleaned behind your toilet. It vacuumed pet hair off the furniture. It cooked your favorite dinner and gave you a hand job. Six hundred dollars was a bargain. Why, the frigtards in line were willing to pay twice that if they had to in order to get their hands on one of those precious few iPhones first. Not having one was unthinkable.

And then two months later Apple dropped the price 33%.

And the bitching began.

Shocker. Everyone was stunned. They couldn’t comprehend that technology gets cheaper over time. That’s never happened before! They had paid a kind of (finger quotes) “early adopter premium” (Not tax!*). They had been taken, Apple had ripped them off. The iPhone they proudly presented their plastic for two months ago in a frenzy lest they miss out on the technology event of a lifetime instantly wasn’t worth what they had spent. It was cheapened. Their special device, and subsequently, their personal specialness, wasn’t as special as it was 30 seconds ago. They voluntarily gave up their money in return for the exact goods they were promised and wanted so badly, and now they felt indignant enough to ask for some of it back.

I hope when Steve Jobs heard people wanted refunds, he rolled his eyes and groaned and said, “Fuck them.” That’s the Steve I like. Apple would have been completely correct to issue a PR-speak statement that said, “Too bad, you bought it already. Get over it, and yourself.” But that’s bad customer relations. And it furthers the action line in the press that arrogant Apple is a budding monster who will cheat consumers and take their money any way they can, ass-raping them if necessary without offering them a wet wipe afterwards. (In the press, all companies are bad until “proven” good by the press themselves.)

So Apple offered iPhone purchasers a $100 credit towards other products at the Apple Store. It was a good PR move, it throttled back the bitching a bit, and Apple gets more money from people who feel they were ripped off to begin with. Win-win-win.

I’m amused by all this. All of you obsessive iPhone frigtards have done your damnedest to make yourself look like… um… frigtards since MWSF last January. I realize you’re too dumb to let any of this disturb your sleep at night, but you really should re-evaluate your lives. Take some long walks in a scenic place. Listen to some classical music while sitting under a tree. Go outside at night and see the stars. Grab a big armful of the electronic gizmos you’ve purchased (instead of funding your retirement) and lost interest in and neglected and toss them into a dumpster. Play with a dog. Turn off Lord of the Rings or Star Trek or Nintendo of Playstation or whatever fantasy-based bullshit you’re obsessive-compulsively fixated with and join the real fucking world.

* A tax is something you pay involuntarily under threat of prison or worse. Nobody makes you buy iPhones the day they’re released.

My friend John Welch and I have been having a discussion about current anti-smoking laws in this thread over at his site. Several days ago, I wrote another response to his latest comments and submitted them for his approval to be posted. For whatever reason, he hasn’t gotten around to approving them yet. And that’s fine. He may be busy and hasn’t looked at the queue, or he’s composing his own follow-up comments before posting mine, or he may consider the topic old and not interesting anymore. It’s his website, and it’s totally his right to refuse any comments at any time for any reason. I’m ok with that.

I do, however, want to post my latest comments to my own site. This is a topic I find interesting and it’s my hope that perhaps I can cause a few people who disagree with me to re-think their position. It is in that spirit I post my unpublished comments to bynkii.com. John and I have known each other for a few years now, and I’m confident he understands this is not meant to one-up him or in some way play an immature gotcha game.

And now, the comment.

And when enough people realize that there’s a currently legal habit that is causing real health problems,

Like eating Twinkies, or McDonald’s? Obesity is a real health problem too. Would you like the government to regulate what you’re allowed to eat, and how much of it? You know, some governments have already stepped in that direction by banning tans-fats. Your behavior-conrolled utopia is rapidly being built as we write. And the anti-smoking crowd has given these governments the green light to regulate such aspects of our lives.

generally stinking up the area, and making common activities (going out to eat, dancing) impossible for a rather huge chunk of the population,

I just came back from breakfast. Two booths away from me, a badly misbehaved child picked up the syrup container and started jumping up and down on the booth seat, splashing syrup, and his mother yelled at the top of her lungs for him to stop. It was obvious that this kid’s behavior made the common activity of eating breakfast, at the very least, unpleasant for a rather huge chunk of the restaurant. And this sort of thing happens nearly every time I attempt to eat out. By your logic, because badly behaved kids make common activities unpleasant or impossible, they should be illegal, punishable by fines or jail.

they have the right to use the legal system to try and fix that.

I’d sign a petition to have the legal system deal harshly with unruly kids and parents. After all, I have the right to total comfort and non-offensiveness wherever I am, public or private (according to the anti-smoking crowd). Let’s not be half-assed about it.

No one enacted anti-smoking ordinances illegally. No one hired enforcers at the polls in the locations where it was voted in. This has all been done legally. Smokers don’t like it, they can take the proper measures to try to undo it.

Smoky McStrawman. I have never claimed that anti-smoking laws are somehow illegal or invalid. I have never challenged their status as enforceable law. I do, however, challenge the logic and the motivations of their proponents. And I support any legal method to have anti-smoking laws repealed.

Wait, you’re bitching about the legal system creating a nanny state, yet you want to hire how many more cops to watch your behavior that closely?

Again, Smoky McStrawman. I’ve never asserted that more police are needed. I’ve stated that littering laws already exist that are intended to deal with the initial complaint of cigarette butts littering the landscape in your original post. Additional law enforcement is not needed. I’d say that repurposing cops from stupid things like clocking drivers in the highway median to dealing with citizen complaints, like littering, is a good approach.

However, my point was that, instead of new laws that send people to jail for smoking, your original complaint could be addressed by enforcement of existing laws. Nothing new required, police or statute.

How much of a tax increase are you willing to support to hire the extra cops to properly enforce all the littering laws?

How much of a tax increase are you willing to support when, because of current laws and tobacco taxes, smoking decreases and smokers no longer provide the revenue to the state and federal governments they’re used to in order to fund programs? Understand that governments don’t eliminate or cut programs because a revenue source dries up, they just find another revenue source. By curtailing smoking and taxing smokers to oblivion, you will be raising your own taxes.

How about smokers start behaving correctly on their own? Why is THAT too much to ask?

It’s not, and I agree.

No Aaron, all that told me were the businesses who were smoke-free and chose to advertise it. That’s NOT the same, and you know it, as a sign that says “Smoking allowed here”. Since, by the way you state it, it wasn’t a requirement, that’s not even reliable.

Smoking was allowed everywhere by default. The exceptions were noted. That is functionally the same - anyone entering the premises knew what the smoking status was.

I could give a fuck about second hand smoke deaths.

So I don’t expect you personally to use it as a justification for anti-smoking laws (and you haven’t). However, the people petitioning states to pass these laws use the alleged health-endangering characteristics of second hand smoke as the cornerstone of their anti-smoking argument. And it’s primarily based on faulty science and emotion.

What I’m tired of is second hand smoke in my clothes, because some fucknut ten yards away had to have a butt.

Hyperbole isn’t necessary to make your case. But, as I alluded to before, as much as you challenge my right to smoke, do you also have a right to absolute comfort and non-offense everywhere you may be? No, none of us has that.

I’m tired of second hand smoke giving me nicotine headaches and hangovers because I had the temerity to want to go someplace a bit more adult than fucking McDonald’s.

Intense cigarette smoke makes my eyes burn. It’s painful. I solve the problem by not being in environments where that smoke exists. I don’t ask the government to fine or jail people because I don’t like it. Again, non-existent right to comfort, etc.

I’m tired of someone’s personal habit, that I don’t share being forced on my because there’s no ventilation system in the world that will keep your smoke in your personal space and your personal space alone.

I’m tired of someone’s kids, born of personal choice, that aren’t mine, and their bad behavior, being forced on me because there’s no containment system in the world that will keep kids and their noise and their mess local only to the parents who are responsible for controlling the little monsters.

Really, we all have our annoyances that other people thrust upon us. Part of being an adult is to learn to deal with, or avoid, those annoyances while letting others live their lives.

And your “I have the *right* to create clouds of smoke that fuck with everyone around me for a ten yard radius” is some how NOT emotional, and based on cold sober rule of law and logic?

My opposition to anti-smoking laws is based on pure logic: Private property owners have the right to determine what activities are permissible on said property, as long as that activity does not endanger another’s right to life, liberty, or property. Your argument, however, is that you don’t like smoking and the impolite smokers who litter, so it should be illegal. If that isn’t founded in emotion, nothing is.

Why should MY “right” to enjoy a legal substance in a legal way be impinged because of *your* personal beliefs?

Exactly the question I’m asking! Why should my right to enjoy legal tobacco be infringed upon because of your personal beliefs? On private property to boot!

Again, I still don’t see you being real happy about a stream of tobacco spit across your shirt and in your drink. Yet somehow, you cling to the right to do the same to everyone around you with smoke. What, pray tell, is the real difference?

The difference is that smoke, under normal circumstances, is emitted in all directions with no ability of the smoker to control it, where spit is purposely thrust out of an individual’s mouth in a direction the spitter controls and is aware of. Your analogy is broken. You should be comparing smokers who blow smoke directly into your face (of which it seems there would be very few) versus your idea of spitting on someone.

That would suggest that no, anti-smoking laws do not inherently put people out of business.

I don’t, and haven’t, claimed to speak for business closings or economic effects anywhere other than the place where I live. I do find it interesting, however, that the three states you indirectly spoke of (New York, California, and Massachusetts) are rapidly losing population because of things like absurdly high taxes and other government encroachments.