Smoking Age

I didn't mean the Xbox per se, more the sacrifice of our days to work and leisure, which, as every Debord-humping motherfucker knows, is a form of escapism from capital that's no less alienating than work itself. Or something. Although you're bound to correct me in hyperbolic terms and make me regret fighting your corner from the other side of the continent for the last week or so. I was tracing the link between smoking, drinking and adventure sports and capital and attempting to deconstruct Jack's intended abstraction of smoking from its context.

Hi peeps

Soz I am a bit late into diving into the foray - just didn't get a chance to read this thread yesterday..well, to summarize I agree with the points being made both by Revol and Jack..

IMO Revol is absolutely right when he says this "micro-managing" exists as a massive distraction from the real issues/ways in which we should be organising and struggling etc - ranging us against each other re: who is lardiest, booziest, most syphilitic etc IS a method of "divide and rule" and state contol which I find wholly objectionable..particularly as those who will find it easiest to comply with all these restrictions and injunctions are..well, quelle surprise!!! - those best off in society who have many more opps to control their daily environment and far fewer grinding daily, proper probs..

However Jack has a point too..ermm.. there seems to be some confusion as to what constitutes "extreme sports".. it is not skateboarding etc..we are talking parachuting, bungee jumping etc etc...and these are carried out almost entirely by peeps who are pretty comfortably off.. sure, computer games, football and smoking all cost but unless you aspire to be an Arsenal season ticket holder, as a general rule you can "pay-as-you-go" with all these things.. extreme sports are paid for upfront and the costs are pretty high for this to be anyones's hobby..I joined an adventure sports club cos I like the idea of the adrenaline rush of some of the activities but the thing I would really like to do i.e. wing-walking is a massive £500 for 10 mins..please don't tell me this equates with buying a pack of fags, a computer game and a copy of 442 cos we know it don't...Even if I had the ££ to do these things, I still couldn't afford to cos I couldn't afford to stop working if I got injured.. comfortably off peeps can...and of course these sports are dangerous..which is why they are often referred to as "dangerous" sports... which is why on hol. only "ordinary" hol. activities are covered by ordinary insurance.. you have to pay an extra premium if you wanna be covered for stuff like parachuting..

Alan is right...we seek excitement cos life under capital is shite...but the high status,insured, socially acceptable forms of excitement are normally only available for the more privileged..(I swear there wasn't a person earning under £50 k in that group and a fair few on six figures plus..)

Whcich leaves for the less well-off junk food and excess eating (my bette noire. ), smoking, drinking, drugs...i am not saying i oppose peeps doing these things or these things per se..(or that would mean opposing myself which immediately puts me in a metaphysical dichotomy.. ) but I DO oppose the massively powerful forces that market and produce this shite...and their targetting of the vulnerable i.e. kids and the less well-off - I mean fuck that!!! I hope everyone knows that FORREST isn't a genuine libertarian alliance of put-upon smokers but the tobacco industry making out it is some kind of "voice of the people" when it is quite happy to er.. kill its people... and just wants to find an acceptable way of promoting its interests, no???

In summary - the "freedom" to slowly and horribly kill yourself as a result of having a shite product marketed at you from a young age purely to add to the profits and power of peeps who you never see is..to me... no freedom at all...

So - Revols original point - back to the organising and the struggle so we can create a world such that these addictions and distractions won't be needed cos our lives will be fulfilling enough without the "help" of Mr. Marlboro etc etc...

Love

LW X

What's going to be so exciting about communism? :?

Sex, cake and Rock N' Roll.

I have a question for those of you who support laws that limit the smoking age. In a libertarian society, what do you intend to do to a 16 year old smoking a cigarette?

16 year olds wouldn't need to smoke cigs in a libertarian society in the numbers they do now..tobacco cartels wouldn't exist in a lib. society etc etc...the marketing and peer pressure wouldn't exist etc etc..the 16 year olds are not the prob....so to presuppose that they would be is looking at the wrong end of the situ IMHO.(although I know you are not saying that they are per se..I am just saying that I feel it is wrong-headed to focus on their behaviour and not the current factors that encourage early smoking )..as well as not taking into account what a lib. society would be like..

Love

LW X

Ween them off the ciggs with cake.

Yeah but obviously there will still be smokers including young smokers. Idk if you personally support smoking laws, but if so what would you do about this? I mean, other than through education it would take coercive efforts. What is the point of doing this? Because a 16 year old can read a phamplet on the ill effects of smoking and then still smoke? It's there decision to do it.

Also, if you do support the smoking laws, why do you realize the issue is the marketing of tobacco yet support a law that has nothing to do with this? A bill banning 18 and under from buying cigs does nothing to stop the tobacco industry. It also (from personal experience) does not stop kids from smoking whatsoever. It just prevents when and how often they do it.

way to miss the point.....

I love the nanny state <3

No one's answered my question, what will be so exciting about communism?

I answered your question.

Oh yeah. It doesn't sound very exciting to me. My 3 least favourite things. And no nanny state. Communism sounds horrible

And i supported your answer...

I would hate to hear your 3 favourite things...would they be, say, celibacy, celery and chamber music..???

Btw it worries me how my thinking has been so in concert with Jacks of late.hmmm. ( )

I find it completely relevant because what your proposing is deciding something for someone else who's capable of making that decision. I would also guess you identify yourself as libertarian, right?

Why's it a shame? They know what they're doing. It's voluntary.

Thats not even comparable. The point of the 18 year old law is to stop kids from smoking (which it doesnt). The point of health and safety workplace laws is not to abolish wage labor.

Would you really devote energy to see these things enacted? Or is this just oral support? Because I find it suprising that a revolutionary would spend any ammount of effort on something so pointless.

You are just a contrarian nutter.

I made this argument in a similar smoking/seatbelts/risk discussion on these forums a year ago, but everyone thought I was an insane individualist for some reason.

If you don't think communism will be exciting and prefer the nanny state, perhaps you should consider some spot high up in the civil service? I understand that the fag to whom you are hag has a couple of contacts in that industry.

Oh wait, I should wink and then this won't be a flame:

Or maybe I should answer seriously: communism will be exciting for me cos I'll have far more time to do things I wanna do as opposed to repetitive, mundane, alienating jobs that don't serve to better our community. I can only dream about what I might do in such a society. That's kinda the point, dumbass.

Man, what a ridiculous thread. Its undoubted highlight is Jef berating the debate's participants for posting in a thread he started:

I hadn't even picked up on that, what a neck on him!

Meow!

Loving it!

Mind you for the true bitchy vibe you should have worded it like one of those gossip rags the fag and his hag like to browse. Like this maybe.

why would children under 18 have a problem buying it then?
The guy that sells always wants to sell more he doesnt care about age. cmon these laws are freaking useless.

I think this way there criminalizing smokers, i recon in 15 years ill have to go to my tabaco "dealer" arround the corner for some nicotine lol .

Dunking biscuits is fucking disgusting. The good thing about biscuits is that they're dry and crunchy. You want a soggy biscuit go to jack's house.

that was a soggy pillow.

and dunkin chocolate biscuits is the fucking shizzle, oh and ginger nuts!

revol, if you don't stop saying things I agree with I may have to smack you.

to be fair only poncy southern twats don't dunk their biscuits.

*poncy middle class Southern twats.

i was trying to be diplomatic, but yeah. The kind of cunts who don't get gravy chips or cheesey chips.

If there's no cheesey chips it's not my revolution.

HEHEHEHEH.

I now have a gap in the market place. I shall sell fags for exorbitant prices to desperate 16 year olds and 17 year olds. And if they refuse to pay, I shall sit there and smoke them myself. This will especially annoy the ones who already smoked.