Author Topic: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013  (Read 2643 times)

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Offline Sigz

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2012, 03:05:06 PM »
 :lol
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Offline skydivingninja

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2012, 03:05:20 PM »
Did we miss the "(Satire)" in the article title?  :biggrin:

PS: Only posted that because I wasn't sure if WW was serious considering he only posted "wow."

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Offline yorost

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2012, 03:10:55 PM »
It does bring up something I think is worth considering.  If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life?  Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.

Offline Scheavo

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #5 on: February 16, 2012, 03:36:12 PM »
The Obama quote at the end sounds horribly fabricated.

Offline El Barto

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #6 on: February 16, 2012, 03:38:29 PM »
It does bring up something I think is worth considering.  If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life?  Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.
That's one of the slippery slopes that gets thrown around as an argument against government subsidized health care.  Smoking would come first.  Then being a fat ass.  Then being lazy.  Etc.  Of course it's a fallacy.  Just because something can turn to shit doesn't mean that the idea is necessarily flawed.


And I'm puzzled by this whole thing.  Is any part of it true?  Braveheart wrote the article, tagged it as satire, and then made a comment here like it's shocking (which honestly it wouldn't be).
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Offline William Wallace

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2012, 03:41:14 PM »
The Obama quote at the end sounds horribly fabricated.
Kind of the point.

Quote
And I'm puzzled by this whole thing.  Is any part of it true?  Braveheart wrote the article, tagged it as satire, and then made a comment here like it's shocking (which honestly it wouldn't be).
It's made up, except for the lead about a study linking smoking bans and heart attacks.

Offline Scheavo

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #8 on: February 16, 2012, 05:12:37 PM »
Good satire is believable. It's why the onion occasionally tricks people, or why some people think Colbert is conservative.


Offline orcus116

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2012, 05:12:53 PM »
Reminds me of when the government actually backed a healthcare bill that was dependent on people continuing to smoke (SCHIP).

Offline El Barto

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #10 on: February 16, 2012, 05:33:43 PM »
Good satire is believable. It's why the onion occasionally tricks people, or why some people think Colbert is conservative.
Yeah, and believable concepts make for good satire.  It really wouldn't have surprised me at all if Obama had announced such an initiative. 
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Offline j

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2012, 05:52:06 PM »
It does bring up something I think is worth considering.  If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life?  Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.

I absolutely think recipients of welfare and other government social programs should have their expenditures monitored, and that data used to determine future eligibility.

Like Barto says, when applied to health care it does raise other concerns.  The reality is, regardless of whether or not they're paying into the hypothetical system, a huge, huge percentage of debilitating health care expenses are incurred as a result of poor lifestyle choices, to varying degrees.  And nobody likes the idea of being told exactly how to take care of him/herself on a day to day basis.

-J

Offline El Barto

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2012, 06:23:33 PM »
It does bring up something I think is worth considering.  If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life?  Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.

I absolutely think recipients of welfare and other government social programs should have their expenditures monitored, and that data used to determine future eligibility.

Like Barto says, when applied to health care it does raise other concerns.  The reality is, regardless of whether or not they're paying into the hypothetical system, a huge, huge percentage of debilitating health care expenses are incurred as a result of poor lifestyle choices, to varying degrees.  And nobody likes the idea of being told exactly how to take care of him/herself on a day to day basis.

-J
Indeed.  It's not just Obamacare.  The 400lb diabetic chain smoker is a big part of the premiums the average, healthy 25 year old pays into their group policy.  If that person's not insured, then it's our tax dollars that are treating him.  Either way, we're paying for him.
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Offline antigoon

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #13 on: February 16, 2012, 06:36:56 PM »
Heh, I liked the Holder zinger

Offline William Wallace

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #14 on: February 16, 2012, 07:11:44 PM »
Good satire is believable. It's why the onion occasionally tricks people, or why some people think Colbert is conservative.
Yeah, and believable concepts make for good satire.  It really wouldn't have surprised me at all if Obama had announced such an initiative.
On that note, a number of people really thought it had happened, despite the disclaimer in the title. I'm a good salesman or people are dumb. It's probably the latter.

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #15 on: February 17, 2012, 02:46:30 AM »
I'd definitely be down for swapping the legality statuses of weed and tobacco.
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Offline Gadough

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #16 on: February 17, 2012, 03:48:31 AM »
I'd definitely be down for swapping the legality statuses of weed and tobacco.

That shouldn't be necessary. We shouldn't need to jump through hoops to legalize something that has no business being illegal in the first place.
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Offline yorost

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #17 on: February 17, 2012, 07:23:50 AM »
It does bring up something I think is worth considering.  If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life?  Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.

I absolutely think recipients of welfare and other government social programs should have their expenditures monitored, and that data used to determine future eligibility.

Like Barto says, when applied to health care it does raise other concerns.  The reality is, regardless of whether or not they're paying into the hypothetical system, a huge, huge percentage of debilitating health care expenses are incurred as a result of poor lifestyle choices, to varying degrees.  And nobody likes the idea of being told exactly how to take care of him/herself on a day to day basis.

-J
Indeed.  It's not just Obamacare.  The 400lb diabetic chain smoker is a big part of the premiums the average, healthy 25 year old pays into their group policy.  If that person's not insured, then it's our tax dollars that are treating him.  Either way, we're paying for him.
We do pay through private insurance to cover others, so having an insurance policy with a carrier that has a a lot of unhealthy lifestyle people raises cost..  However, underwriting is there to evaluate the risks of policies.  It's not perfect, but decent insurance companies do vary coverage costs based on your risk to them.  That mitigates your costs from more risky policy holders than you.

I didn't intend my original post as something for Obamacare specifically.  If a risky person pays for insurance privately, then that's up to the business to dictate the costs.  If someone voluntarily takes a freebie, they should be subject to control.  If you can't pay with money, you can pay by reducing your cost to others.  ...or some similar statement for other situations.  Receiving freebie's can't be a desirable situation if you want them to work. 

Offline Vivace

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2012, 08:08:50 AM »
Good satire is believable. It's why the onion occasionally tricks people, or why some people think Colbert is conservative.
Yeah, and believable concepts make for good satire.  It really wouldn't have surprised me at all if Obama had announced such an initiative.
On that note, a number of people really thought it had happened, despite the disclaimer in the title. I'm a good salesman or people are dumb. It's probably the latter.

I've been on the internet too long to know to just keep scrolling down until either one of two things happen, the words "confirmed fake" appear in some form or we are on page 3 of waaaay too many people bitching and of people bitching at the bitching. Now there are plenty of examples where something like this makes it to page 10 and then we are confirmed fake so the idea that it took half a page is pretty darn good actually. Almost a new record for something like this.
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Offline William Wallace

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2012, 11:19:34 AM »
Good satire is believable. It's why the onion occasionally tricks people, or why some people think Colbert is conservative.
Yeah, and believable concepts make for good satire.  It really wouldn't have surprised me at all if Obama had announced such an initiative.
On that note, a number of people really thought it had happened, despite the disclaimer in the title. I'm a good salesman or people are dumb. It's probably the latter.

I've been on the internet too long to know to just keep scrolling down until either one of two things happen, the words "confirmed fake" appear in some form or we are on page 3 of waaaay too many people bitching and of people bitching at the bitching. Now there are plenty of examples where something like this makes it to page 10 and then we are confirmed fake so the idea that it took half a page is pretty darn good actually. Almost a new record for something like this.
Everybody here is pretty sharp, but many people find an article and they want it to be true. Sometimes it isn't. I can't count how many times I've seen Onion stories like that.

Offline Scheavo

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #20 on: February 17, 2012, 01:21:50 PM »
Good satire is believable. It's why the onion occasionally tricks people, or why some people think Colbert is conservative.
Yeah, and believable concepts make for good satire.  It really wouldn't have surprised me at all if Obama had announced such an initiative.
On that note, a number of people really thought it had happened, despite the disclaimer in the title. I'm a good salesman or people are dumb. It's probably the latter.

I was just more thinking you were trusting some very bad news sources, started listening to WND or something. Some of it didn't sound too much different than your normal writing.

Barto: I'm not sure how you could possibly think Obama would announce this. He's not stupid, and he wants to get reelected. It also just doesn't fit his persona, he's extremely pragmatic and moderate. If anything, he'd argue for a federal ban on smoking in public places and facilities, but I'm not sure he'd even try that, at least not during election season.

Offline Super Dude

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #21 on: February 17, 2012, 08:50:49 PM »
It does bring up something I think is worth considering.  If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life?  Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.

I have no problem with this argument, so long as there is some sort of moderating mechanism.
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Offline Nick

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #22 on: February 21, 2012, 01:17:13 PM »
I think that people should generally be left alone by the government to make their own choices.

That said, IF the government is going to give out free health care I think they are entitled to and should attach as many strings attached to it as possible. You should not be given free health care if you smoke, do drugs, or show no initiative to diet and exercise to some degree.

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Offline Sigz

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #23 on: February 21, 2012, 01:19:36 PM »
So a smoker who gets hit by a car doesn't deserve free treatment but a non-smoker does?
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Offline Scheavo

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Re: Obama: America tobacco free in 2013
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2012, 04:11:52 PM »
You should not be given free health care if you smoke, do drugs, or show no initiative to diet and exercise to some degree.

It's not free, and people will, in every scenario but abject poverty, be paying for it.