posted 10-06-2003 09:49 PM            

Pro-smoking forces fear the ultimate goal of some lawmakers is to ban cigarettes and cigars completely in New York.

"This is a well-planned strategy to essentially eradicate tobacco use using back-door methods," said Audrey Silk, co-founder of the New York City-based pro-smokers group CLASH.

"This is completely about controlling one group of people using a legal product," Silk added.

But the sponsors of the bills deny such intent. They said each anti-smoking bill has its own merit, including protecting children, helping New York businesses, and reducing litter.

"With concern for public health, I would be pleased [if smoking were banned], but that's not what we're doing," said Assemblyman Alexander "Pete" Grannis, the Legislature's leading anti-smoking advocate and a sponsor of many of the pending bills.

Grannis (D-Manhattan) said bills like those outlawing smoking in cars with kids on board and banning the sale of more affordable small packs of cigarettes are designed to protect children.

And he insists his bill to ban smoking at parks and beaches is meant to cut down on litter.

But some of his legislative colleagues question where you draw the line.

"There are those who would like to ban smoking outright," said Sen. Elizabeth Little (R-Queensbury). "It's government coming in pretty strong on people's lives and choices."

And smokers fear it's just a matter of time until a lawmaker introduces legislation to prohibit smoking inside the home by using secondhand smoke as an excuse.

"They're turning this into a dictatorship," said upstate bar owner Brenda Perks. "They're going right back to the Hitler days."

posted 10-07-2003 12:29 AM            

In this and other ways,
people who join the US armed forces are taken care of.
They are fed,
provided with cheap or free transportation and accommodations,
and given discounts on groceries and other goods.
All this, thanks to collectivized production and taxpayer dollars.

If you're dropping off the bottom rung of the social ladder in America,
the safety net of the military is there to catch you,
and provide an attractive alternative to the hell of split shifts of minimum wage work.
Just a few caveats:
you have to be willing to kill others and die for your country.
And by "for your country",
they actually mean "for various interests whose connection to the well-being of your country is vague,
or perhaps nonexistent."
(Woody Guthrie sang, "if we fix it so you can't make no money on war,
then we'll all forget what we was killin' folks for...")

So
the military practices a skewed kind of socialism
that views a relative increase in economic well-being as a means to an end
(ensuring a supply of cannon fodder,
for example), rather than an end in itself.

The same friend was also a bit depressed
about the amount of spousal abuse that occurs on the base where he works.
Submarine crew members, he said,
are often enough jailed for beating their wives.
Just as often, though,
they are released by their commanding officers when they are needed for another six month mission across the Pacific.

The socialist state of the navy is again skewed by having its own justice system:
one geared toward the task at hand, not necessarily at justice.

A second tier of socialism is available for public servants,
generals, politicians, and Pentagon types
who are loyal to the military industrial complex.
Cushy "consulting" gigs with defense contractors are subsidized by the taxpayer,
but make no pretense of being accountable to her.
From each according to his debility, to each according to his greed.

These socialist practices skewed to other ends are often copied by large corporations,
though rarely carried to the same extent.
Resources are collectivized, but not surprisingly,
the benefits accrue to a chosen few.

Why not spread things around just a bit more, to make everyone's life better?

Perish the thought.

Socialism for the rich is commonly refered to as "free market capitalism",
but socialism for anyone else is "class warfare".<

posted 10-07-2003 12:55 AM            

>governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods<

Defense Department decides which contractors may bid.
Decides who may supply contractors.
Tells them what to build, how much to pay workers,
where production can take place.
what prices shall be charged.
How much of each item to produce;
Decides whom may purchase and subsidizes those purchases with tax monies.

>means of production are owned and controlled by the state<

Looking at who makes up the current administration.
They are the same people who own the corporations which are getting lucrative government contracts.

>: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done <
Marxism in Amerika has come about thanks to the rightwing Bush administration.

CATO Institute: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-421es.html

>The U.S. defense industry is hardly a bastion of free-market competition.
Even Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has compared the way the Department of Defense does business,
including the way the Pentagon buys weapons,
to Soviet central planning.
The industry has a socialist component:
government laboratories, shipyards, depots, and arsenals that,
in many cases, compete with private companies.
Even the part of the industry that is in private hands
is subjected to DoD's industrial policy and excessive regulation.
Congress,
to win votes in states and districts that are home to such industrial concerns,
keeps unneeded government and private facilities open through phony "competitions,"
creating much excess capacity
in an industry that was insufficiently downsized after the Cold War...<
http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/000963.html
>There is no such thing as free enterprise in the United States.
We are a socialist state,
more so than most would want to admit.
Much of the socialization of our resources, though, ultimately goes to help private companies,
not private citizens.

Corporate America
has always relied on the U.S. government to set up systems
and regulations that will help companies make a good rate of return
without alienating the public or causing worker rebellion....
The people in power in the U.S. government and media are not conservatives.
They are radical nationalist-socialists,<

posted 10-07-2003 05:08 PM            

A government that sees thousands of citizens die from smoking related disease daily;
That uses taxpayer monies to pay for health care for people dying from smoking caused ailments;
Should use taxpayers' monies to prevent the diseases, not to encourage them.

>The Constitution of the United States of America
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
<

It is so important that it was included in the preamble.

posted 10-07-2003 11:03 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by the professor:
Nice to see your on your toes there Shat, kinda a grey area where the topic I picked would fly over most peoples heads.

---

I have an advantage here.
I was a Conservative Goldwater Republican,
back when Republicans still included real* conservatives.

(*back when they really had principles)