Chris M. sends me the following story:
After decades of reminding people about the dangers of cigarettes, offering nicotine gum or patches and making smokers huddle outside, the government is turning to gruesome pictures. Federal health officials Wednesday unveiled plans to replace the warnings cigarette packs began carrying 25 years ago with new versions using images that could include emaciated cancer patients, diseased organs and corpses.”
The #1 killer in the world is poverty. Your government has done more to promote the continuation of poverty than any institution created in the private sector. It does this a bit shrouded by the massive taxation and inefficient redistribution schemes. Even if it wasn’t building bridges to nowhere, the dead weight loss of raising nearly $6 trillion on tax revenues (all levels of government) are probably in the range of $1 to $2 trillion. That’s right, the distortionary effects of taxation mean that this is how much wealth the government destroys every year. So perhaps with your tax bill we should pass laws showing starving children, sickly elderly citizens, and poor families huddling over a garbage can fire in winter?
Better yet, who has perpetuated mass murder on a scale that is unimaginable? World wars which kill tens of millions of people at a time. Dropping nuclear bombs which decimate 500,000 people instantly. Famines due to political intervention in markets. Shipping hundreds of thousands off to the Gulag. Assassinations and torture of people who disagree with them. How ’bout that? Why not show beheaded soldiers, as the Japanese regularly and infamously did to the Chinese in Nanking, and no doubt soldiers in all wars have partaken in.
Here is what a warning label on military expenditures and Go Army! Ads might look like (showing them what their enemies might do):
What, is that offensive to you? How so? Look at the devastation the Iraq War has inflicted on Vets. Maybe every single potential enlistee in the US Armed Forces should be locked in a room staring at this picture for 5 minutes before signing any papers:
Your government forces citizens to pay taxes so that it can do those sorts of things. And why doesn’t this image come with your tax forms?
And why stop at government risks and cigarette risks? Let’s see this picture attached to every youth soccer registration form and soccer ticket:
Or maybe all of the dating websites should have to show this image to women before they agree to a date with a strange man:
Or maybe every doctor in a hospital and surgical facility should have to have this picture attached to his or her id (after all, hospital induced infections kill tens (hundreds?) of thousands of hospital patients every year:
Need I say more? Imposing those regulations on tobacco manufacturers not only violates the Rule of Law in a most sordid way, it is not in any way the proper role of government. Finally, should you not raise eyebrows when you see companies like RJR actively supporting these regulations.
D@mnit! Once again you prove why you’re a pro and I’m a piker. I think I’ve found a bit of a story, and you find the real meat of the issue. This is why I so often link to your posts. Great points!
You’re talking about straight cigarettes, right?
Speedmaster, I too am impressed. I often wonder how perfesser Wintercow has the time to post all the material, but then he must have learned keyboarding. I’m doing well if I come up with one original idea per year.
Classy.
[…] literate?” Then it’s only a matter of time before he gets his wish. Here’s my warning. Imagine the reaction if I applied the same rhetoric to my criticisms of the dingbats in […]