Thursday, May 08, 2008
anti-smoking ads
They've gotten more gruesome but the latest one, some woman who lost the tips of her fingers, now they're just stubs, has something to do with bone shear but I would hazard a week's salary and go out on a limb here and say the vast majority of smokers know it's bad for you, ok, so knowing this they've made their choice so what's the point of all these ads? I thought we were pro-choice here.
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They are pro-choice Z-man; just their choice that is.
ReplyDeleteThe more I live the more I realize Pro-Choice is really only about abortion and hardly anything else. I don't smoke cigs but those ads are obnoxious, it's like you're lecturing people who already know the truth but who have made their decisions anyway, what's the purpose?
ReplyDeleteThere is no purpose. Their money would be better spent on research and development wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteI dunno, maybe the ads are meant to stop kids from starting to smoke.
ReplyDeletePerhaps. I still don't think that's a very good deterent. I think a better and more effective sort of commercial, if you're focusing on teenagers, would be to play up the individualistic aspect of it. The empowerment that comes from using one's own mind to make their own decision rather than adopting someone else's belief so they can feel accepted.
ReplyDeleteFor a kid to be able to first respect and accept themself is of utmost importance I think.
Imagine this:
Group of "cool" kids are hanging out under the bleachers during a highschool football game smoking and "acting" cool.
Lonely kid comes walking by and gets peer pressured by the collective group into smoking. The "leader of the pack" says to him: "Hey man, I thought you were cool. Don't you want to hang with us?"
The kid, in opposing the request to take up smoking replies:
"Any group, be it large or small, consists of individuals. If, in order to be "cool" and hang out with you guys, I have to do what it is that you wish me to do, then I don't want any part of your group. I have parents for that."
I mean come on....it's not that difficult.
Would that not be a sweet ad??
I think the ads are meant for everyone these days but they're just too gruesome. Most people who've made their decisions in Life for either good or bad are annoyed by lecturing. The way I see it, we've had those U.S. Surgeon General warnings on packs since when? mid 60's or something, you'd have to be living in a cave to not know smokes are bad for you but soapie touched on the heart of the issue for him and for me, we will not vote for any politician, even if they have an R before their name, who espouses loss of freedom in this area, aka a fascistic approach to health and that probably bugs me (or disturbs me is more accurate) the most about all this.
ReplyDeleteActually he used this idea of fascism in his blog as relates to global warming and what the agenda really is and I extended it to smoking, same thing. I would also add that Pro-Choice implies a live-and-let-live approach to Life, the term itself I mean if you heard it for the first time, and liberals are far from this, another reason why I hate the label pro-choice but that's another subject Daniel covered very well in his own blog.
ReplyDeleteyeah, you have to be careful when you interject your own personal desires in these sorts of instances. While banning this or banning that might seem like a good legislative measure on some things, you open up that can of worms to where you will one day find yourself on the other side of the gun.
ReplyDeletehave a great weekend Z.
Which is why I keep bringing up that line from Joe Sobran, in his Wanderer once he wrote "make enough laws and everybody becomes a criminal." Makes you wonder what exactly is the purpose of Congress anymore. Yeah I know they have the constitutional power to declare things like war and to appropriate funds for infrastructure and stuff but as for legislating don't we have enough laws already for a functioning civilization? nay, too many laws? Congress, GO HOME!
ReplyDelete"You open up that can of worms to where you will one day find yourself on the other side of the gun."
ReplyDeleteWhich is one of the main reasons I oppose censorship in general and by implication boycotts too. Just saw an ad by the American Life League (ALL) in my Catholic New York calling for HBO to fire Bill Maher for his anti-Catholic vitriol. Now two things, the boomerang effect, I'm sure there's many people out there who want to censor ALL (not hard to imagine) and #2, while Maher's comments are indeed offensive giving ex-Cardinal Bernard Law a cushy job in Rome will only make people think he has a point. I used this argument with white racism, people don't just wake up in the morning as bigots and ditto anti-Catholicism.