LJF wrote:A.S. I don't take things here personally unless it is an attack on me directly. You and I have very different view points and that is fine. I never said he was being a good doctor towards those you smoke. I said he is a very good doctor towards me. I also said I can understand why people wouldn't agree with what he did. I just have a problem with the class warfare statement. If there is just one 1% that smokes or is obese, which there are plenty, and they can no longer use him how can you call it class warfare. My big problem is this is what this country is all about now, blame the rich for everything. I know you are from our wonderful neighbors up north where the cold air came from and that horrible bastard Sid Crosby. Blaming someone else for your problems will never solve anything.
The problem with your way of thinking is that you don't seem to be able to understand how it could be a problem for other people. You say you can understand why people wouldn't agree with what he did. But you also said you agree with it. This can't be possible. If you really understand why people not just wouldn't, but SHOULDN'T agree with what he did (because it contravenes the Hippocratic oath, it effectively marginalizes at-risk groups including visible minorities, and many other reasons besides), then your reasons for agreeing with it should simply fall away. The reasons are not compatible. But the fact that you maintain your agreement with him suggests that you don't understand why others disagree (and why they, and YOU, have good reasons to disagree with it).
Why is it that the poor smoke more? Does any force them to smoke? I've never seen a 1%er holding a gun to a poor person's head and forcing them to smoke. Any one that smokes has made that decision by themselves, so they need to deal with what happens as a result.
This rhetoric conflates two kinds of liberty. You seem to think that freedom from direct coercion implies positive liberty to make informed, effective, and long-term best interest decisions effectively, regardless of circumstances, environment, history, etc. But this is mistaken. Human beings are not the sort of beings who are able, independently of their external circumstances, to "choose" to either do something or not do it. The causal forces at work in producing human behaviour are vast and largely beyond the control of any individual. Public policies and legislation can and do make major differences to the educational, health, and economic outcomes of individuals. The reasons why cigarette smoking is class-stratified are historical and deep. Tobacco advertisers have long targeted children. Children in poverty are far less likely to be exposed to anti-smoking messages because of failures in education (in their parents and in the current school). Working class culture may maintain traditional attachments to the idea of the "smoke break", or of manliness or whatever, and be less inclined than more progressive/white collar cultures to adopt new habits or healthier lifestyles. These factors, combined with the fact that socioeconomic status correlates with mental health (and mental health and cigarette smoking correlate), suggest that doctors are in a key position to HELP CHANGE the fact that the poor are more likely to smoke (either by treating the underlying mental health concerns, or by educating their patients on the options available to them for quitting smoking).
Were bars and restaurants engaging in class warfare when they banned smoking and what about airlines? I guess clearly all office buildings don't want the poor to work either since you can't smoke in office building either. Now I've seen the light the whole world really is in on this class warfare, by making the poor smoke and then not letting them go to work, bars, fly anywhere and above all else my dick asshole of a doctor won't treat them.
Bars and restaurants do not refuse service to smokers. Nor is the service they don't refuse an essential service. The progressive social policy of banning cigarette smoking inside bars and restaurants has helped produce conditions under which less people smoke, and in which the health effects of smoking are lessened, but it does not further marginalize the group in question.
