The War On Smokers And The Rise Of The Nanny State

From propaganda released by the Third Reich to legislation passed in more than fifty nations, smoking is one of society's favorite targets. While the public goes along with persecuting smokers, Theodore J. King is here to tell us why we shouldn't. In this book, which does not advocate smoking, King surveys smoking bans in the United States, England, and Ireland, documenting their effects on society and commerce. King interviews many people, including members of the medical community. King takes his arguments further, showing how and why bans on smoking extend to other areas of our lives-how smokers are only the beginning. Anti-smokers represent an agenda that involves everything from personal property to the way you raise your children, what you eat, and your right to freedom of speech. Authoritarians have willing accomplices in the press and government to take power at the individual's expense. Learn how anti-smoking fanatics use tobacco control as an effective form of social engineering. King offers solutions so that smokers and non-smokers can be accommodated in a free society, where it must never be a crime to smoke in a bar, in a car, in the open air, in a restaurant, or at home.

Smoking is a hot button subject, especially when movies, T.V. and online shows, ads, and celebrities are shown partaking in long, dramatic drags from cigarettes and other smoking devices. While you need to be 18 years old to smoke legally in the U.S., when lead characters of a younger are seen smoking, the double messages abound. This volume carefully explores real and perceived teen rights related to tobacco and smoking. Readers will learn whether or not smoking is a right for teens, and examine the question of whether or not tobacco companies are targeting teens. They will also evaluate the impact of tobacco advertising on their age group.

The post war history of public health and the role of smoking within that history epitomises the tensions which surround taking health to the public. Public health history has largely concentrated on the nineteenth century sanitary period or on the years before the Second World War, often focussing on the environmental advances, or on the professional and occupational history of public health as an activity. This book has a different focus: it deals with the change in the outlook of public health post war. From a focus on services, vaccination, and dealing with health issues at the local level, public health had developed new discourse. Centring on chronic disease, it became concerned with the concept of 'risk' and targeted individual behaviour. The mass media and centralised campaigning directed at the whole population replaced local campaigns, and politicians changed their mind about speaking directly to the public on health matters. Their early worries about the 'nanny state' gave place to a desire to inculcate new norms of behaviour, and it was debated how change was to be achieved. Identifying debates between those believing in 'systematic gradualism' and those who advocated a more coercive approach, Virginia Berridge uses smoking as a model. Such debates brought into play tensions over the relationships between public health and industrial interests. Health campaigning by new style pressure groups like ASH, which were part state funded, was an important motive force behind the change. In the 1980s and 1990s, public health changed again. Passive smoking and HIV/AIDS brought environmental concerns back into public health, which had disappeared after the 1950s. The 'rise of addiction' for smoking demonstrated the power of pharmaceutical interests to define a new 'pharmaceutical public health' in which treatment and 'magic bullets' were also tactics for prevention. In the early 21st century, public health was play to complex tensions and conflicting impetuses. This book shows that those tensions were nothing new and outlines their development over the last half century.

When did we lose our right to be lazy, unhealthy, and politically incorrect? Move over Big Brother! An insidious new group has inserted itself into American politics. They are the nannies—not the stroller-pushing set but an invasive band of do-gooders who are subtly and steadily stripping us of our liberties, robbing us of the inalienable right to make our own decisions, and turning America into a nation of children. As you read this, countless busybodies across the nation are rolling up their sleeves to do the work of straightening out your life. Certain Massachusetts towns have banned school-yard tag. San Francisco has passed laws regulating the amount of water you should use in dog bowls. The mayor of New York City has french fries and doughnuts in his sights. In some parts of California, smoking is prohibited . . . outside. The government, under pressure from the nanny minority, is twisting the public’s arm into obedience. Playground police, food fascists, anti-porn crusaders —whether they're legislating morality or wellbeing—nannies are popping up all over America. In the name of health, safety, decency, and—shudder—good intentions, these ever-vigilant politicians and social activists are dictating what we eat, where we smoke, what we watch and read, and whom we marry. Why do bureaucrats think they know what's better for us than we do? And are they selectively legislating in the name of political expediency? For instance, why do we ban mini-motorbikes, responsible for five deaths each year, and not skiing, which accounts for fifty deaths each year? Why is medical marijuana, a substance yet to claim a single life, banned and not aspirin, which accounts for about 7,600 deaths? Exhaustively researched, sharply observed, and refreshingly lucid, Nanny Sate looks at the myriad ways we are turning the United States into a soulless and staid nation—eroding not only our personal freedoms but our national character.

Just after ten o’clock on Thursday, 7 May 2015 Nick Robinson stared down the lens of camera 5 in the BBC’s Election Night Studio to explain to millions the significance of an exit poll that shocked the country and heralded an earthquake in British politics. That moment was a personal milestone for the BBC’s Political Editor, who had been discharged from hospital just hours earlier following weeks of treatment for cancer and the loss of his voice after surgery. In the year leading up to that night Nick kept a journal recording the events he reported on day after day to millions of viewers and listeners, and which he continued to monitor, often from his hospital bed as he fought to get fit in time for election night. This is Nick‘s behind-the-scenes account of his encounters with David Cameron, who many wrote off before the shock victory he called his 'sweetest'; Ed Miliband, who turned abuse & ridicule into respect before leading Labour to its worst defeat in a generation; Nick Clegg, who led his party into power and then to humiliation and near oblivion; Nigel Farage, who rose so fast and then fell at the final hurdle; Alex Salmond, whose public clash with Nick led to thousands protesting outside the BBC’s Scottish HQ, and Nicola Sturgeon, whose stunning success as SNP leader has put Scottish independence back on the map. The result is an extraordinary narrative, characterized by Nick Robinson’s trademark insight, analysis and backstage gossip, of an adrenaline-fuelled year which culminated in a captivating election that transformed Britain’s political landscape.

Conventional wisdom dictates that those goods which are said to cause harm or impose costs on society deserve a special tax. For centuries, governments have levied these "sin taxes" on alcohol and tobacco, but the list of taxable sins has now grown to include soda and marijuana, with calls to impose further taxes on plastic bags, meat, and even robots and carbon. Contrary to what experts and policymakers tell us, many of these alleged sins impose very little, if any, cost on society, and the harms that do exist can be minimized without resorting to tax. What follows in this book is a discussion of four case studies—on tobacco, marijuana, alcohol and soda—which make the case against the conventional wisdom in taxing these "sins", before concluding that when it comes to taxing sin, it is time for governments to forgive—and forget.

During recent election cycles, pundits have colored everything in red and blue. But according to David Boaz, the old labels of left and right don’t tell us much any more. What we are witnessing is a contest of "Big-Government Conservatives" vs. "Big-Government Liberals." In The Politics of Freedom David Boaz takes on both liberals and conservatives who seek to impose their own partisan agendas on the whole country. He explains the growing libertarian vote in America, how the Republicans became the tax-and-spend party, how the Democrats joined the Republicans in foreign adventurism, the betrayal of our constitutional rights, and everything from gay marriage and the nanny state to taxes and terrorism. For nearly 30 years, David Boaz has been speaking directly to the large and growing number of Americans who are fed up with politics as usual. His articles speak to the perspectives and values Americans have always held privately and more and more are coming to embrace openly. Now, for the first time, his best writings are gathered in one collection. A recent survey found that 59 percent of respondents described themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." Boaz shows that majority that their fundamental political value is freedom. Whether it’s the freedom to choose a church, a school, or a lifestyle, The Politics of Freedom gives voice to a value most Americans embrace. For the millions of Americans who don’t neatly fit into the red or blue, who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, who reject big-government conservatism and nanny-state liberalism, this book offers a new politics of freedom.

Exploring British Politics is a concise, comprehensive, and accessible guide to the subject. Fully updated and revised, the new edition covers developments since 2016 in the role of the executive, Parliament, the civil service, political parties, general elections, party ideology and membership, as well as examining turmoil and leadership battles within the Labour and Conservative parties, the politics of growing inequality, demographic trends and their political consequences, and the future of the UK itself. Stimulating critical analysis and lively debate, it provides new perspectives on two key themes – the health of British democracy and the transition from traditional models of government to more flexible forms of ‘governance’. Key features include: a comprehensive analysis of the 2019 general election, Brexit developments since the 2016 Referendum to today’s ongoing negotiations, and the shadow cast by the COVID-19 global pandemic and its implications; topical coverage of the fall of the Corbyn and May leaderships, the new Starmer and Johnson era, the rise and fall of the ‘Change UK’ party, the economic crisis, the role of special advisers, new social movements such as Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter, and much more; extensive guides to further reading at the end of each chapter; and rich illustrations visually representing examples and data. Whilst the book provides an essential historical background, contemporary issues are to the fore throughout and readers are encouraged to assess critically received wisdoms and develop their own thoughts and ideas. Whether studying the subject for the first time or revisiting it, Exploring British Politics is the ideal undergraduate text.