{"id":4840,"date":"2015-10-19T09:24:29","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T14:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/?p=4840"},"modified":"2015-10-19T09:24:29","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T14:24:29","slug":"on-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/general\/on-words\/","title":{"rendered":"on Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words are such powerful things.\u00a0 Words can be a power for good when used well, and a power for ill when used wrong.\u00a0 Something seems wrong with that last sentence, doesn’t it?\u00a0 But this post isn’t about grammatical errors, it is about wrong words<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 It is about how using the wrong words facilitates enormous suffering throughout the world.\u00a0 This post is about the power of nuance.\u00a0 It is specifically about one wrong word in particular<\/p>\n

One has to wonder why there is public resistance to making tobacco products illegal?\u00a0 I suspect it is extremely clever public policy influencing by incredibly wealthy, incredibly immoral, and incredibly greedy corporations.\u00a0 Sadly not only are pubic officials easily influenced, but outright bribery and corruption is alive, well, and officially tolerated in the form of “campaign contributions”.\u00a0 An abominable lack of governmental leadership has permitted big tobacco to confuse people everywhere into thinking smoking is a matter of choice when it is really a matter of addiction.\u00a0 As a result many people are keen to “stand up for their rights<\/em>“, indeed many people who don’t even smoke tobacco are willing to support the rights<\/em> of smokers.<\/p>\n

What rights, precisely, are they standing up for?<\/p>\n

The right to become addicted to a drug with no known benefits and a massive laundry list of detrimental effects, many of which are fatal?\u00a0 The right to a significantly shorter and unhealthier life?\u00a0 The right to part with a substantial amount of their income, for no benefit whatsoever?\u00a0 The right of irresponsible parents to addict their children to an utterly worthless and incredibly damaging drug?\u00a0 The right for individuals to adversely affect the health of everyone around them, as well as their own?<\/p>\n

Standing up for those individual rights<\/em><\/strong> is downright wrong<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Do you still think using tobacco is a personal right?\u00a0 Then let me give you some personal information that might sway you to correct your thinking.\u00a0 And yes, the evidence is incontrovertible<\/a>, if you still think tobacco is a personal right your thinking needs to be corrected.<\/p>\n

I have calculated the personal direct monetary cost of smoking in my household, where only my wife smokes.\u00a0 In the thirty years we’ve been together she has spent enough money on cigarettes for us to purchase three brand new mid-range cars.\u00a0 In that same time period we have only been able to afford three brand new mid-range cars.\u00a0 And what have we gained from the exorbitant expense of her addiction?\u00a0 We have gained the anticipation of her leaving this world years earlier than she should, unfortunately that is not a gain, it is an enormous loss.\u00a0 My wife is not some weak-minded wimp, she is a wonderful person who cares enough about her family to never smoke inside our home or cars.\u00a0 However she is also a hopeless addict who doesn’t even want to try and kick “the habit<\/em>“.\u00a0 It is well past time people everywhere changed their thinking and stopped using words like habit<\/em> to describe this filthy, damaging, and disgusting addiction.<\/p>\n

Perhaps when we start using the right words<\/strong> things will finally start to change, and the right word for tobacco is not “habit<\/strong>“, it is “addict<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Words are such powerful things.\u00a0 Words can be a power for good when used well, and a power for ill when used wrong.\u00a0 Something seems wrong with that last sentence, doesn’t it?\u00a0 But this post isn’t about grammatical errors, it is about wrong words.\u00a0 It is about how using the wrong words facilitates enormous suffering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,21,186,424],"class_list":["post-4840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-addict","tag-addiction","tag-habit","tag-tobacco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}