Smoked Gouda

Given what has transpired since I last posted I was practically salivating at the prospect of going on yet another diatribe about this countries downward spiral towards totalitarian socialism under the lead of comrade Obama. But despite all the great blog fodder that’s come out Washington lately, I’m compelled to take a break from beating that long since dead horse. At this point Old Lefty (that’s my dead horse) is actually starting to tenderize and smell quite pungent. So I feel some Glade Plug-Ins, a week or so in a well vented room, and a reprieve from the lashings are long overdue. Instead I’d like to focus on the inherent hypocrisy in some of the social engineering policies put forth by politicians.

The most recent and most egregious example of this hypocrisy is the cigarette and chewing tobacco tax hike that President Obama signed into law which goes into effect this Wednesday (4/1/09). The tax on a pack of cigarettes will leap from 39 cents to $1.01. Chewing tobacco will be taxed 50 cents a pound, up from 19.5 cents. Smokers and dippers, I know what you’re thinking, or at the very least hoping. But alas, this not an April fool’s prank, this is the real deal. Just to clear the air, no pun intended, I would like to state that I myself used to smoke cigarettes (about a pack a day for five years) until one day my left lung partially collapsed and I elected to cease that self destructive habit. That being said, I am all for an individual’s right to put just about whatever they want into their own body so long as I don’t have to pay for their medical expenses. The real reason I am so riled up by this tax hike is that it is so blatantly hypocritical. On the one hand, proponents of the sky high taxes argue that tobacco use decreases as the tax increases. This is probably true, and even if it isn’t, I’m not interested in arguing whether or not the relationship between high tobacco tax and low tobacco use is causation or correlation. What I am interested in arguing is that politicians like to proudly expound on how they’re doing this to save the public’s health while hiding the fact there is an obvious ulterior motive in the form of increased tax revenues for the government. So while trying to get everyone to stop using tobacco (something that would destroy another industry and cause yet another surge in unemployment) they have to be “secretly” ecstatic about the possibility of a stable population of nicotine addicts, and in actuality, it would suit them just fine if the number of tobacco users grew. In a sense they are really no different from a tobacco company with the major exception that they enjoy the luxury of being able to tell you they’re saving you while being at best indifferent to whether or not you smoke yourself into a tracheotomy.

Another great example of this is New York Governor David Patterson’s proposal of an 18 percent tax on non-diet soft drinks as included in his budget proposal last December. Again, this was done under the guise of protecting citizens from themselves. In this case it was to curb obesity in children by artificially placing the less desirable soft drinks into a higher price point. However, his budget proposal went on to suggest that the amount of revenues that would be generated from such a tax levying would actually increase from 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 (see Steven Milloy’s Junk Science Column from 12/24/08 for more information and a good laugh). So Governor Patterson wasn’t just secretly hoping that all the portly tots of New York kept suckling away at the sugary teat of Mistress Fanta Von Sunkist, he was actually counting on it. Here we see yet another politician lives the impossible dream of both having and eating their proverbial cake (I hope it’s at least sugar free cake in this case).

What really gets me irate about these scenarios is that I subscribe to the notion that the government has no business levying punitive taxes on anything in an effort to push society away from what they’ve deemed undesirable or unacceptable. If I at least thought for a millisecond that their hearts were in the right place I might at lease dissent in a more cuddly fashion. But this nonsense about telling people how they should live and then profiting off it when they don’t is reprehensible. At least the companies that sell and distribute the products that the government finds questionable have a single and well known agenda. They want you to use their product and they even have to tell you what’s in it and in some cases warn you not to use it while the politicians play two face and never get called on it.

What’s scarier still is the presentation of yet another slippery slope. It’s all so easy to agree with them when you don’t smoke or imbibe sugary soft drinks and they tell you that they’re doing to render the nation cancer and obesity free. Of course you agree and with their stated intent, and gladly support them in their “noble” crusade against society’s ills. But what happens when they come after something you do use, something you use responsibly and in moderation. It could be anything. Is it so farfetched to picture a politician at a dais spouting save the nation from itself rhetoric in regards to cheese? Cheese is very fattening and quite bad for you according to most doctors so shouldn’t it be taxed higher to discourage you from potentially fattening yourself up like Hansel and/or Gretel? The government is not in the business of giving back any of the money, rights, or control that it’s been “given” so be very careful what let you them do in the name of the greater good.