If Philip Morris is a paedophile, what are his happy customers?

Alex Massie

Thursday, 2nd July 2009

From - where else? - the Guardian:

No national administration would allow paedophiles a say in setting child welfare policies. So why should the views of Big Tobacco on issues of health be taken seriously? And no, I don't think this analogy is too extreme.

One wonders what David Cronin - the author of this nonsense - would consider an extreme analogy? Of course, my own view is that Big Tobacco has been utterly spineless when it comes to standing up to the misinformation and propaganda spread by the "health" industry.

Nonetheless, there is something to the notion that Big Tobacco is quite happy to hop into bed with the authorities - but that's because doing so benefits large tobacco companies at the expense of their smaller rivals. This isn't merely a true of smoking legislation: it's the same theory that governs, nay dictates, Walmart's support for some of President Obama's healthcare proposals. It might cost Walmart some money, but it makes life much, much more difficult for all of Walmart's competitors: that's a net win for Walmart.

Still, Cronin's choice of analogy is a reminder that the anti-tobacco brigade really do see smokers as eight year olds brutalised by rapacious paedophiles names Morris and Reynolds and so on, not as adults perfectly capable of making an informed decision for themselves. Needless to say, this analogy contrives to insult smokers while also, rather more importantly, trivialising the suffering of children who actually are abused. Then again, nothing's too hysterical for the health police...

Filed under: Lunacy (117 more articles) , Smoking (30 more articles)

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Jeremy

July 2nd, 2009 1:11pm Report this comment

I quite agree with you about this. The comparison is hysterical, offensive and wrong-headed.

How does Cronin know how many paedophiles have "...a say in setting child welfare policies"? Paedophilia is a sexual orientation and, as such, is invisible to the naked eye.

Smoking tobacco, on the other hand, is not a sexual orientation. And smoking a cigarette cannot be compared to the sexual abuse of a child. Tobacco is an inanimate object. A child is not. And choosing to smoke tobacco is a perfectly legitimate thing for an adult to do. The activity is also, by its nature, very visible.

Cronin's comment, as quoted by yourself, smacks of the hysteria of the witch-hunt.

Bu thanks to this piece, I think that I now understand the term "health fascist" - although "health hysteric" might be more accurate.

That type of person deliberately allies himself to a cause which he thinks is unquestionably and unchallangeably "good" and then hysterically abuses anybody who deigns to differ with himself.

The approach is more suggestive of "psychological flaws" in Mr Cronin than it is of anything else.

Calum Iain

July 2nd, 2009 6:34pm Report this comment

So Cronin is saying that a child raped by a paedophile chooses to be raped? Unless i'm missing something and all (or just some) smokers are forced to smoke by the Tobacco companies this is what he is stating by coming forth with such a disgustingly inappropriate analogy.