Imagine you are driving through the desert in your land rover when, many miles from civilization, you come across two men who are lost and haven’t had a drink or eaten in three days. You look through your rations and you have two succulent steaks a cooler full of lager, a loaf of stale bread and some water in a jerry can. Being the greedy bastard you are, you give them the stale bread and water and don’t mention the steaks and lager. The men, faced with starvation or eating moldy bread, gratefully accept and devour the stale bread and water and thank you profusely for your kindness.
What do you think the men would have chosen if they were offered a choice of either;
a) The succulent steak and cold lager?
or
b) The moldy stale bread and warm water?
It turns out that one of the men is fanatically tee-total and vegetarian – what would he have chosen?
I would tend to think that the veggie would no doubt have chosen the bread and water anyway, while common sense would indicate the other would have opted for the much better food and drink but in the absence of that choice has no option but to readily and gratefully accept the bread … or starve!
In reality,(figuratively speaking) ‘you’ are the Office of National Statistics (ONS), The ‘stale bread and water’ is the unreasonable smoking ban, while the option of reasonable smoking restrictions in pubs is the ‘steak and lager’, - I refer to the ONS recent surveys into smoking that have been rapaciously devoured and spewed out in the media to laud the ‘success’ of smoking bans and cited as evidence for the continuance of the most invidious piece of legislation ever to be invoked in any civilised country since the rise and fall of Hitler’s National socialism.
E.g.; Here and here
The ONS in its underhand wisdom has removed the reasonable option of the steak and ale to give the false impression that the smoking ban is widely favoured. This is nothing short of deception, even though this deception openly admits that the real preferred choices have been removed. (ref; Section 7)
“The questions from previous years asking respondents whether they thought there should be restrictions on smoking in certain places were therefore reworded to reflect this change [total smoking bans] and results from 2007 onwards are not comparable with those from previous years”
Too damn true they are not comparable! – All surveys before 2007 showed clearly that the majority of the British population DID NOT WANT total smoking bans!! The majority of surveys prior to the smoking ban showed that around 75% of respondents did NOT support a smoking ban – some did not want any smoking ban and the majority wanted some restrictions only. Even the ONS found that ONLY 33% wanted a smoking ban hence their need to ‘fix’ the questions to engineer support for smoking bans!
The population WANTED steak and ale – they DID NOT want moldy bread and water!! Unlike the rabid minority anti-smoking movement and their lackeys, HM Government, most people are reasonable, they want to see fairness, justice, equality – not the de-normalisation, isolation or discrimination of their smoking, drinking, eating friends and family! They don’t want to see the fracture of society, hospitality venues made extinct, relationships destroyed or the emergence of a fascist regime.
By removing the better options the ONS have left the non-smoking ‘respondents’ with no option but to choose between accepting smoking bans in their entirety or (after the massive anti-smoker propaganda campaign) dying a horrible death after being subjected to a whiff of tobacco smoke. They are left with no option but to accept the stale bread!
It is not just the removal of relevant questions that is despicable; the whole cleverly worded survey is contemptible in its formulation. Before being asked about how much they agree with smoking bans, the respondents are firstly required to show how well they ‘understand’ the harm caused by smoking and passive smoking. This conditions the mind to produce the ‘right’ answers to the crunch questions. They are required to recall all the anti-smoking propaganda about what ‘smoke related’ diseases can do to their children and grandchildren, how so many (fictitious) people die young because of smoking etc. etc. When the crunch questions arrive, the respondents can do no other than surrender and provide the answers that are required.
It is interesting to note that in the section asking whether people went to the pub more or less often since the smoking ban – they EXCLUDED those who said they did not go to pubs (figures intro re tables 7.9 – 7.12) yet this group are still allowed to answer questions about the effectiveness of, and whether they agree with bans in pubs. (These are our proverbial fanatical tea total veggies – guess what they are more likely to choose steak or stale bread?) What a good way to show how ‘little’ damage has been caused to pubs or what percentage of smokers/ non-smokers were /are frequent pub-goers! According to their figures 65% visited the same before and after, 14% went more often, 17% went less often – So net – only a 3% drop in pub customers! With 52 pubs now closing every week – does anyone really believe that!
This ONS survey is meant and claimed to show how successful the anti-smoking campaign has been, but it is clear that the only thing that this survey confirms is how well the anti-smoker propaganda, indoctrination and brainwashing has worked – What it actually is, is as good an example as you will find of ‘psychological suggestion’ in action - brain manipulation to control thought and action !
– Essential for the success of any flawed social engineering project!
Perhaps the ONS should change its name to ONP; ‘Office of National Propaganda’ or maybe the ‘Orwell-esqe’ ‘Ministry of Truth’!! Either would be rather apt!
One other little point; The ONS has also made much of the claim that a million had stopped smoking (contrary to evidence in all other places where smoking bans have been imposed that smoking increases) –Yet look to the common sense argument … in a profit and loss account;
“Cigarettes giant British American Tobacco (BAT) today (30/7/09) proved that smokers have not kicked their nicotine habit despite the recession.”
“The maker of Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Kent and Pall Mall cigarettes beat the
City's forecasts with a 15.5% jump in pre-tax profits to £2.11 billion in
the six months to 30 June, compared with the same period a year earlier…
despite the illicit trade that has grown because of tax increases”!!
BAT's shares climbed 19p to 1859p as analysts raised their earningsExactly how many have stopped smoking - and what expectations of more 'quitters' in the coming year?
expectations for the year.
ps.
Another blog that critically looks at the ONS propaganda document can be found here;
http://freedom-2-choose.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-you-didnt-read-about-smoking-stats_2775.html
