More Things To Ban

 

Apparently, according to the Penn Med Soc. (PMS), the entertainment industry glamourizes and endorses vaping. “Electronic cigarettes should not be on television or in the movies”, said pulmonologist Dick Bell.

The errors in the stance being adopted by PMS can be summarised through a couple of quotes by Jacob Sullum from his recent Forbes column “Marijuana Edibles, Flavored E-Cigarettes, And The Folly Of Child-Proofing The World”.

This argument (for regulation), although couched in the language of moderate and sensible regulation, should be a non-starter in a free society, because it reduces adults to the level of children,” he writes.

But hang on a minute, is there one among us who has not had an aspect of their lives ruined by Hollywood (and I’m not just referring to the mental anguish of having watched a Jennifer Aniston rom-com)? Maybe there’s mileage in banning stuff that might be dangerous to children and adults?

Are you one of the individuals Thelma & Louise convinced that it’d be cool to drive off a mountain? Perhaps you number in the legion of poor folk who bought into the lie that you could walk around a city centre with a sword killing the people you believed to be vampires? Maybe you tried to despatch your friend’s son, believing him to be the reincarnation of Satan? Possibly you loaded up with guns and had a shoot out in a wood just outside of Basingstoke after returning from a harrowing time in Dagenham?

The cinema and television clearly have a lot to answer for having influenced all of us weak-willed individuals to copy the stars so blindly.

But it can’t end there.

Some doctors have proven themselves to be dangerous to society with their mass murdering tendencies; clearly the medical profession has to be banned to in order to protect everybody. Yep, I know it isn’t all doctors and nurses but remember – this is all about protecting children. You aren’t allowed to nit-pick when it comes to child safety.

Add on to that list truck drivers, taxi drivers, shop owners, rivers, trees, building sites and traffic wardens. I’m not sure traffic wardens have ever been responsible for the death of anyone but it pays to be safe.

And how about those who inflict actual abuse on children? Politicians, teachers, doctors (again), the police, hospital administrators and council officials – the list goes on and on. If we are to have any semblance of a safe world then we need to remove this risk forthwith. Banning these professions is the only sensible course of action if we are to save children.

Logically, we ought to give serious consideration to banning adults from having families too. I am convinced that this measure would lead to a planet safe from vapers, Hollywood and the Pennsylvania Medical Society.

Referring to the whole ‘gateway’ nonsense, Jacob Sullum concludes: “In other words, [they] are prepared to sacrifice the interests, and potentially the lives, of verifiably real adults for the sake of hypothetical teenagers. This is where the logic of regulating “for the children” leads. Attempts to child-proof the world do not necessarily make kids any safer, but they always makes adults less free.”

 

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