Capt. Manieri is back...armed with more questions.

[Fionn]

Manieri,

1. I didn't preach TO you.

2. I merely stated some facts about smoking cause I'd hate to think people were promoting smoking to a young 16 year old.

3. Have you heard of 2nd hand smoke? It IS a real issue and I've seen people dying of lung cancer because of people with attitudes like yours.

4. I KNOW you think you know everything and that you should be allowed to do whatever you want etc but, as you may come to understand in the fulness of time, you know much less than you think you do ( it's a sad day when you realise this but it's the day that you begin to become a mature adult.. and it's something we'e all gone through) and just cause you do something doesn't make it right and good.

5. You should be ASHAMED of yourself for assaulting a classmate. Its behaviour like that which is truly abhorent.

6. Nicotine IS an addictive substance and at some stage it will probably become proscribed.

[Thomm]

Dear Cpt. Manieri !

I bet that if a group of people decided to fart in your face on a regular basis you would try and wear a T-shirt yourself. Other peoples smoking might not be a non-smokers business, but the air, that we breath sure is.

[Guest Captain Manieri]

Fionn, I'm not saying you did. I'm using very GENERAL terms.

[Guest Captain Manieri]

All non-smokers ganging up on me-huh? Guess what? I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette right now!!! F.U.!! And Fionn, I didn't "ASSAULT" anyone....I threw a freakin' chipwich in lunch.

[Hakko Ichiu]

[Rant Mode]

Smoking tobacco (or putting anything else in one's body) is and ought to be seen as a private choice. The problem comes when the State intrudes in the private sphere to such an extent that private choices become politicized. If you're not convinced that tobacco smoking is now a political -- as opposed to a health -- issue, change the word "tobacco" into "cannabis" and you'll see what I mean.

With regard to tobacco, government has intruded into the private sphere via socialized medicine and its various analogues. Once the non-smoking majority (in the U.S., anyway) becomes liable through taxes for the medical treatment of smokers, then smokers' rights are in play. In the U.S (and the UK), smokers already pay out more in direct taxes than they cost the health system. Yet because they are a political soft target, we are seeing the nonsensical and tyrannical farce of the tobacco lawsuits and unconstitutional cigarette taxes.

Personally, I think tobacco is a disgusting habit (although I indulge in it occasionally). I feel the same about eating cheez-whiz from the can. And any number of private acts which consenting adults commit and which carry severe health consequences but which happen to be politically privileged and therefore sacrosanct (or even taught and encouraged in public schools).

So, Capt., if it's what you want to do, puff away, but be aware of the risks and make sure your insurance is paid up. Fionn, you're right, of course: smoking can and does lead to horrible deaths. Keep putting the word out. At the same time, why don't you consider whether free health care at the point of delivery is really a good thing. And whether some things are more precious even than good health, such as freedom and individual liberty.

[/Rant Mode]

I feel better now. I'd go have a cigarette, but I'm getting over bronchitis. Besides, it's raining outside and I never smoke in the house, or when the kids are awake. It's a filthy habit really, but nothing goes with a fine cognac or single-malt than a good cigar.

Ethan

------------------

Das also war des Pudels Kern! -- Goethe

[Thomm]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>F.U.!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Hey, English is not my native language ! Can somebody tell me what that abbreviation means ? Is it something nasty?

[Guest Captain Manieri]

Use your imagination. Don't take offense, I'm just fooling around.

[Guest Captain Manieri]

Good argument Hakko,

However, since there are certain taxes involved with cigarettes...that probably makes the fact that the Tobacco patient medical care pays for itself in the taxes it takes. More than enough money. Especially with the new taxes they have now.

[Hakko Ichiu]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Captain Manieri:

Good argument Hakko,

However, since there are certain taxes involved with cigarettes...that probably makes the fact that the Tobacco patient medical care pays for itself in the taxes it takes. More than enough money. Especially with the new taxes they have now.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I already said that in my rant.

BTW, as a minor, you have fewer rights than the general populace. Live with it, you have fewer responsibilities too . If the school board or your parents want to stop you smoking, they should be able to. I'm not validating your habit, just pointing out the importance of allowing certain things we find distasteful if we are to have individual liberty and freedom.

As I said, if you want to, it's your choice, at least once you reach the age of majority. But you should quit. You should also eat 5 servings of vegetables a day, get plenty of exercise, avoid fatty foods, stop watching TV, be more involved in your community, say no to drugs, and maintain your virginity until marriage. You could be made to do all of these things if only the government cared enough about the children.

See where the nanny state leads us.

Ethan

------------------

Das also war des Pudels Kern! -- Goethe

[Eridani]

Capt. Manerie...

Just when I thought you couldn't be any more Juvenile...

Yes you have a right to f-up your own body...

And we have the right to call you an idiot for it...

case closed

-EridanMan

[This message has been edited by Eridani (edited 02-14-2000).]

[Spook]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fionn:

4. I KNOW you think you know everything and that you should be allowed to do whatever you want etc but, as you may come to understand in the fulness of time, you know much less than you think you do ( it's a sad day when you realise this but it's the day that you begin to become a mature adult.. and it's something we'e all gone through) and just cause you do something doesn't make it right and good.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bingo. In my college days of the mid-80's, I thought I could keep up with my studies by doing three sleepless nights a week and pounding caffeine pills. It didn't take very long for that to catch up with me, and I believe that I've been paying for it ever since.

[Fionn]

Just a few minor points..

Throwing something at someone IS assault. You'd be amazed at the innocuous things which have been thrown at people in jest and have ended up killing them.

There's a celebrated case in my college where a doctor at an international conference was awarded an award and then, bare minutes later, choked to death on a fishbone. He choked to death in a room filled with more than 300 doctors . My point is that you'd be amazed at how people can die OR suffer serious eye injury. It only takes a tiny bit of bad luck to lose an eye for example.

I'm not sorry if I come across as being very serious on these issues because people really don't understand how fragile their bodies and others are.

For example people think that strangling someone requires pressure to be exerted for 2 to 3 minutes to ensure unconsciousness. They forget that some 15% of people have hypersensitive carotid bodies ( they regulate blood pressure) and if you squeeze in a specific place on the neck in those people you can stop their heart and cause them to lose consciousness in under 30 seconds.

Manieri, what you do with your body IS your business BUT 2nd hand smoke etc affects everyone and with the freedom to act comes the responsibility to act responsibly. I once wrote a very interesting paper on how modern day culture is focussed on freedom but not on the responsibility which comes with this freedom and drawing comparisons with Greek and Roman cultures of the past. It is interesting to note how little responsibility many individuals in the modern world feel towards the community.

Anyways, just remember that you do NOT have a right to act in a way abhorent or detrimental to society. If you carried a plague or some such thing you would be quarantined and isolated. Remember the story of how Typhus is dealt with?

You don't have as much freedom as you think you do. You DO have more responsibility to society than you think you do though.

And one thing about taxes and smoking. Smokers ALWAYS say that their smoking pays for their health care. NOT SO... Take it from someone who knows the figures... The amount of money taken in from taxes on smoking doesn't even come close to paying the healthcare costs of caring for dying smokers.

Add onto these costs the "opportunity cost" of the medical services wasted on smokers and you'll see that smoking not only wastes lots of medical expenditure but it ALSO prevents that money being spent on diabetics or pregnant women etc.

There are MANY facets to the argument and it is much, much more complicated than a simple "It's my body" statement. It IS your body but your body forms part of the community and your smoking can and does damage the community.

Anyways, enough of this.. Let's get back to regular conversation ok... You have your views, I have mine. I DO find it very disturbing that you intimate that your father helps you get cigarettes at the age of 16 though.

[Sarge]

just a quick not...the capt (despite his personal habits that as a father abhor) asked some very GOOD questions about CM, that except for one were pretty much ignored.

can we go back and address those?

[Guest Ol' Blood & Guts]

Hey Captain Manieri! You know what's dumber looking than a cigarette in your ear?

One in your mouth!

Son, ever heard of remaining quiet as to not to reveal stupidity but then opening one's mouth and thus removing all doubt. You are one dumbass kid!

------------------

"I want you to remember that...no bastard ever won a war...by dying for his country...He won it...by making the other poor dumb bastard...die for his country."--George S. Patton

[This message has been edited by Ol' Blood & Guts (edited 02-14-2000).]

[Guest Ol' Blood & Guts]

Fionn, as for spending money on medical research on something other than Smoking diseases, we need to spend money on Spinal Cord injuries, of which I'm a patient myself. Yes, I sit in a wheelchair in front of my computer. But I can walk in a walker. I'm 1% out of 100% that has progressed to this point based on the severity of my injury. I had a auto accident on the Illinois side of St. Louis, MO almost a year and a half ago. Broke my neck.

Hopefully CM will come out before my year and a half Anniversary on April 2nd.

------------------

"I want you to remember that...no bastard ever won a war...by dying for his country...He won it...by making the other poor dumb bastard...die for his country."--George S. Patton

[Major Tom]

Manieri, yet again this board is not bashing you out of hatred or distain, just out of concern (that and enjoyment

People should indeed have the right to do whatever they want to their body.

People should have the right to smoke cigarettes.

People should have the right to smoke pot.

People should have the right to smoke crack.

People should have the right to die young of a terrible disease, take up loads of taxpayer money, as well as money from their own family in order to get you radiation therapy and a hospital bed for a few years.

People should also have the right to die, leaving a husband, wife, and/or children without a parent in which to raise them, and leave them in financial turmoil.

People should have the right to be selfish.

My mother smokes, I and my father have, and use, every right to criticise and mock here to the point that she will quit. And it is working. My roomate's mother died when he was just about to get into Highschool because of smoking induced cancer. It was an extreme financial and emotional burden on the family. Smoking is stupid.

[JeffRaider]

Go Blood And Guts!! Dumbass is right!

------------------

--

Jeff Fraser

VIVA LOS ZAPATISTAS

[bauhaus]

Now I think I can see through the smoke... cough....and understand why there has been so much discussion over the smoke graphics. People think the smoke graphics should replicate the smoke from their cigarettes.

[Guest Captain Manieri]

TO:STEVE

Please delete or close this thread. It is way off topic and only one of my questions has been answered. I being a smoker really has no bearing on this BBS.

[Colin]

Cap'n,

Instead of bitching about all these people how about you send me the next turn for our PBEM game!!!! It's your turn dammit! I'll frickin' assault you with a chipwich unless you send me the damn turn.

------------------

Visit my webpage!

http://cm4mac.tripod.com

[Guest hunt52]

To answer Capt.'s fourth question

IIRC there will be a different face for each general type of unit, but not more than that. So every american infantry squad will look like every other, but not like FOs or Mortars or the like.

As to the total number, I have no idea.

- Bill

[Guest Babra]

Listen, Cap'n M. I am also a smoker and I support every piece of goddamned legislation there is against it, and I hope they do make it illegal, cuz then maybe one day I'll smarten the ^%$*# up and quit. When I was 16, it was cool to be a nihilist too. "Yeah, man, I'd rather die of cancer than get old." Now I'm just another addict and after watching my father die in EXACTLY the way described by Fionn (who I'm very pissed off at for reminding me), it ain't cool any more, and none of my smoker buddies were there to tell me how cool he was to have a belly so distended from not being able to evacuate his bowels for a few weeks that he looked like a pregnant starvation victim.

[BFCElvis]

Damn, I make a cheap comment to highlight the silliness of smoking and all this happens. I have been follwing it for a couple of days and had decided not to bother to explain myself. But this has turned into a VERY lenghty OT subject. The one dimensional aspect of words on a sceen apparently caused a misunderstanding of what I was saying to the good Capt. I was really just trying to show him the silliness of his smoking at his age. I think I was misinterpreted as encouraging him to smoke. For that I am sorry.

[Trooper]

I don't believe this...

I am a member of quite a few forums and lists, and never before have I seen so many attacking mails and threads that have diverged into personal wars as I have in the Combat Mission section of the battlefront forum.

Frankly, right or wrong, if I want to find out about nasty medical ways of dying, I'll go to a medical website. (Eye-opening though Fionn's post was). I come here for two reasons: One is to get updates on a game I will soon be purchasing, and the other is to learn about items military that I was unaware of before.

By way of comparison, take a look at the TacOps forum, also on this site. Look at the amount of 'locked' threads there. Not many.

All this ranting and raving (My post included) takes up server space, wastes my time ploughing through it in the hunt for that rare jewel of information that can occasionally be found here. What's wrong with you lot? I note a couple of posts back one chap asked for this topic to be locked. It shouldn't get to that stage. If someone writes a post that you wish to react (angrily) to, one suggestion came from another list. Write the reply, save it, come back to it some time later (Like 24 hours) when you've cooled off, <then> have another look at it. If you still think it's reasonable, then send the post.

Though it may sound like I'm on a high horse, shame on you.

End of diatribe.

DWH

Manic Moran

The difference between infantrymen and cavalrymen is that cavalrymen get to die faster, for we ride into battle!

[Guest Germanboy]

IIRC, the least effective way of getting young people off fags is to shock them. They tried that with us in school and it did not work with my classmates. I guess many 16-year olds can just not comprehend what it means (no offence to anyone here, and I know I sound like the arrogant 31-year old bastard that I am ) - I know I could not, although I never smoked. My mom and me got my dad off it through pressure after we were shocked by one of these TV programmes about smoking when I was about 10.

I think all that can be said here has been said, maybe we should give it a rest. Just my two cents.

------------------

Andreas