“To the WHO and its surrogate health departments, you are like a tree in an orchard. To the FMF, you have a mind. Your psychological and physical health entail complex body-mind relationships. Seemingly unhealthy behaviour may be a healthy way of coping with lethargy, pain, fatigue, depression, insecurity, stress, and more. It might promote happiness, contentment, stimulation, creativity, concentration or relaxation, all of which are mentally and physically healthy.
If you do not want the wine bottle on your dinner table to be black and displaying sickening photographs of rotting livers, if you want product information and brand competition, if you want to be the boss of yourself, you must oppose plain ghastly packaging”.
‘Anti-tobacco fanaticism threatens every aspect of your life and liberty’: Leon Louw’s latest column in BDlive published by Business Day [subscription required]
Further excerpts
The difference between the WHO and such surrogates as our anti-freedom health department, on one hand, and the FMF, alongside the world’s freedom-lovers, on the other, is that the former want to control you and the latter want you to control yourself.
Why on earth does the FMF care about smokers? It does not. It cares about you. Especially if you hate smoking. The more anti-tobacco you are, the more the FMF cares about you because you might not realise how seriously anti-tobacco fanaticism threatens every aspect of your life and liberty.
. . . . .
If people allow the continued erosion of cherished principles, they will have no principled argument against what will follow in other contexts. At today’s Free to Choose Tuesday celebration, the FMF displayed what awaits consumers who do not defend smokers’ rights: ‘plain packaged’ cold drinks, chocolates and wine. Attractive and dignified branding was covered up and replaced by images of cancer-ridden, rotting body parts. Cars are more dangerous than tobacco, so a car was ‘plain packaged’ with make and model blanked out and sporting ‘health’ warning and photographs of mangled bodies.