Tuesday
May072019
Many smokers feel like pariahs, says Norway's new health minister, and that's stupid
Tuesday, May 7, 2019 at 18:59 Breaking news.
Let people smoke, drink and eat red meat - Norwegian health minister (BBC News).
Note the inevitable (and unnecessary) BBC dig:
A populist politician with anti-immigration views ...
What do her views on immigration have to do with her views on smoking, eating and drinking?
PS. If you're wondering how an increasing number of smokers are being made to feel like pariahs, check out my previous post.
Let people smoke, drink and eat red meat - Norwegian health minister https://t.co/OSjNzBzfnx
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 7, 2019
Reader Comments (4)
More politicians thinking like this would be great. If the left wants to stop the right or far right, it should change its patronising and sneering stance on these issues.
I stopped supporting the left of politics because of the holier than thou and jackboot attitude to forcing lifestyle changes on people who just want to be left alone. I find it creepy that they are trying to force us all into the perfect examples of good health based on a state approved lifestyle.
If the Norway health minister is an example of right wing policies it seems much less opressive to me despite all the noise and propaganda around it.
It is the non-thinking politicians who are pariahs which is why they remain unpopular and unwanted. When are going to have the intelligence to copy Norway?
For a Norwegian minister to say this is quite powerful and carries a lot of weight especially when one considers Scandinavia's long term flirtation with and support of paternalism (with the possible exception of Denmark). If Norwegians are fed up with this, then things really have gone too far. I hope Sylvi Listhaug keeps this up and with the increasing misfortunes of our established political parties, I hope our MPs and others start taking notes. I may be being a little optimistic, but I can't help but think that the war for free choice is very much still on.
This is a refreshing change from the typical antismoker propaganda that leads to the persecution of smokers.
Minister Listhaug is right, but as can be seen from the spin in the BBC article, I suspect the tobacco control 'apparatchiks' will target her with propaganda and ad hominem attacks to suppress dissent.
I wonder if they will ban her from the FCTC's and its meetings...