Today It's E-Cigs and Big Gulps: Flashback to Andrew Breitbart and Adam Carolla Interview

In response to E-Cigs Take Another Blow :

You know what this made me think of, Kerry? 

There was a great interview that Andrew Breitbart did in May of 2011 with Adam Carolla, and they got to talking about how smokers have lost nearly all their liberties over time because we just sat back and let that happen.  I transcribed the whole part of that exchange in a blog post back then, and I’ll copy it here after the jump for convenience.

It’s funny, the two of them are having this discussion in terms of comparing what’s happened to smokers to how our society in the US in general has seen our liberties erode over time – little by little, tax by tax, regulation by regulation.  Over the years it’s been cigarettes, today it’s Big Gulps and e-cigs, but tomorrow it could be something far broader than that. 

I really hope people, including non-smokers, are paying attention.

 

Here’s the transcript of the relevant section of the podcast, below.  (The entire podcast is worth a listen).

It’s funny that you used the smoking thing. I think about that all the
time and I always use it as an example of the difference between the
guys who wanted to smoke and the NRA… I secretly suspect this is
what the NRA does, not a fan, but this is what they do, this is part of
their strategy…see…

So, somebody came into the restaurant and said ‘Hey smokers,
you know what, we’re gonna need to move you on over here and just
create a little smoking section on this side of the restaurant, so
would you just pick it up and move it over here please?’ And everyone went ‘oh yeah, OK,’ and they went and sat in the smoking section. And then at a certain point, somebody came up and said ‘Hey, uh, smokers listen, uh, gonna need you to clear out of the dining area but if you wanna smoke at the bar that’d be fine‘, and they just sort of got up and went ‘yeak, OK, alright’ and then went and sat at the bar. And then the same guy came back again and said, ‘bad news, gonna need to move you out front, outside, can’t have any smoking in the bar or the restaurant, just go out front’ so they went ‘yeah, OK,’ so they stood out on the sidewalk in front of the valet and smoked a cigarette. And then the guy came out and said ‘gonna need you to move down the street 80 paces to smoke a cigarette’ and you see, they just kept getting up and moving.

What the NRA does is they say, ‘f*** you, we’re not moving, let’s argue about it,’ and they’re staying where they are. Meaning, they said, ‘hey man, we need those hollow tip bullets’ and went ‘I don’t think so,’ and
now they just argue about it. Now, I don’t think they’re really
arguing about that. They just don’t wanna keep sliding out down the
sidewalk with the smokers.

And this is the way we are, especially in CA. Which is, we go, ‘hey do this,’ and then someone goes ‘alright.’ Or, we’ll go ‘hey put a tax on cigarettes for a dollar,’ and then next time they go ‘hey make it another buck’ and then they go, ‘eh make it 5 bucks!’ And then Rob Reiner goes, ‘it should be 10 bucks!’ And then all the people that don’t smoke and are full of f***ing righteous indignation, they go ‘oh yeah!’ And then someone says ‘give it to the kids’ and then, next thing you know, we’re where we’re at.