Daily Vaper

How Low Will They Go? Tobacco Control Attacks Malia Obama

(Photo: Getty Images)

Carl V. Phillips Contributor
Font Size:

It is almost cliché to observe that American society has recently experienced a loss of common decency and civic virtue unlike any time in living memory. It is qualitatively different from mere political struggle. Fierce and bruising political fights can occur among people who recognize that, win or lose, they would not want that battle to tear the fragile fabric of society. Today, political combatants seem unconcerned about the lasting damage political tactics might cause for the health of the government and the people; indeed, many seem to consider damaging those to be part of the goal.

Tobacco control – the movement whose mission is to end usage of tobacco, and now also vapor products – acted this way long before 2016.

Some of tobacco control’s unethical and harmful behavior is well documented, like their lies about what scientific evidence shows. Some is equally bad but largely escapes notice because its threat to a well-functioning society is more subtle, like their attempts to sneak through rules at inappropriate levels of government. But most of their harmful acts are so insignificant, taken individually, that they escape notice.

Taken together, however, these acts show a political movement that does not hesitate to damage the social fabric if it might offer some tiny support for their special interest goals. Most observers overlook individual bits of abuse or collateral damage, and give tobacco control the benefit of the doubt, not recognizing the pattern of antisocial behavior it represents. This article is the first in a series that will look at such small acts, attempting to present the larger pattern of disregard for civic norms that they represent.

The first example is a tweet by the Orwellian-named Truth Initiative. This is the taxpayer-funded (specifically sales taxes on cigarettes)organization that changed its name from The American Legacy Foundation to match its “truth” advertising campaign which is notorious for its lack of concern about the truth.

The tweet came after sensationalistic reports about the about former first-daughter Malia Obama acting like a normal college student. It read, “Malia Obama spotted with a cigarette over the weekend is just the latest example of how celebrities can become unpaid spokespeople for the tobacco industry.”

The reporting about the young Obama, sometimes simple clickbait (which existed in gossip rags long before clicking was a thing) and sometimes a bizarre attempt to attack the legacy of President Barack Obama, was widely condemned. Ivanka Trump and Chelsea Clinton both pointed out that Obama is a private citizen who deserves her privacy. Replies to the tweet were also consistently critical.

Truth Initiative included a link to an op-ed by their CEO which claims that any “A-list celebrity” who allows the world to see an image of them smoking is effectively working for the tobacco industry (their other rhetoric suggests they feel the same way about vaping, though that was not mentioned in this case). The claim is that the mere act of smoking a cigarette or being a smoker is an endorsement and persuades others to do the same. Only someone obsessed with tobacco products as an existential evil would not see the absurdity of portraying someone’s every consumer choice as if it were an active endorsement.

More disturbingly, this “I don’t want the children to ever witness this” attitude is exactly the common justification for denying the rights of other minority groups in society. The toxic claim, repeatedly endorsed by tobacco control, is that people should not be allowed to live their lives and make their choices openly if someone thinks it is a bad influence (regardless of whether the public figure or others agree). This is a serious threat to a functioning pluralistic society. Tobacco controllers take this as far as insisting that the minority should cooperate in their own oppression, demanding that they hide their choices and beliefs.

This is bad enough when applied to someone who made a concerted effort to become famous, and does get paid to make endorsements. Obama, by contrast, made no such effort and has taken no such advantage of her accidental fame. Criticizing her personal choices not only is a demand that she volunteer in her own oppression by tobacco control, but an invasion of her privacy. There is no apparent limit to how low tobacco control will go in pursuit of their special-interest activism.

Truth Initiative has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Follow Dr. Phillips on Twitter

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel