I was over at Linda's this morning and she had the TV on CNN. A couple of guys were talking about how the states had spent their "Tobacco Money", that is the money they got from suing the tobacco companies. They were extolling the fact that all the public service ads had reduced the amount of smoking but now that the money had run out, smoking among teens was on the rise.
Hindsight being 20/20, I thought about it a bit and figured out what would have been a better use for the tobacco money. What if, instead of running ads to stop people from smoking, they had used that money to run ads to keep people from going into politics? After all, smoking only shortens life; politics makes a life worthless. What if people like George Bush and Hillary Clinton had seen public service ads in their youth that steered them away from politics? What if George had chosen a career in stand up comedy? He can be really funny, if you doubt that, watch Late Night with David Letterman sometime. The Great Presidential Speeches segment is hilarious. And what about Hillary, don't you think that she would have made a fairly good 5th grade social studies teacher? I'm pretty sure that if neither of these people had entered politics, the world would be a better place.
Sure, the anti-tobacco ads have added a few years to the end of some lives, but which is worse, to live 5 years less than you could have, or to waste your entire life in politics?
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