Rebuttal Exercise

Dear Dr. Walter Williams

Can you find a similarity between Nazis and Anti-smokers? Yes you can. As the writer of “Nazi Tactics”, you believe this to be true. In 2002 you write in Ideas on Liberty that in today’s society and government that there is intolerance against smokers, making a wild comparison that the government who is try to ban smoking are acting as the Nazis did during the Holocaust. You claim that almost 40 million American smoke cigarettes, and my question is, how many have quit (par. 4). As stated by you, “there has been widely successful vilification of cigarette smokers and tobacco manufacturers,” and all this is due to the health effects and health-care costs (par. 5). Don’t you think that there is a legitimate reason as to why these officials are making these claims? Officials are not trying to rid of people or making them seem like villains, but trying to gear towards a healthier lifestyle and only ridding them of their bad habit. Though it may seem that officials have, “arisen one day and then decided to tyrannize no more,” this is still an issue that is at hand that is closely followed and fought over.