Smoking is rapidly dying out in the UK and US among young people – the first generation to come of age surrounded by laws that discourage smoking. Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics reveal that the proportion of smokers in the country fell to 15.5 per cent in 2016, down from about half in 2010. Although 19.3 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds smoke, the percentage has  declined by 6.5 percent.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of smokers aged between about 12 and 18 dropped to 3.9 million in 2016, down from 4.7 million in 2015. These figures include cigarettes and e-cigarettes, both of which have seen large declines in use.

However, the situation in developing countries has not been so positive. Back  in 2012 a study based on the Global Adult Tobacco  Survey showed that nearly half of men in 14 developing countries were tobacco users and that women were starting to smoke at younger ages. Overall, researchers predicted. at that point that  smoking would cause one billion deaths in the 21st century.

The good news is that quit rates have been  higher in countries with programs in place for discouraging tobacco use and helping with quitting.  Uruguay is interesting because of its stringent anti-tobacco policies, including mandated graphic labels on cigarette packaging, sales tax increases, bans on tobacco advertising and on indoor smoking in public places. Tobacco use in Uruguay has decreased by 25 percent over three years.

Among other promising data, 70 percent of Uruguay’s smokers expressed regret for every having taken up smoking, and in the five-year period covered by the survey, over two-thirds of smokers at least attempted to quit. Positive health changes are already being seen, and may in part be attributed to these policies. The ITC found a 22 percent reduction in the rate of hospital admissions for heart attacks and a 90 percent decrease in air contamination in enclosed public spaces in the year after they were enacted.

Hopefully, by picking off one developing country after another we can stop smoking, based on the interpretation of trade agreements.  Only recently Philip Morris sued the Australian government, which demanded plain white wrappers and the words Smoking Kills on them.  Philip Morris tried to get this overturned before a tribunal, a favourite trick.  But the new regulation was surprisingly upheld.   The Australian used a clause in their 1993 Hong Kong bilateral trade deal and the court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.  The days of smoking might be numbered.

Since 2012 the conversations of people travelling on buses in Maryland have been recorded.

It’s one thing to have active video recording, which can help identify the drunk and the trouble- makers. But to record passenger ‘s conversations! This is really going too far. What this mass surveillance hopes to achieve is puzzling. Maryland has visited this issue four times, and the objection to stopping the recordings (not one person has proved to be undermining the Constitution or to be in league with ISIS) is that to change the cameras so that the the driver activates the recordings when he thinks an incident is developing would incur too great an expense. (Ovetta Wiggins, Washington Post)

George Orwell really got his forecast right didn’t he? Everywhere we look we see intrusion into privacy and encroachment on civil liberties. Serious bombers and planners of massacres don’t generally plan their attacks on local buses stopping and starting in rural Maryland.

A  RAND Corporation report reveals an alarming pattern: gun salesmen based in the US  now ship worldwide, with Europe the biggest source of profit. Lax gun laws in the US are undermining stricter rules elsewhere. Over half of the weapons for sale are from the US, with the revenue from Europe five times higher than from domestic sales, through the dark web.

Although sales account for less than an estimated 1 per cent of items sold on the dark web – transactions go far beyond simply putting a gun in the mail. The information and technology available to potential lone-wolf attackers on the dark web range from manuals on how to create explosives to detailed instructions on how to disassemble and ship a gun to various overseas destinations,

The dark web is a subset of the internet that requires specific software to access so that users can remain anonymous. Registration and access are straightforward. Not all items for sale there are illegal, but the promise of anonymity makes it easier to subvert the law. This anonymity makes buying or selling items risky: the person at the other end of the deal could be a scammer or the police. But previously, to purchase an illegal firearm,  you had to contact a gang involved an arms trafficking gang and convince them  that you weren’t with the police. This was tricky; they might scam you.

To help build trust between buyers and sellers, dark web marketplaces allow them to review transactions the way they would on eBay or Amazon. Many dark marketplaces even offer payment protection.  Vendors on the dark web have also honed their delivery tactics. They may often disassemble weapons into many parts that are sent in different packages. Some parts are embedded in less conspicuous items like old stereos or printers.  (Timothy Revell. New Scientist 29 July 2017)

What are we doing tolerating this stuff?  Why  was the dark web ever allowed in the first place? The 2nd Amendment, allegedly allowing arms to be be bought and used for “self-defence” (hah!) in the US is being traduced by unscrupulous gun makers and dealers who are potentially (and probably actually) exporting terror and death overseas via the internet, alongside advice on bomb-making and other  terrorist techniques. Why would anyone want to buy American guns unless they were al Queda or ISIS supporters, assassins or ruthless gangsters?   This whole thing is a form of pornography, only pornography generally doesn’t usually kill people.  No pussy-footing or discussion!  This is not a matter for Epicurean reasonableness.   Close it down!

The second of my two-part series on how enlightened citizens should respond to the farce that is the Trump administration. You can read the first part on the Democrats here, http://hanrott.com/blog/how-the-democrats-should-respond-to-trump/. Also, next Monday the Modern Philosophy series is returning, so look out for that! 

Being an anti-Trump Republican is a lonely job. The President enjoys an 80% approval rating amongst Republican voters. In a era of hyper-partisanship, many people believe that because Democrats hate Trump so much, he must be doing something right. The potential collusion with Russia and other scandals are fabrications or exaggerations by the media, purported in order to undermine him. Similarly, the only reason why he hasn’t achieved more is because of Democrat opposition, treachery within the Republican ranks, and the corrupt nature of ‘the swamp’ (a nickname for the Washington establishment.) This means that any Republican who openly opposes Trump will come under fire from their core supporters, especially if they live in a state or district where Trump has a net positive approval rating.

So I have a lot of respect for Republican politicians and outspoken conservative commentators who critique Trump and the general direction of the conservative movement. No one has done a better job of doing this than Senator Jeff Flake. He recently published a book, Conscience of a Conservative (just like Goldwater), in which he not only rejects Trump, but also the nationalism, populism and disregard for traditional conservatism that led to Trump winning the nomination. I completely agree that in America, just as in every country, there is a need for a healthy debate between respected individuals who are thoughtful and principled. Whatever your feelings are regarding the Republican Party, it is just as necessary to the wellbeing and functioning of American democracy as the Democrats. So of course Flake is right that the GOP should ditch its cult of personality fixation with Trump in favour of universally applicable conservative principles.

However, Flake presents too simplistic a picture. He seems to imply that before Trump came along, conservatives were largely intelligent and moral. Then Trump ruined the movement, so by getting rid of him we can return to an idealised state of affairs prior to 2016. The reality is more complex. It’s certainly true that conservatism has degraded since Trump sought the Republican nomination. But it was hardly perfect before then. While Flake acknowledges the failures of specific Republicans like Newt Gingrich or Mitch McConnell for being excessively partisan, he doesn’t account for the Republican establishment’s toleration and utilisation of illiberal nationalism for electoral gain. Conspiracy theories like Obama not being an American, evolution being a product of militant atheism to destroy Christianity, or climate change denial, were routinely accepted ideas amongst the conservative base even before Trump came along. Given how sceptical of climate change Mitt Romney was, was it really surprising that Trump’s assertion that climate change was invented by the Chinese to make American manufacturing non-competitive, proved popular? Nor is conservative demagoguery the exclusive preserve of Trump- the Economist points ought that Republicans have long made vitriolic and implicitly racist remarks against ‘welfare queens’ to promote fiscal conservatism amongst the working class. https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21725785-jeff-flake-arizona-says-donald-trump-destroying-conservative-movement

Given the long-term degradation of conservatism, I am far less hopeful for the future than Flake. The senator only criticises Trump and other Republican elites. But the real blame lies with ordinary Republican voters. They chose Trump above a plethora of real conservatives like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. They then voted for him in the general election, instead of choosing a genuinely conservative third party candidate. Republican elites didn’t invent conspiracy theories or bigotry; those things already existed amongst the electorate, and were simply politicised to the Republicans’ advantage. Since Trump’s inauguration, it has become obvious that the man is unfit for office. The various scandals shows he has clearly acted improperly, if not illegally. He gets into needless fights far too easily. He is short-tempered and easily goaded. He doesn’t have a consistent and coherent vision for the American economy, nor for America’s place in the world. He has appalling approval ratings, not only in America but worldwide. Yet it is Republican voters who choose to stick by him. If Trump’s popularity amongst Republicans dropped from 80% to say 40% or less, he would be finished.

The fact is, the vast majority of Republicans do not care about the sort of principles Flake believes in. They don’t know anything about Edmund Burke, Adam Smith or Thomas Paine. Most of them haven’t read anything by Milton Friedman or F.A Hayek. Abstract principles like constitutionally limited government, free markets and individual liberty mean little to them. Instead, what concerns them is not the size of government, but who it works for. That’s why they are perfectly happy with Trump’s protectionist economics or statements he’s made in the past about protecting Social Security and Medicare. Government can be as big as it likes, as long as it works for ‘ordinary Americans,’ as opposed to immigrants, foreigners, and liberals who live in big cities. What drives Trump voters is identity politics, not ideology.

The reason why Trump was surprisingly successful was that he understood this, the traditional Republican elites didn’t. Republicans in Washington have long been out of touch with their base on a whole host of issues, because they wrongly believed the base shared their conception of and dedication to conservatism. Now that their folly has been exposed, they dare not criticise the base for fear of losing office. So instead, they collude with Trump in order to achieve their long-term objectives like tax cuts and healthcare deregulation, while pretending to be on the side of working class Trump supporters. This strategy may work for the next few years. They already have another conservative Supreme Court justice and the repeal of various Obama-era regulations. They may get tax cuts and healthcare deregulation yet. But come the forthcoming elections, they will not be able to distance themselves from an increasingly unpopular president. Their moral cowardice will be their downfall. The best thing that can happen to American conservatism is the collapse and total defeat of the Republican Party, which will hopefully be reformed into a party backed by intelligent and authentically conservative voters, as opposed to the pretence of conservatism and nationalistic dog-whistling that characterises today’s GOP.