http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=100&story_id=35871
BRUSSELS
My Lungs Look LIke This - Smoking Students required to wear badges in Belgium
By starling02 - Posted on June 7th, 2007
Tagged:
Legal Status Of Persons
Social politics
Immigration law
Nationality law
Nationalism
Nativism (politics)
Immigration debate
"Second-class citizen"
Second-class citizen is an informal term used to describe a person, being a member of a discriminated group, who is systematically discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction. The discrimination exists due to membership within the group despite the person being a citizen of that state. While not necessarily slaves, outlaws or criminals, second-class citizens have limited legal rights, civil rights and economic opportunities, and are often subject to mistreatment or neglect at the hands of their putative superiors.
Second-class citizenry is generally regarded as a violation of human rights. Typical impediments facing second-class citizens include but are not limited to; disenfranchisement (a lack or loss of voting rights), limitations on civil or military service (not including conscription in every case), as well as restrictions on language, religion, caste, education, freedom of movement and association, marriage, and property ownership. (Dhimmitude is an example.) Housing opportunities and legal rights such as the right to a fair trial (as opposed to being tried in a kangaroo court) are often severely limited or nonexistent. The discrimination can occur on a de jure or de facto basis. Second-class citizenship can also occur in the case of persons involuntarily rendered stateless, within the jurisdiction where said persons reside if no reasonable opportunity exists for obtaining citizenship, resulting in discrimination.
The term is generally used as a pejorative or in the context of civil society activism and governments will typically deny the existence of a second class within the polity. Since there is no objective test of second-class citizenship, examples throughout history can be alleged; however, no firm conclusion would ever be possible as to the validity of any individual claim.
By contrast, a resident alien or foreign national may have limited rights within a jurisdiction (such as not being able to vote, and having to register with the government), but is also given the law's protection, and is usually accepted by the local population. Such people are not second-class citizens, in that they are citizens of a foreign state. A naturalized citizen carries essentially the same rights and responsibilities as any other citizen (a possible exception being ineligibility for certain public offices), and is also legally protected.
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BRING THE TROOPS HOME-NOW!
Why should one more drop of our soldiers blood be spilled on foreign soil? Why fight/die for 'freedom' anymore when our citizens are pissing it away at the voting booth?
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=73174
Smokers To Be Denied Surgery, ASH Notes - Will Slash Costs And
Recovery Times And Surgical Complications, UK
Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking News
Article Date: 06 Jun 2007 - 1:00 PDT
Smokers will be denied surgery in order to slash health care costs
and reduce recovery time and surgical complications, reports Action
on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national antismoking organization
which has long championed making smokers bear the consequences of
their habit.
The new restrictions are set to begin this summer in the UK,
initially under the Leicester City Primary Care Trust, but the
requirements are expected to spread quickly throughout the country.
Under the rules, smokers are to be denied operations under the Health
Service unless they give up cigarettes for at least four weeks
beforehand, and doctors will require patients to take a blood test
for nicotine residue to prove they have not been smoking.
Medical research shows that smokers take far longer, on the average,
to recover from operations, and are far more likely to suffer serious
medical complications. This not only greatly increases the cost of
providing surgery to smokers, but also ties up beds and hospital
facilities urgently needed by other patients.
The Trust says that "if people give up smoking prior to planned
operations it will improve their recovery. It would reduce heart and
lung complications and wounds would heal faster." Thus it is
a "perfectly legitimate clinical decision."
Professor John Banzhaf, Executive Director of ASH, notes that some
physicians in the US have refused to perform operations on smokers,
and that potential recipients may be denied life-saving organ
transplants if they smoke, just like patients who abuse alcohol or
use recreational drugs.
"Smoking not only causes many very serious and very expensive
diseases, but also exacerbates many existing medical problems and
complicates recovery from virtually all operations. Thus a smoker who
sufferers a broken leg while skiing -- a condition obviously not
caused by his smoking -- is much more likely to suffer respiratory
complications and/or infections as a result of the surgery, and to
take far longer to heal," says Banzhaf.
"Generally, since most health insurance companies charge smokers the
same rates and provide them with the same benefits, these added costs
and delays in providing services to others are absorbed by the great
majority of patients who are nonsmokers. This is manifestly unfair.
One remedy is to charge smokers more for their health insurance, a
policy the federal government recently recommended and approved.
Another is to deny smokers certain services, especially if their
smoking is likely to impair their outcome."
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
http://www.ash.org
I LOUDLY disagree with the last paragraph - I pay my medical bills (almost non-existant insurance, via Daimler). NOBODY absorbes my medical expenses except ME. And before all you smoke nazi's rant about how this is a GOOD idea, blah, blah, blah - stop to think if you have a family member or close friend who needed surgery but was denied it.