How to Frame an Argument

For the longest time, I almost NEVER heard discussion of the dams on the Columbia River's near salmon extinction. Dams rarely come up in the discussion. Though not as rare now, it is still rare that dams come up as the major problem in the destruction of fish runs on the Columbia river. This is called framing the argument. One of the most common ways to frame an argument is to leave out information.

Take for instance, the discussion about housefires caused by cigarette smokers who fall asleep with cigarettes in their mouths.

I ran out of cigarette papers a few days ago. I used some from a pack of Top. I prefer Americana hemp papers or Pure Hemp. This is one of the Top papers. Notice the lines on this paper. Those are called burn rings. Those burn rings are made from a chemical called titanium oxide. It makes the cigarette burn more when inhaling, and KEEPS IT BURNING when not being smoked. Look at a regular packaged cigarette, and you will see rings the length of the paper. Not only are you inhaling the wonderful chemicals they put into the tobacco itself, you are also inhaling chemicals in the paper.

Pure Hemp and Americana hemp papers do not have this chemical in them. When I set my cigarette down, it goes out in less that 1/8th of an inch on an average. It always goes out. When I smoked using the Top papers with the chemical, besides having a moderately unpleasant taste, my cigarettes also burned quicker and did not go out.

The tobacco I smoke is called "Girls Blend." It is blended by one of the only tobacco blenders in the Portland area who works for Rich's Tobacco. His name is Steve Books. He assures me he uses only natural tobaccos grown without chemicals and he himself does not add any chemicals to his blends. Girls Blend is a girly cut (I have no idea what that means) with vanilla added. I smoke 3 to 8 cigarettes a day, and more often than not, on my days off of work, I mostly don't even smoke. I never smoke in bed.

Now, there are chemicals and sugars that are added to cigarettes that do damage to your lungs so the nicotine will be better absorbed and make the smoker more easily ADDICTED to smoking. When severely addicted, folks do things like smoke in bed. And with those wonderful burn rings made of titanium oxide that keep those cigarettes burning, and blankets and houses being made of many highly flammable materials, you have a disaster waiting to happen.

Instead, you rarely to never hear about the burn rings in cigarettes when it comes to cigarette caused housefires. The last report I heard about the INDUSTRY doing something about this was they were creating a thinner cigarette. No discussion on not using titanium oxcide burn rings. You see, those burn rings use up more cigarettes. The more cigarettes you use, the more you smoke. The more you smoke, the more money for excessively wealthy folks. Excessively wealthy folks control the media, who then keeps the issue of titanium oxide burn rings off of the table because if you burned and smoked less cigarettes, you would be taking money out of the pockets of wealthy folks.

That is why the issue of titanium burn rings in cigarette papers never comes up in the issue of cigarette caused housefires. The cigarette companies don't have to pay for lost or damaged lives. They don't have to pay for lost or damaged properties. They just have to keep making money and they will make less if they take the burn rings out of the papers.

...SMOK'EM IF YOU GOTT'EM...