Let me begin by stipulating that I am fully aware that smoking is dangerous, bad for your health, expensive and something that people should not involve themselves in if they are smart or concerned with their health. There.
That being said, I think that your personal choices should be exactly that...personal. Others should keep their zealous and narrow agendas to themselves. There is coming to be few places that one can smoke in public. It is not like people smoke everywhere, and there are more who don't than those who do. Smokers are less of a "problem" than once they were, at least that is what the radical non-smokers should realize. They are winning bit by bit. I hate to admit it, but it seems true.
I was truly shocked when I read this "My Turn" piece in the recent edition of Newsweek. The author, Judy Law, presents a reasonable case to zealous non-smokers for allowing people their rights. She also relates a horrible story of a personal threat against her by one of these mentals.
As I discussed before in my entry concerning political discourse, I think the idea of merely being polite to people is slowly dying. Instead of asking nicely, people are content to surrender to the lower impulses of their being and act out without thinking about the consequences. If everyone made an effort to just be polite (like Mom and Dad SHOULD have told you when you were young), we would be on the road to better days. I know people laughed at then-New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani when he called for a similar thing in New York, but the gesture was well taken.
I am not asking people to be phony or not express their concerns. It could just be done in a more civil manner. If not, I guess we will come to do the opposite: be as rude as possible. Then, in time, that will become meaningless and maybe we will give being polite a chance again.
Oh, for the wheels of sociocultural change to move as fast as the whirling dervish of righteous anger!
Do Not Worry
4 years ago
1 comment:
I couldn't agree more. But hey, we're an easy target. It's easy to pick on the guy who's doing something that is definately gross to most people, and to top it off, is less healthy than you!
I can think back to alot of movies and television shows I've seen, and how smokers in most of them were demonized. Some obnoxious jerk lights up a cigarrette or cigar in a restaraunt near some kids and when asked to put it out, respons with a plum of smoke blown directly in someone's face. Our hero has enough, and resorts to something violent and equally as obnoxious to put that flaming death stick out.
If non smokers don't want to be bothered with our nasty little habits, that's one thing. If they want to get self righteous and indignant about it, then I see no recourse to blow a nice plume up their tightly wound asses.
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