Sorry about the language, but thought andy would understand this. ------------------------------------------------------ I Hate Anti-Smokers Last Updated on: 12.17.04 I’m not a smoker. I just never saw the big attraction to smoking to be quite honest with you. But despite my own proclivity not to smoke I will always defend the right of people to smoke. Everyone has one thing in common in this world and that is choice. If you choose to smoke then that is your right. I, nor does anyone else out there, have the right to tell you what you can and can’t do. Sure there are some things you shouldn’t do, but as long as you’re not going out of your way to harm someone or infringe on their own choice then do whatever you want. You are the sum of your experiences in life. Don’t let some ******* in power, who is trying to distract people from the real problems of the world, or an uppity member of a religion or community dictate and deprive you of your rights. When I hear about people crusading to raise the legal age to drink alcohol and smoke a cigarette to twenty-five I begin to get pretty pissed off. I used to go to an interesting college. And by interesting I mean I hated the place because the students were as dumb as the idea of building a fence on Mars. Here at this school the politically correct police have sucked the life out of everyone and they tend to discourage free thought. Right now (Editor's note: this was written in March of 2004) all of the SUNY campuses were given a choice over whether or not to allow smoking on their campuses while the chancellor considers wiping out smoking entirely on all of the campuses. Now I’m not going to get into the fact that this is more bull**** perpetrated by a group of individuals who care nothing about the students in the SUNY system, but what I am going to get into is that my former student senate is populated with people who have no idea about anything in life and have been completely brainwashed by the politically correct police. They are all for wiping out smoking on this campus and will probably do something about it in the very near future. The student senate is not the only ones who feel this way. You see my former college has a very interesting divide among its population. You have the 3000 students who are here just to get their degree and don’t care about much else, and then you have about 100 “do gooders”, or "do-goobers" as I call them, who have a chip on their shoulder despite attending a two year technical college in the middle of ass ****, New York. While I won’t bother with the complexity of the deep psychosis these people suffer from, for the purposes of this article all you need to know is that they try to run things and have seemed to migrate to positions of power here at the school. Not all of the 100 are bad mind you, but most of them are and you can usually identify these people with ease. They’re on the student senate, they’re some of your student staff, and they’re the people who like to say, “you people” when they try to argue their point in one of your classes. You know exactly whom I’m talking about because these kind of people tend to show up throughout the world no matter where you are or how old you are. My favorite instance of these people telling others what to do was in an article that was published in the Alfred State Tor Echo entitled, “Smoking Areas a Problem on Campus.” As a public disservice I am going to reprint some of the article with my snappy comments thrown in there to show you just how ****ed up some of the people in this supposed moral authority can be and how wrong they are… “It is extremely rude and irritating that people stand right in front of doors that are entry or exit ways. These people are barely two feet away from the doors and those coming in and out of buildings are subjected to smell and breathe in the smoke as they are trying to get through. Smoking is a known life threatening hazard.” If you didn’t know smoking was a threat to your life then you should probably consider killing yourself. The media and the schools have been cramming the dangers of smoking down our throat for years, so the odds of people not being aware of its effects are slim. And after all…it’s ****ing smoke! Of course its bad for you. If you can see it floating in the air, you should be smart enough to realize no good can come from it. But here is our friend trying and failing to surprise the **** out of us with this little factoid he or she dug out of their ass. All this person has to do is the same thing everyone else does when you see a smoker blocking your way, you say, “excuse me” and you keep walking. If someone went and blew smoke in your face on purpose then I can see being pissed about it. I would be made about it. But if they’re standing around minding their own business, mind your own. Its not like the air we're breathing is any cleaner than the smoke you might inhale from a smoker if you think about it. “I personally don’t smoke and never will, as I actually care about my body and keeping myself as healthy as possible. But my freedom and rights are being violated as there is constant smoke blowing so close around me as I enter or exit a building that my clothes smell of it. Second hand smoke is a known hazard and it is my right not to inhale smoke.” Right here you can see the ego these people have. This person immediately went out of their way to show us all how they’re better because they don’t smoke and “actually care” about their body. I also enjoy that little nugget of information concerning second hand smoke. Sure it's dangerous, if you breathe it in over a PROLONGED PERIOD OF TIME. I hate to break it to you buddy but with an attitude like that you’ll be lucky if you get to wipe peoples ass holes for a career. Keep on thinking you’re better off than every one else and you’re going to go real far. This person then makes the claim their freedom and rights are being violated? Are you ****ing kidding? Wow…you inhaled smoke for the .5 seconds it took to enter or leave the building. Horror or horrors what will become of you now? Get over yourself; the only thing being violated here is the reader’s brain cells for showing them this steaming pile of bull****. “No one seems to care while these [people] continue being rude by standing so close to the doors. No one cares to ask them to stand far away, and show respect and courtesy for the non-smokers. “ How hard can it be to say excuse me? Its two words, I know you probably can’t comprehend stringing two words together because you go to a junior college, but if my cat can do it then there is hope for you yet. Come on, say it with me, “excuse me.” You know why no one “cares”? It is very simple, it doesn’t bother them. Did you ever stop and think that maybe the rest of that student population is completely ok with people smoking? Oh right…your head was too far up your ass to think of that one I’m sure. And you’re supposed to be the voice for us? When was this decision made? Oh wait, never. So shut the **** up. But sadly this person did not take my sound advice of shutting the **** up and continued their little crusade…why can’t we drop these idiots in Afghanistan and let them talk the terrorists to death. See how well these wonderful “progressive” ideas would fly in that society. I bet you this person probably believes the terrorists are people to and deserve to have civil rights too. (Editor's note: I just committed a fallacy with that last sentence. Can you guess what it was? Email me and you might win a no-prize!) “Another [thing] that I have regretfully noticed is that some of the faculty and staff themselves do it. “ “Of course no one cares, the faculty and staff themselves do it!” Hmmm, could it be that the faculty and staff are people to? And…*gasp*…they could…*gulp* not share your “enlightened” opinions about smoking? Sure looks that way jackass. Maybe you should have asked for other people’s opinions before you started shooting your mouth off about something that would affect a few thousand people. “I have 22 credit hours, eat three times a day, and have plenty of errands to run. I have to pass several doorways through a given day.” Just out of curiosity, how many times a day do you take a ****? I want to know because a thought has occurred to me, and that is no one cares about your given day or what you do around here. So how about going back to the bathroom that you spend so much time in, take a dump, and stare at yourself in the mirror for a while. At least there you will find someone who agrees with you. “There are many times where classes have just gotten out and there are crowded lines in the doorways. In the midst of crowding, the smokers are there without fail blowing smoke in our air. We have to wait there for a minimum of two minutes before we can get through and the lines disperse.” This one is total bull****. I went to Alfred State for two years now and I have never…ever…seen this happen. But I guess the author must of known that they had nothing to go on and decided to start pulling **** out of their ass to help their titanic like cause. This little self righteous prick and his or her parade comes to an end when the writer asks us all to bother the people we see smoking and tell them to stop because its bad for them. If you know any one like this I encourage you to punch them in the throat and laugh about it. Then say you did that on behalf of all the smokers out there and believers in free will like me who want to rid the world of this scum once and for all. Smoke them if you got them. ###
I have a completely different opinion on this. I am a non-smoker and I too believe that people should definitely have the right to smoke cigarettes or even mar1juana for all I care, but they CANNOT infringe upon other peoples rights to breathe fresh air. As a person with Asthma, I believe my right to walk into a building at school without having to stop and sit down to take an inhaler as soon as I get in the building because some a-hole is smoking 2 ft in front of the only entrance to the building is more important than your right to smoke directly in front of the building. In essence, I believe people should be allowed to smoke, but to say that they should have the right to smoke anywhere, anytime is rediculous. I think allowing people to smoke with reasonable rules (ie. No smoking in front of publich buildings entrances, etc) is the way it should be.
There are much better defenses of smoking than that. "They are a means of release and relief after exertions. They are a tool of social intercourse, an aid to dieting (particularly for young women obsessed with being thin), a spur to concentration. Smoking a cigarette interrupts and punctuates the tedium of work and waiting. It opens up in our daily lives a brief parenthesis in which our thoughts, like smoke, rise above quotidian concerns. Smoking has often been considered a form of prayer. But most of all, cigarettes introduce into our lives a form of beauty, the negative beauty that has been called sublime. It is the beauty, not of childish pleasures that taste sweet, but of adult pleasures, which rarely taste good, and inevitably entail risk." "We equate smoking with an act of political and sexual freedom. It's a small act of defiance against a hypocritical government that moralizes about cigarettes, while at the same time encouraging their sale...Attempts by a government to discourage smoking will only ensure its continuation, as long as cigarettes are perceived to be the magic wands of every loner, rebel, intellectual, romantic and poet in recent history."
Smoking imposes a negative externality on those who do not wish to breathe smoke. Smoke damages both the smokers' lungs as well as the lungs of non-smokers in the area. Healthcare costs due to smoking are a burden on society as a whole. We all share in this tab through higher premiums and higher taxes. Stinking up someone's clothing from your lit cigarette is downright rude. I remember sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas that was close to a set of doors. My group of friends was directly down-wind from a smoker who was sitting at first base. Smoke was getting all in our eyes and on our clothes. Essentially, 5 people were being severely inconvenienced so that one person could smoke. How can this be justified?
The world is about to spin off its axis and crash into the sun. Every word that tj just wrote is entirely reasonable and makes complete sense. In other words, I agree with him.
Amen to whoever wrote that. I'm not going back into the diatribe I did a few months ago, but, once again, second-hand smoking is not life-threatening. To people who get irritated by its smell? Get over it. Agree with T-J all you want. It's unreasonable for all non-smoker's to get all pissy when you go into a designated smoking area. Period.
agreed, if you don't like the smoke, then don't do business there - this is capatilism - you as a consumer have a choice, not a right, to do business at any eatery, casino, club, etc etc...if you don't want smoke, then only go to non-smoking places - problem solved!
orrrr....just change city ordinances to make more places non-smoking places...like we've done with stadiums, malls, public buildings and airplanes. see...problem solved!
Most people are not opposed to some regulation. Where's your market sense now, TJ, lol? Why can't I open a bar called smokers, only hire smokers, and allow smoking in a place like austin or dallas? Depends on overall exposure and it has to be increadibly high to even start to relate it. In Western Europe they smoke more tobacco, using a harsher stock, and don't have anything close to our declared 'tobacco related' disease and cancer rates. In the 40s and 50s a large portion of the US smoked in homes and everywhere else, but the majority of the population didn't die from it, didn't end up with emphasema or cancer. How do you explain that? To have an actual severe reaction, such as an allergic or asthma attack, puts you in a small minority. Similar to restaurants putting nuts in food. Now there's a sign that says 'we put nuts in our food.' Schools, Federal office buildings etc most people are fine with regulation. Banning it is unecessarily extreme. You should call you agent because most give a better price if you don't smoke. So that's not true. Smokers who get seriously ill actually die faster (lung cancer for example) relative to the average lifespan, so are less of a burden on our healthcare system. The industry also in contributing billions to government and that is top of the tax on the consumer, which is huge in percetage. $8 for a pack of cigarettes when it should be about 70 cents? That's a lot of taxing you're supporting, there TJ. Again I'm suprised you've abandoned the market. Do I sense a New Years Resolution?
Exactly where can we smoke these days? A few restaurants and bars and outside. The ordinances have been passed. Let it go. As I said earlier, it's never enough with the anti-smoking gestapo crowd. California is now trying to pass a no-smoking law that bans smoking in backyards. When was the last time you saw an office building that didn't have some 20-30 ft. rule? As someone who's trying to quit, anti-smoker nazi's are making it extremely difficult. I almost want to continue just out of spite.
i'm out to get you, fatty. i'd just like to be able to go to a bar with my wife, listen to live music and not leave with her sick from smoke. as i look outside my window from the 11th floor...i see a lot of places where you can smoke..and very few where you can't. i'd be happy to let you smoke in your own backyard. but not mine, thanks.
I see. So you have no friends who smoke, right? It's awfully nice to know that their are people out there who won't even let a smoker go outside to smoke. What do you do when you throw a dinner party? Kindly tell the smoker's that should they feel the need to indulge, their's a nice little convenience store they can go hang out at? And second-hand smoke making you sick is psychosematic.
I disagree ... There are plenty of people which second-hand smoke can be life-threatening. People (generally eldery) with Asthma or serious allergies to cigarette smoke can easily have serious and life-threatening complications from cigarette smoke. I agree with what some people have said though ... I think businesses should be allowed to say whether or not they allow smoking in their place of business or not. That is acceptable because I would consciously make a choice as to whether or not I want to go in there. However, any public place should not be fair game for smokers. If I am going to school, I should NOT have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get to my class which was the case time after time when I went to school. I have no problem with having offset smoking areas like is done in airports for smokers, but it needs to be in a place where non-smokers have the ability to make a decision not to walk into a smokers area. I understand people should be free and have the right to smoke, but there is a heirarchy of needs. My need to breathe fresh air outweighs your need to smoke. You should not be allowed to smoke in areas where I cannot make a conscious decision to avoid it. Deal with it.
RMJosh: All Public Places do ban smoking. That's already happened. The people who smoke directly in front of doorways are not smoking where they're supposed to. The people to the side in the designated area? You want to move them also, or did you misspeak? If you want fresh air, move to Alaska. Houston's had no where near "fresh" air for years. Second-hand smoke should be the least of your concerns is this is your main complaint. And this is coming from someone who lived in Alaska. I do know the difference, believe me.
No I am mainly speaking to the argument that was made in the initial blog here which talks about how stupid people are for complaining about smoking outside buildings and the sentiment that smokers should be able to smoke wherever they want. As far as Houston's air, I believe that is independent of the smoking issue. I actually did, however, move out of Houston after college partly due to the air quality however. Regardless ... Second hand smoking DOES have serious negative effects on some people and you cannot deny that. I have NO problem whatsoever with designated smoking areas as long as it is far enough out of the way and easily identifiable so it can be avoided, and that is NOT even close to always being the case as of right now. Where I work now, people are required to smoke in a designated smoking area 20 ft away from my building. The problem is that I still have to walk right through their designated area to get to my building so what good does it do?
I'm tired of arguing the second-hand issue. You've been misinformed, but so have a lot of people. Seen any "Truth" commercials, lately? As naive as people may have been in the 40's on Smoking being healthy, the second-hand smoke believers are being just as naive. As far as your office, walk around it. Is it that hard? By ordinance, the designated space CANNOT be in an area that non-smoker's HAVE to go through
i have tons of friends who smoke. they also respect me enough to ask before they light up. hey, tell it to my wife. she has AWFUL allergies. jeff is in the same boat, as i understand it. i'm not allergic to it...i just think it smells like crap...and i don't like smelling like it. "for me to poop on." i know, i know...YOUR science on second-hand smoke is controlling.
I just don't get that type of reasoning. Fatty - I know you have strong feelings for this and I respect you for that but gotta to agree to disagree with you on it. I just never have understood why people who are trying to live a healthy lifestyle have to go out of their way to satisfy those who choose NOT to live a healthy lifestyle. I also don't understand how an addiction by some causes the majority to acquiese to their whims. My sister and her husband smoke all the time and will probably never quit. That's fine - if they want to make that choice, then that is great. However, they also know that neither me nor parents are going to stand for them to smoke around us. I guess using your rationale, Fatty, we could always "walk" around them or avoid them at all costs because you know they just have to have that cigarette at all costs. Forget about having any type of willpower - nicotine is just too powerful for them.
Don't tell me I've been misinformed!! Obviously YOU don't know **** and have been "misinformed". I know from my own personal experiences. When I inhale someone else's second hand smoke, I have trouble breathing because of asthma and am forced to use medications. If its bad enough, that doesnt even help and I have to use a breathing machine. Eventually taking all this medication is not good for your body and is due to inhaling smoke. And so I am supposed to walk around my building which is probably 200 yards long to enter on the other side!? **** that. You can smoke somewhere else.
