Smokers Lose More Rights

by Jeff Davis

Every society has to have a scapegoat, an officially persecutable minority who can be harassed and harmed, insulted and degraded in order to make the otherwise obedient majority feel big and strong and powerful even though they are in fact nothing but servile peons themselves. Ancient Rome had slaves. America has illegal aliens, swarthy Arab types and worst of all smokers. Americans have used tobacco for centuries since the Indians introduced it to the white man in revenge for our giving them whiskey.

A recent news article reports “One of the country’s strictest smoking bans went into effect in Calabasas Friday. The ordinance outlaws smoking in any public space where people could be exposed to second-hand smoke.” Calabasas is a small yuppie enclave in California. The ban includes parks, streets, sidewalks, restaurants, bars, parking lots, sporting events, anywhere. Technically, you can still light up if you stand at least “at least 20 feet away from any path of travel, doorway or place where people congregate,” according to the city’s website. In practice, smoking outside would be inconvenient at best and frequently impossible with smokers compelled to put out their cigarettes whenever a pedestrian came within 20 feet. Smokers who used to go outside their workplace to smoke, may no longer be allowed to smoke.

People will still be allowed to smoke in their own homes, but not on their balcony or back yard if it is “adjacent to a common area” such as a swimming pool or tennis court or parking lot. People who perversely insist on deciding for themselves whether they will smoke will be ticketed and possibly fined. The city said it expects to rely on warnings and citations but will consider more serious penalties for willful or repeat offenders.

Smoking is already banned in such places as public beaches and in most playgrounds and parks in most parts of southern California. (That rumbling sound you here is Brian Wilson rolling over in his grave.) The official excuse is that public smoking exposes other people to “second hand smoke,” but outdoors in California it is of course impossible to tell how much of the air pollution comes from tobacco smoke and how much comes from car exhausts and other atmospheric contaminants. Meanwhile, new fuel additives in California appear to be killing trees in the suburb. But why bother with something like a serious new threat from car exhaust when you can spend your time beating smokers over the head?

Unless you’re sharing a small unventilated space with a chain-smoker for years at a time, second hand smoke poses no significant threat. It typically takes at least 20 years before heavy smokers develop lung cancer (sometimes much longer). Catching a stray whiff of smoke is no big deal, but the politically correct have got their panties in bunch and some of them apparently think stray smoke is as dangerous as being sprayed with DDT.

The increasingly draconian restrictions on smoking are in fact attempts to institutionalize liberal social engineering and get us used to being told what to do with our own lives and our own bodies by liberals. So a smoker can’t enjoy a cigarette in a park even though he is only endangering himself. A liberal woman however can get an abortion even though this will increase her chance of breast cancer by 200 percent, not to mention disaster for the fetus. And liberals can insist on a new detergent gasoline that poisons the air for trees (and maybe people too) and we have to inhale it because they think it’s safe, regardless of all the dead trees.

http://us.altermedia.info/news-of-interest-to-white-people/smokers-lose-more-rights-2_1384.html#more-1384