I don’t know what prekoopian means, but I do smoke about two packs a day. And I’m only 28, but I feel like a dinosaur sometimes. SMOKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!
Tentative,
Another sane response!
Smears,
PreKoopian only means the era of those of us who acquired the smoking habit before Surgeon General, Everett Koop, started his Amish (or was it Minnonite) crusade against smoking. It would be an interesting bit of research if one could compare crime statistics based on those provoked by prohibition and those generated by permissiveness.
Marietta, GA., used to be its own city before it was engulfed by Atlanta, which has taken over a number of counties, much less smaller towns. I think it’s trying to reach Alabama.
Smears, I appreciate your position, but this is much more than just a “smoker’s problem” … this is oligarchic repressive moral slavery hidden in the agenda of turning this country into a dictatorial socialism.
I want someone to show me the study that conclusivley shows where second hand smoke caused a person to have cancer. I think alot of the science on this matter is about as valuable as the science on global warming.
Saturday, 8/18/07, our local newspaper updated the smoker’s quandry. It seems that Cleveland and vicinity bar owners, losing money from absentee smokers, are building patios onto their establishments. The patios were meant to be a viable compromise to the severity of a one-size-fits-all moral (?) legislation. Now, bar neighbors are complaining of excessive noise on the patios. One local observed that these same neighbors had no problems listening to nearby train sound intrusions. Oh my!!! Now decibel intrusions can be morally assessed!!! I’d go along with that concerning boom boxes carried down the street or car stereos so loud that their intrusions invade city blocks. No such excessive loudness graces bar patios! I’d also vote against drivers with phones in their ears who, I have observed, are unable to operate a turn signal in the presence of a pedestrian.
Smears,
This is a problem of whose rights are right. Who should decide that? Democracy still allows majority rule at minority expense.
I think individuals who talk on cell phones and attempt to operate a motor vehicle should be shot before they kill someone or a family of someones. (Attempted/gross negligent homicide)
Where is the legislated morality against stupidity? I find stupidity offensive, where is my representative???
P.S. In Ohio, our legislative body is considering a 156% tax increase on all tobacco products. But this is a health issue.
I’d support you, but I may be a majority of one. On CNN debates about smoking getting expensive, this one old dude in Texas said he would smoke if it cost him ten dollars a pack! I probably would, too, but I’d support the “criminal” , black market , smuggle 'em from North Carolina, effort. So why must I be criminalized because of an addiction that may have more to do with genetic disposition materialized in personal insecurity or in my acknowledging the fact that something’s going to get me regardless of my best efforts to prevent it? Why should some diehard, moral conviction that can’t even claim universality determine who I am and what I should do?
You, by the determinations of the “morally correct”, are defective, misguided, and incapable of caring for yourself, at the same time being a proven threat to everyone around you.
What, you didn’t read the pamphlet? I know you received the “good news” pamphlet, every one of the socially defective people have received it in some form or another.
You don’t actually believe you are capable of managing your own life do you? Don’t be absurd, you need society to tell you what is best, through government legislation.
There is clearly an abuse of power when a movement originally grounded in saving smokers from having to inhale second hand smoke reaches a point where it enjoins smokers from creating smoke in an environment that is no threat to nonsmokers and merely a haven for smokers to enjoy their vice unharrassed.
Even in death, a cigarette is morally reprehensible and will send you to the next life as morally bankrupt.