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by Tristeneugene
on Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:01 pm |
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I have a question. An honest question where I simply want to understand. The question is: What exactly are so called 'Smokers rights''? Why is it called this? To emphasise that a persons civil liberties are being infringed upon? I feel that non smokers get fired up and use this as an excuse to attack when they hear ''Smokers rights''. When I hear this I think that it is a term that misrepresents, is used out of context, but worse! degrades smokers position for recognition.
Saying ''Smokers rights'' is like saying ''Smoking kills'' Smoking can kill you if you choke on the damn thing by accidently ingesting it!
Or candy bar eaters rights. What rights would someone have only because they eat candy bars?
A smoker has no additional rights. BUT a human being, a citizen of a society, DOES have rights. Human rights as well as various civil liberties that allow the right to peace, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness and all that.
My question is: What, in a nutshell, is ''Smokers rights''? An example I am thinking of is: Someone is told that they cannot smoke in a theater, a hotel lobby, a restaurant, a bus,, etc. The owner, manager whatever, of a resataurant tells a patron that they cannot smoke in the restaurant. The smoker says that it is a public place and that there is (in this example) no law against it and disallowing to smoke would be an ''...infringement of my rights''.
How is it perceived that the rights of this person, not smoker, have been infringed upon? AND Why would a person, body of persons etc want that person not to smoke? For what reason? Why does that person(s) want to take anothers persons right away? for what reason and to what end? |
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Tristeneugene
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by BWilliams
on Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:03 pm |
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Put simply: Smoking is a legal hobby. Any citizen in a free country has the RIGHT to enjoy any personal legal hobby.
Hence, all people in a free country have the right, nay, they have a RESPONSIBILITY to smoke!
The more we smoke, the more we remind this repressive government that we are still FREE, that we will be HEARD, and that we can not be DISCRIMINATED against based on our religion, the color of our skin, or the smoke we exhale!!!! |
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BWilliams
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by BWilliams
on Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:09 pm |
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Tristeneugene wrote: AND Why would a person, body of persons etc want that person not to smoke? For what reason? Why does that person(s) want to take anothers persons right away? for what reason and to what end?
Why not? Look through history and you'll see hundreds of examples of a small group of people in power taking away the rights of people they don't like. To what end did Hitler kill the jews? Why did he do it? No sane person can answer that. Just as no sane person will look back on this period of smoking prohibition in our country and be able to answer your question; "Why discriminate against smokers? Why did people hate them so much and cast them out as social pariahs?" |
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BWilliams
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by Jay
on Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:55 pm |
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Anotha example of someone with higha power treating a small group of people like 2nd class citizens is the way we Blacks used to be treated by the Whites who hated "us" and wished "we" were all dead and sheet.
The way smokers are being treated today is a lot similar to how a Black used to be treated. Don't tell me that BS of "You can't change your skin color. But you CAN stop being a smoker at anytime."
I'm not interested in stopping at being a smoker. But if this person is gonna tell me someone getting fired for smoking off of the job, and media folks not including smokers' comments on news articles are not discrimination examples...then you need to learn about my heritage's history with all due respect to get a betta understanding on what life is for someone like myself.
And yes, smokers ARE being treated like slaves too! But with smokers, they are MONEY slaves! They pay huge-A taxes just to buy a legal product! Why the F should smokers have to pay all of the taxes? How about making a Big Mac just about as expensive as that cig pack? |
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Jay
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by runamok
on Fri Mar 14, 2008 7:12 pm |
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Jay....you might appreciate this commentary I wrote for Forces.org about a year ago. The link for the "news" article I referenced is long dead but that doesn't really matter. We've all seen the type of stories I'm talking about. One is pretty much like the next.
Here it is:
This particularly venomous editorial disguised as a news article is becoming more the norm nowadays as the denormalization campaign has created an open season on spewing vitriolic hate towards a minority.
This particular story doesn't slam smokers so much as the smoking but the inference is quite clear. "Keep the dirty, filthy smokers out of sight therefore out of mind". Articles such as this were common 120 years ago, not only common but perfectly acceptable....as long as you were white that is. Back then the elite, ruling classes routinely fabricated monstrous lies and deceptions aimed at convincing the public that the targeted minority were savage barbarians who wouldn't think twice about raping and murdering your daughter and didn't deserve even the semblance of dignity or respect, much less entry into establishments frequented by their white persecutors.
These lies were fed to a compliant media that was more than happy to repeat them....over and over.....until it became "common knowledge" among the white majority that the negro (to use the vernacular of the time) was indeed a creature to be feared and reviled. The only thing that has changed is the targeted minority. |
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runamok
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by Tristeneugene
on Tue Mar 18, 2008 9:47 am |
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Thank you all. I aprreciate the feedback. My aim is to offer here what I have experienced from the non smoking side and their ''beefs'' with smokers. Their remarks and answers to these questions. I won't discuss the rhetoric and angry lashings out that the non smokers engage in because it is not really worth anything except to be counted as a portion of their ''army'' which is the ''mob'' element.
Comparing the war on smokers to Hitlers aims is interesting. The Jews have a long history of persecution. Hitler basically saw the Jews as an econmic threat that could destroy others through economic war.
Regarding smoking as an element of liberty and freedom of choice. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happines comes to a roadblock when a persons actions causes the degredation of those same rights to others. How exactly to control it is quite a debate.
People on the non smoking side seem to base their non health hazard/contamination argument on that a smoker in a public place affects the entire area with a particulate and contaminating (stains and permeates -odors- the surrounding environs) irritant. This in turn is an action taken by another that takes away from the liberties of the masses around that person.
I here more often, when discussing this subject, smoking restricion adv people comparing the actions of one affecting others with analogies such as: ''Swearing in public can lead to arrest because freedom of speech only goes so far as to not cause discomfort or harm to others...'' |
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Tristeneugene
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by BWilliams
on Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:47 am |
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Tristeneugene wrote: People on the non smoking side seem to base their non health hazard/contamination argument on that a smoker in a public place affects the entire area with a particulate and contaminating (stains and permeates -odors- the surrounding environs) irritant. This in turn is an action taken by another that takes away from the liberties of the masses around that person.
So because the odor of smoke irritates some people those people have gotten together and decided to impose their will on everyone and ban smoking.
By that argument offensive smelling people should be banned ... maybe they don't want to sit next to some guy who worked all day roofing and smells like BO, but didn't have a chance to go home and shower before hitting the bar. Using that non-smoker argument, this hard-working backbone of society should be banned from bars because someone sitting next to him didn't like the smell ... LAUGHABLE!
Who considers what odor is offensive? I personally don't mind the smell of smoke, and actually like the smell of cigar smoke. So I would never vote that odor is a reason for legislation. But I know plenty of bitchy uptight people who like to wave their hands about and say, "Oh my god, the smoke, I can't take it!" Do I want that person enacting legislation on my behalf? NO! |
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BWilliams
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by toekuttr
on Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:29 pm |
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| On the odor issue, can you guys legislate against Petuli oil too...please? LOL |
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toekuttr
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by patdaly
on Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:18 pm |
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Funny, they say I have no "right" to smoke.
Where did they find the "right" to not be offended?
They live under a different Constitution than we do? |
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patdaly
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by MRA
on Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:55 pm |
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My understanding of civil rights are freedoms protected by the constitution plainly described in the opening Preamble leading to the powerful factual elements of the many pages to follow. You can pick or choose which ever item you desire in order to raise a valid example of a persons understanding of the word," Rights ", candy bar, cigarette, lolly pop, etc, etc. I would greatly suggest using this forum as the best example, because you are free to pick and choose, you have the " Right " to post and ledger your opinion, what if it became a dictorialship where this was taken away because you were told you lost the benefit of doing so? You can put what ever spin you want on the definition of the word" Rights " but in the end speculation will not cut the mustard.
Simply put, if a product such as cigarettes are legal to sell, tax, and use for import/export, a person has the " Right " to use it when ever and where ever. And most if not all people who enjoy smoking would certainly compromise in areas of public, as long as they were part of the construction of the law, not as it is now where they have been back doored. |
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MRA
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