Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!cca!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5b!hou5c!hou5e!hou5a!hou5d!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!duke!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Smoking . . . (Slow Motion Suicide) Message-ID: <5325@unc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Jun-83 22:44:42 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5325 Posted: Mon Jun 6 22:44:42 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Jun-83 04:01:01 EDT References: mgweed.1241 Lines: 26 I don't smoke, but that doesn't mean that I look on all smokers as crawling scum without civil rights. This seems to be the attitude of the anti-smokers, who are into giving people criminal records for public smoking. This exemplifies what is worst in American society, the attitude "I don't like anyone doing it, so let's pass a law against it. To Hell with civil rights!" Smoking is a nasty and dangerous habit, but there are some things that simply should not be legislated in a free society. Freedom implies a certain willingness on the part of the people to overlook their neighbor's nuisance value. Public smoking falls far beneath the lower threshold of nuisances needed before solving things by having official armed thugs enforcing social standards becomes necessary. Or would you rather have laws, that is, police, solving all your social problems for you? The moral codes I am employing here are ones that nearly anyone would agree with, but most people pay only lip service to morality when making social judgments. It is the short-term personal betterment of the individual's perceived condition that seems to count, not the possible social consequences of this sort of irresponsible decision-making. Freedom requires responsibility, or the whole system will go down the tubes. Tim Maroney