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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