I'm talking about smokers.
Now, we all know that smoking will fry your lungs, destroy your life, burn your house down, and then kill you. We all know that a single cigarette contains more chemicals than a BK Value Meal. And we all know that the tobacco compaines are evil demons from hell that have been unleashed upon the earth to profit from an addictive habit.
How do we respond to this? We infringe upon the rights of the poor, innocent victims. The smokers. What exactly have they done to us? Ok, maybe it's annoying when they sit near you at a restaurant, but almost all restaurants these days divide smokers from non-smokers anyway. (Separate but equal facilities?)
You can't smoke at the beach. You can't smoke at the diner. You can't smoke at McDonalds! I would think that a place like McDonalds wouldn't be bothered by health risks, wouldn't you? And in California, you can't even light one up in a bar. At a bar, it's ok for people to impair their judgement, kill their brain cells, slowly destroy their livers, and make complete asses of themselves, but smoking is strictly prohibited.
Personally, I am not a smoker, and never will be, but I still don't turn into a complete pussy the second I catch a whiff of tobacco smoke. People, second-hand smoke is not as bad as the Surgeon General says it is. I'm sorry for being so brutal about this, but if someone dies from second-hand smoke, then they were not very bright. If someone is smoking near you, and you don't like it, leave. It's that simple. Nobody's twisting your arm to stay there and inhale the smoke of others.
(My apologies go out to anyone whose arm was twisted by someone who wanted them to inhale second-hand smoke.)
Now, don't think I'm siding with the tobacco companies here. I think it's wrong to profit from people's addictions, but you have to give smokers a little bit of credit here. They're all not a bunch of mindless automatons at the mercy of Marlboro Inc. They made the decision to start smoking, and that's a decision that they have to live with, unless they decide to quit. They knew that smoking is bad for their health, but they did it anyway. Nobody shoved cigarettes down their throats. So stop treating them like children and let them smoke as they please. Quit trying to help other people with their problems and work on fixing your own.
This post has been edited by Zewb: 16 July 2006 - 03:48 PM