Is Governmental Spin and Subtle Control is Destroying Our Freedom?

Yesterday was enough. I have taken all I can. I am taking a stand on the issue of smoking in public places. I believe that there should be bans, but, only in governmental buildings where people have to go and businesses that request the ban. I also believe that as smokers we should be aware and courteous to others. Don't smoke around young children. They are usually places against their will also. We are losing our freedoms and smoking is the first. Is secondhand smoke a detriment, and has it truly been proven to be the cause of cancer? Smoking still remains legal. Is that because they truly can't pin second hand smoke deaths to it?

Some of the same people that cry out about the ill effects that they may receive, are the same ones that frequent the buffet three, four, and five times per trip, with plates overloaded. They maintain that at the most an unproven, circumstantial 16% increase in the potential of cancer and smoking should be wiped off the face of the earth. Yet these same people are willing to indulge themselves in an equally, if not more lethal habit than the smoker, over consumption and inactivity. Others drive cars that pollute, but attack smoke as the killer.

Obesity and pollution kills and creates more chronic conditions, at higher rates, than smoking or drinking. Yet it is socially unacceptable to note that someone is obese. The attack on smoking diverts our attention from the killing pollution.

By now you are questioning my humanity and good nature. Yes, I am a smoker. Yes, I have been insulted and verbally assalted by a great many people. The reason for this article was a fat woman with incredible body odor that told me that my smoking disgusted her and I was therefore disgusting. I was not in her home or in a non smoking area, but clearly in an area designated for smoking. Did I answer back that she too had perfected and honed her own flavor of disgusting? No, that would have been rude. So the question is, why can you be rude to smokers and not to fat people? Why is it better to have a drug addiction that a nicotine habit. Why is pasta better than Pall Mall? The answer lies in the spin that we are fed. This spin is not just about smoking, but your very freedom, so pay attention.

I have chosen to attack over-eaters, when in reality, I don't really find them offensive, except for that one stinky woman. They are just shaped differently than me. I just find that it curious that someone with as big (no pun intended) a problem with a habit as I, would choose to throw stones. There are hundreds of television programs that have the ace reporter dressed in a fat suit and then gasp over the discrimination they were shown. Well, buck up my little padded reporter and try it with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth.

I sat down next to a lady in a casino. I am a courteous smoker, and always ask before I light up, if the person is sitting there first. She said that she had emphysema from second hand smoke and would prefer that I not smoke. I complied with her request.

Curious about the emphysema I asked if her parents smoked. "No", she replied.

"Oh, brothers and sisters?"

"No"

"Spouse?"

"Nope."

"Did you work in a smoke filled environment?"

"Hospital."

Now I was getting stumped. An idea flashed into my head. "I bet you frequented clubs, casinos, and bowling alleys."

"No I just started coming here after the disease began. I was a runner."

Totally confused, I decided that I would ask one more question. "Where do you live?"

"Gary (Indiana)"

For those of you familiar with the quality of air in Gary, you will understand from the gitgo where the emphysema came from. You know you're driving through Gary when you start suspecting someone in your car passed incredibly bad gas. The air has been cleaned up recently, but on days with heavy cloud cover the smell still lingers.

Studies on ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) have been found flawed and in a court case of big tobacco vs. the EPA (source of the original study.). The tobacco companies won. Several studies have come out since the first, showing the numbers by the ETS study was skewed by the use of circumstantial evidence that could point in any direction.

It is quite PC to state that second hand smoke is detrimental and yet with all the smoke free environments, I only found one study and it stated that non-smoker lung cancer has increased since 1998. I really would like someone to point me in a direction that would confirm that making everything non-smoking is reducing the level of COPD, heart disease and cancer. We should be seeing dramatic reductions, and yet I find nothing.

I watched a commercial on television with teenagers picketing because of deaths in Indiana from tobacco. Okay, you little twits, how about death by chocolate or Twinkies. Obesity kills far more people than tobacco.

Somehow, someone started the ball rolling to set tobacco companies back and we are seeing the subtle effects today. There are hazards everywhere we look. Sniffing the air can kill. Not enough sun can kill. Sucking down booze can kill. Snorting snacks like there is no tomorrow can kill and yet we hear no mention. Super sizing your meal was lightly hit upon but "good people" are never to attack the obese.

I do believe that people should be protected in their environment. Government buildings and offices should be smoke free. Restaurants and bars, however, should be the decision of the owner. What about the employees? They have a choice to work there or not. Bars like Hooters and many casinos have waitress costumes that I personally would not wear (and many would personally ask me not to wear.). I have free choice not to work for a company that doesn't follow the guidelines that I believe. If I wait tables, and have when I was teaching, then I can choose to work or not work for a smoke filled environment. We are not indentured servants or slave labor.

Where is the free choice element that was the backbone of our founding father's dream? It has been trashed by our "big government knows best" phenomena. When did we become such mindless sheep to follow blindly the dictates of the unknown "expert"?

While I am not suggesting that smoking is good for you, I know better than that, I ask that you look twice before you blindly follow the dictates of others. Smoking in public is one small example of the spin we receive every day. Our personal freedoms are being removed one at a time and we are joyfully aiding their removal, running down the gingerbread road to totalitarianism. We have become a perverted society that removes God from the pledge to satisfy the needs of a few, where business owners are becoming slaves for the government, and the dream of owning your own home is never realized because taxes create house payments forever and you are simply renting from the state.