smoking invasions

Like most smokers, Moya, 48, is under considerable pressure at work to quit her enjoyable habit even though smoking is something she indulges in at home -- not at work -- and she is fuming that her civil liberties are being violated and invaded in this manner. She sees the whole quit smoking campaign as being as criminal, shortsighted and venal as the Iraq invasion, and believes that it's pushed by the same type of opportunistic people, for the same reasons.

"Although it's not a life-threatening violation of my civil rights -- as the criminal invasion of Iraq was, and still is, to Iraqi citizens," says Moya, "the quit smoking war is still very much a criminal act -- it's creating discriminatory attitudes in my place of work that are violating my civil liberties to enjoy a legal product in the sanctity of my own home."

"What I do at home is absolutely no business of my employer and it's deplorable that a comment I made to a coworker about smoking ended up being reported on my employment file," says Moya. "This is Big Brother gone crazy and next thing they'll be wanting to know what we eat for breakfast and what we do in bed."

"As I see it, the quit smoking campaign came about as a result of someone getting lung cancer and successfully litigating against the tobacco companies," says Moya. "That person may very well have developed lung cancer from a bacterial infection whether he or she smoked or not, but once the precedent had been set -- and the dollar signs started flashing -- that was the end of freedom for smokers."

"From then on, smokers became the enemy and the lies started coming thick and fast -- such as smokers are killing themselves and others (some of us may very well be doing that, but so are drinkers, drivers, meat eaters, gun owners, etc); we are bankrupting the health services with our smoking-related diseases (and paying for them ten times over with tobacco tax); and we crave liberation from the thralls of addiction (yeah, sure, we embrace the efforts of the nicotine-Nazis with love and gratitude.)"

"The illegal invasion of Iraq -- against UN decisions -- came about as a result of Mr Bush and the warmongers being frustrated at failing to nab Osama and going after Saddam instead," says Moya. "One criminal excuse after another was given in order to justify the illegal invasion -- Saddam was a monster (he may have been, but so are lots of other rulers and even Hillary Clinton is seen as being one by a fellow Democrat! ); he had stockpiles of WMD (Hans Blix found none); and the Iraqis crave liberation (yeah, sure, they embrace our gun-toting troops with love and gratitude)."

"The quit smoking campaign and the decision to invade Iraq are also alike in that they were based on shortsighted premises by people who have no understanding of consequences and no way to back off without losing face -- making them dangerous people."

"Their jobs -- their wealth and their pension funds -- depend upon successfully completing their mission and maintaining control over the outcome," says Moya. "They refuse to admit that they were wrong in invading Iraq -- that Saddam was the right person to rule a divided nation -- and they also refuse to admit that they were wrong in making such deceitful claims against smokers."

"The Iraqi people they claimed to be 'liberating' are now living in fear, anger and helplessness, wishing Saddam were back in power," says Moya. "And that's the way many ex-smokers feel. The rewards of being a non-smoker are not what they were cracked up to be -- all of the hidden reasons why people become smokers in the first place come back with a vengeance when they give it up."

"I have personally seen several acquiantances at work sink into deep depression when they quit cigarettes," says Moya. "Now they are on prescribed medication and spending just as much on their meds as they did on cigarettes. Big deal!"

"And there has been no massive decrease in the so-called smoking-related diseases either," says Moya. "Rather that admitting that other factors cause these diseases, the health authorities now claim that people who once smoked have already done the damage. Hmm, more reason to keep on smoking, then?"

"Finally, by far the closest likeness between the quit smoking campaign and the invasion of Iraq is, you guessed it, money!" sighs Moya. "They want a bigger cut of the Iraqi oil fields and they want a bigger cut of our money -- if not in tobacco tax then in quit programs and products."

"They've already pushed the Iraqis too far by overstaying their welcome -- and they're pushing smokers to the end of their tether, too," says Moya, "and I have no idea whether they doing what they're doing out of grotesque money-grubbing greed, arrogant self-righteous hubris or just plain dumb stupidity."

"The only way the warmongers can win decisively in Iraq is the same way the anti-smokers can win decisively in the smoking war -- imprison or shoot all the dissidents."

"I don't think there are enough prisons and bullets to achieve this end and while fellow citizens may not be too concerned about this sort of thing happening in Iraq they may start squirming when the dissendent smokers at home start getting rounded up -- or will they?"

"Judging from what's happening at work -- and what's happening in society at large --I honestly fear that our national identity as a feircely proud and free nation has been so watered down with foreign immigrants from totalitarian nations that the concept of civil liberties is fast disappearing from our national psyche."

"That so many so-called democratic freedom lovers still see the Iraq invasion as justifiable -- as justifiable as smoking and other bans -- is really scary," says Moya. "I feel so sorry for the next generation raised on Big Brother television and Big Brother government -- as well as control freaks at school and work -- because they will never know what freedom is."

"And most of all I feel sorry for the Iraqis -- especially the ones who smoke, and that's an awful lot of them -- because if western style democracy takes off in that country, they're going to be hit with an invasion of their smoking rights next."

smoking and boiled frogs

Deira, a closet smoker, likens the slow but spectacularly successful gains of the anti-smoking movement over the freedoms of smokers to boiling water and cooked frogs.

"I honestly believe it is far too late to undo the damage," says Deira. "We did nothing but grumble when they turned on the heat 25 years ago -- and increased the heat a degree higher with each passing year -- and now we're cooked."

"I'm a closet smoker because I'd lose my job, my home and respect in the community if my secret habit became known," confides Deira. "I never smoke outside my home and even then I only smoke in the kitchen next to the exhaust fan over the cooker so that my neighbors can't smell the cigarette smoke and get me evicted."

"I notice more and more smokers are now coming out angrily demanding restitution of their rights," says Deira, "but they're wasting their breath -- what remains of it after years of smoking -- and can't possibly catch up with the spectacularly successful efforts of the anti-smoking movement in changing community values."

"The anti-smokers are now in government -- from the top right down to the lowest minion of the public service," laughs Deira, "and no pro-smoking political party will ever gain the ground that the anti-smokers took from them years ago."

"Don't they get it?" laughs Deira. "The time to have stood up and spoken up for smokers' rights was 25 years ago when the anti-smokers coughed their first disapproving cough."

"It's like everything else that's gone to the dogs in our community," sighs Deira. "We stood by in a spirit of tolerance and fair play and let them take away our rights one by one."

"Sure, it was fair to have non-smoking areas -- people who don't smoke shouldn't have to put up with smoky rooms," says Deira, "but who would have thought that in giving them these areas they would take away ours?"

"Sure, it was fair to have warning labels on cigarette packs -- tobacco companies need to protect themselves from litigation," says Deira, "but who would have thought that these labels would turn into ugly, gory graphics of diseases no smoker I know has ever had or is likely to have?"

"Sure, it was fair to increase taxes on cigarettes -- the health risks of smoking need to be paid for," says Deira, "but who would have thought they would deny us medical help when we needed it?"

"Sure, it was fair to smoke outside in the snow and sleet when there's nowhere else to smoke," says Deira, "but who would have thought they would then deny us this place to smoke when summer came and they wanted to be outside?"

"Sure, it was fair to smile and act chastised when someone you knew voice their disapproval," says Deira, "but who would have thought that total strangers -- even people who sell you cigarettes -- now have a God-given right to sneer at you?"

"I could go on and on," sighs Deira, "but I got the message years ago and I am angry that smokers who were in positions of power years ago chose to ignore what was going on and did nothing to stop the situation getting worse."

"A whole generation of young, vigorous people raised on anti-smoking propaganda are now in those positions of power," says Deira, "and I have nothing but contempt for all those old fogies, pushed out to pasture and stripped of their rights to smoke, bleating on to each other about civil liberties."

"No pro-smoking politician or activist will ever be able to preach to anyone other than fellow-smokers," says Deira, "and since so many of us are now closet smokers, who are they kidding about being able to turn the tide?"

"The tide's gone out and it ain't ever coming back in!"

"Nobody can have a reasonable discussion about freedom to smoke with any of these young people in positions of power," says Deira. "They have been brainwashed -- literally fed with anti-smoking propaganda since they started school -- and every time I have tried to put forward my position, with reasonable evidence, I have been contradicted with propaganda and abuse. It's like trying to argue with a religious fanatic -- you just don't bother!"

"What really hurts about these anti-smokers in positions of power is that they do not wish to make smoking less harmful by encouraging the tobacco industry to come up with a benign cigarette -- and they do not wish to delve into the myriad of reasons why anyone would take up smoking in the first place," says Deira. "They just want to stop everyone from smoking, and that's that. They know best. They're God or God's on their side."

"Even those who make their living off smokers -- the tobacco companies, the club and bar owners and the tobacco shops -- are bowing to the New World Order and meekly accepting the government's bullying tactics, telling them what they can and cannot do on their own premises," says Deira. "They are diversifying, trying to find a new way to make money. Not one of them, as far as I know, has come out in front of the media and supported the smokers who support them -- but then what media would give the time of day to lost causes?"

"Damn it," curses Deira, "even when you get online and try to find a site that supports smokers you check out their links and find that they are moles for ASH."

"Face it guys, you're cooked," laughs Deira, "and NO, you're not welcome to come join me in a closet smoke under the kitchen exhaust fan."

"If you had been on the ball, doing your job and protecting our rights over the past 25 years -- rather than partying and enjoying the perks of power -- I wouldn't have been forced into becoming a closer smoker. Okay?"

save us from the fanatics!

Leonie is 82, remembers Hitler and the Fascist thugs that set out to change the world according to their fanatic beliefs, and while no longer much of a smoker herself, she defends the right of those who choose to exercise their civil liberty to do so and she's fuming at Belmont City Council's unanimous vote to prohibit smoking anywhere in the Californian city except for single-family detached residences.

"Can you believe the hide of these fanatics!" says Leonie. "They're going to ban smoking on the street, in a park and even in one’s car and back yard! What a nice money-earner that's going to be for the fat cats at Belmont City Council, but what a cruel blow for smokers and their civil liberties."

"I'm old enough to understand the delicate human condition," says Leonie. "To be human means to be flawed, nobody's perfect, and I do my best to follow the golden rule, treat others as I want them to treat me, being respectful of differences and tolerant of flaws."

"But there are three flaws I cannot respect or tolerate -- child abuse, brutality and fanaticism -- and when people possessing one or more of these deadly flaws end up in positions of power or influence over the rest of us I become really angry."

"Our legal system generally takes care of the child abusers and brutes among us, but what about the fanatics?"

"Who is keeping an eye on those among us with fanatical delusions of superiority who aim to change society to their liking -- to stop us taking drugs, smoking, drinking alcohol, owning firearms, chopping trees, committing suicide, having an abortion, driving SUVs, eating fast food, wearing headscarves and generally following any of our myriad human inclinations?"

"The list of their dos and don'ts is endless and generally encompasses everything some of us want to do at some point in our lives, so we're all at risk of being targeted."

"That most of the regulated dos and don'ts of the fanatics are ostensibly for our own good, or the good of society, seem to make them widely acceptable," adds Leonie, "but has everyone forgotten the lunatic prohibition on alcohol in the 1920s? What good did that do? The drinkers went underground, exacerbating crime and drunkeness, and those that gave up drinking merely substituted their cravings with something else. That's when heroin and cocaine crept into our homes."

"Naturally, we'd prefer that our kids didn't do any drugs at all, but we all have cravings of one sort or another -- even for chocolate -- and, knowing that the good people at Belmont City Council have similar cravings, how dare they tell us what we can and cannot do, and how dare they publicly revile people for their human frailties!"

"There are only three hateful crimes that need to be proscribed: child abuse, brutality and fanaticism," says Leonie. "Everything else is a matter of following the golden rule and taking sensible precautions."

"Accidents happen and careless or foolish people will always get fleeced or hurt, and when such misfortunes happen the matter should be a private one between the victim and the perpetrator."

"Our courts and prisons are so clogged with petty matters and petty criminals that gross crimes involving child abuse, brutality and fanaticism often go unnoticed and the perpetrators enjoy untouched lives in society."

"By proposing to criminalize smoking, Belmont City Council is deliberately or otherwise taking the searchlight off real crimes and real criminals and encouraging people to get their kicks with far more dangerous drugs than nicotine."

"After the WWII horrors of Nazi Germany under Hitler when -- for the good of the fatherland -- Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled and other so-called undesirables were publicly reviled and exterminated, the world's watchdogs made a solemn promise to keep the human fanatic monitor on full alert, but somehow they fell asleep on the job when the fanatics were perpetrating similar atrocities in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and other places."

"Why?"

"Is the combined human fanatic monitor so flawed that we can't see these people coming -- in any area of human life -- and stop them before they do too much harm?" asks Leonie. "If we can't rely on the highly paid UN watchdogs to protect the basic human rights and civil liberties of people in the third world then these rights don't exist and everyone, everywhere, is totally at the mercy of fanatics."

"What are we going to get next?" sighs Leonie. "Another Senator Joe McCarthy and a commission to expose smokers in our society?"

"For God's sake America, wake up before it's too late," says Leonie. "Men and women of my generation and the generation before mine gave up their lives to defend freedom and civil liberties -- and most of them smoked, too! -- and you're allowing the evil monsters back into power."

"Whatever happened to the golden rule?"

"Shame on all of you who treat smokers like criminals!"

the taliban at belmont city council?

Meera is 26 and escaped with her parents from northern India when Taliban types in positions of power threatened their lifestyle. She was shocked to read that California's Belmont City Council had voted unanimously to pursue a law prohibiting smoking anywhere in the city except for single-family detached residences.

"This is the sort of nonsense my family escaped from," says Meera, "and I can't believe that it's happening here in the Land of the Free."

"Amazingly, while we're willing to put the lives of America's sons and daughters on the line in places likes Afghanistan and Iraq ostensibly to free people from repressive regimes, we're voting in the Taliban at home in places like Belmont, California!"

"Tell me, is giving Afghanis the right to play music in the street more important than giving Californians the right to smoke in the street?"

"Think about it. What is the difference?"

"Apparently, the Belmont decision was initiated by some guy objecting to the smell of cigarette smoke from a neighbor," adds Meera. "I hope our neighbors don't complain to council about the smell of curry from our place otherwise curry eating might be banned too!"

"If it wasn't so serious, this whole issue would be funny," says Meera, "and that's why I'm going in to bat for the smokers. I can see how this sort of law, if it gets legs, can affect all of us."

"Councilman Dave Warden was reported as saying he wants to make smoking illegal and justified his stand by believing doing so would save lives."

"Hello? Since when has it been city council's business to save lives and make laws that impinge on people's private lives?" says Meera. "They should stick to what they were elected to do -- take care of rubbish and roads and that sort of stuff -- and butt out of our private lives!"

"As far as I know from my reading, Belmont City has a population of 25,000 people and this law was supported by just 15 people at the council meeting."

"Did the elected members of Belmont City Council run on the issue of smoking, or did they keep their real agenda under wraps?"

"I can't believe that the majority of Belmont's citizens go along with the council's decision," muses Meera, "but if they do then that's democracy in action and the smokers are going to have to sell up and move on just like my family had to flee northern India."

"If the decision of the council men and women does not represent the majority view of Belmont residents then are they serving the wishes of bigger masters -- you know, the unelected back room boys with agendas to push who are entrenched in jobs from which they cannot be sacked, or the pharmaceutical companies pushing their nicotine patches?"

"You know, when a similar situation arose in India a few years back, relating to a law offending minorities, a group of students tailed the officials and caught them doing all manner of naughty things -- drink driving, prostitution, pedophilia, fraud, you name it, they did it! -- and when presented with evidence of their hypocrisy and duplicity the offending law was dropped like a hot potato."

"The smokers of Belmont should follow suit and see what Councilman Dave Warden and his colleagues get up to!"

"Day after day, pillars of society all over the world are being exposed as hypocrites and criminals," says Meera, "and when someone in a position of power sits in judgement of others we should turn that pointing finger right back at them."

"Today it's smoking, tomorrow it may be something that you enjoy doing," adds Meera, "so a law banning smoking in the street is an issue that everyone, especially non-smokers like me, should treat very seriously."

"If you're Jewish, black, disabled, a drinker, a woman or gay, just remember how the Taliban types once treated you and how the rest of the community got together to support your rights," says Meera.

"And if you're not, then before you support Belmont City Council's decision I beg you to think about the food you eat, the films you watch, the music you play, the God you pray to, the make-up, perfume or clothes you wear and imagine them being banned -- for your good, of course -- and if you wouldn't like that, then you're already walking in the shoes of a smoker."