- This topic has 18 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
An excerpt from an interesting read linked to by Drudge:
I had this thought that America was more civil when everyone smoked. You learned from an early age that people will do something you don’t like but there wasn’t much you could do other than walk away. Then smokers became not just people doing something others don’t like, but bad people whose second hand smoke (allegedly) kills. Nowadays, anyone who disagrees with you isn’t just different or misguided, they are a bad person who must be ostracized/destroyed. Thoughts?
Charles ZamboriNowadays, anyone who disagrees with you isn’t just different or misguided, they are a bad person who must be ostracized/destroyed. Thoughts?
Okay, I’ll bite.
When it comes to opinions or taste, acceptance and tolerance are the keywords. You have no right to impose your views on anyone else, and while you don’t have to respect other people’s views, you do have to accept that he has the rights to his own opinion.
When it comes to morality, religion and anything with a universal truth, this is not the case. While you can’t judge, and you certainly can’t blame, you don’t have to – and often musn’t – accept or tolerate. If anyone is doing something which contravenes Halachah or contravenes Rotzon Hashem, you have every right to condemn the action, and in many cases (for a whole host of reasons) an obligation to protest. In these inyanim, there is no “mind your own business”, there no “live and let live”, and certainly no “respecting his opinion”.
Must they be “ostracized/destroyed”? That obviously depends. Every situation needs to be weighed individually. There are almost always disadvantages and collateral damage by ostracizing and destroying. Sometimes you have to do it anyway. Sometimes you will lose more than you’re gonna gain.
Used to be a “real man” had to smoke. Not fair to real men who don’t want to die young.
in todays generation EVERY PERSON feels %100 that their way of life is the correct way to live (smoking or not, learning or college etc….) and if someone is even a drop different then their way then something is wrong with him/her & the person-different then your way of life-has issues & needs to change.
From an economic perspective, smoking gives parnassah to tobacco farmers and those who manufacture that which is smoked. It also reduces the burden on social security and other retirement systems by reducing the number of elderly people who need to be supported (indeed, in an ideal way, as smokers get killed only at the end of their productive years).
Akuperma, don’t forget oncologists,, they need to make a living too
Smoking decreases quality of life of the smoker and of anyone nearby even in the early years. And from an economic perspective, those same people could just as well go into the cannabis business and farm cannabis for non smoking purposes and it will give them the same parnassah and have fewer negative externalities.
RebYidd23 – It has yet to be shown that cannabis will result in reduced stress on pension and social security benefits (its hard to do a longitudinal study on something that is banned). However few things can match tobacco when it comes to killing people just at the point when they are about to switch from net savers (paying into pension plans, saving for retirement) to net spends (consuming assets while retired).
Cannabis is often consumed smoke-free. That makes it better for me than tobacco when other people use it. That counts as an economic cost.
And guns. Guns can kill people if that’s what you’re after.The citation from Drudge report isnt so much a defense of smoking as much as it is a defense of someones right to smoke despite all the risks without being called an idiot, or worse.
I saw a bumper sticker in the 80s. “Cancer cures smoking. “
mw13,
I had this thought that America was more civil when everyone smoked.
1. Correlation does not imply causation
2. The author likely is not Jewish, or black. America doesn’t feel so civil if you have to drink from a separate water fountain, or when facing a quota (avoid having too many Jews in this college!)The author has a point. Today, we reserve the right to castigate anyone that disagrees with us. And it is not dependent which side on an issue is moral or correct – just the numbers and the means to propagandize the position.
Our society of today is afflicted with a serious disease that cannot be cured, only eradicated. It cannot even be remedied with partial success. It is the thinking that is called “political correctness” that is neither logical nor moral. Together with that mishigoss, we get “thought police”. If someone feels that what I did or thought makes him/her feel bad, than I am a target for attack. People lose jobs over this stupidity, and have been blamed for crimes they did not commit.
For instance, SJW’s are obsessed with this stuff. Whites are automatically considered racist, and crimes against them are justified. Does that sound acceptable? Well, the MSM would have you believing that. Yes, Google used this approach to fire an employee. Democrats tout this garbage all the time. No, it will not mellow and become less virulent over time. It will gain strength like a hurricane, and do at least as much damage.
Smoking is not the issue. It is the right to make an issue of thought, and criminalize that.
P.S. Smoking is assur min haTorah. I am not ch”v being accepting of smoking at all. It should be completely banned and criminalized.
The little I know,
Our society of today is afflicted with a serious disease that cannot be cured, only eradicated.
For instance, SJW’s are obsessed with this stuff. Whites are automatically considered racist, and crimes against them are justified. Does that sound acceptable? Well, the MSM would have you believing that. Yes, Google used this approach to fire an employee. Democrats tout this garbage all the time. No, it will not mellow and become less virulent over time. It will gain strength like a hurricane, and do at least as much damage.
You do a good job proving your point about declining civility and castigating people with different opinions from you by modeling the behavior yourself.
The thought police thing is simply a product of population growth. A million people in the audience, a million different opinions, and it only takes a few to vilify someone.
People go on about how smoking is assur, how it’s this, how it’s that. I can tell you that tobacco never caused immorality or social ills to befall society (alcohol and drugs do have detrimental moral and social consequences). Nobody ever cheated on a spouse or did anything bad because of cigarettes.
People do things that aren’t the best for them. Our food isn’t the best for us, yet we enjoy fressing. The way society demonizes smokers is ridiculous, especially when we give potheads a free pass. I’ve seen marijuana destroy lives and families.
I’ve seen tobacco destroy too.
Tobacco is not a moral evil. People may get sick from smoking, but people get sick from eating and from lots of other things.
Tobacco is surely a moral evil. It is slow suicide, and it kills the people you love (cancer in spouses from second-hand smoke is very common), and if it doesn’t kill them it harms their health in other ways (making them sick more often, asthma, etc.)
Smokers are always chatting with other smokers, since they’re in the same areas right outside smoke-free buildings. You don’t think this doesn’t lead to inappropriate interaction with the opposite sex? Of course it does.
We don’t give potheads a free pass. Marijuana is assur too. People don’t think they deserve jail anymore, but that doesn’t mean we approve.
Smoking is itself morally wrong, regardless of what you’re smoking. That can be tobacco, or it can be tea leaves. Either way it’s going into my air supply and you’re making me cough. I have no problem with nicotine use in itself.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.