billege

That is the such a bullshit troll response to an honest question.

I expect so many more of those in this thread. Please, work on it.

All posters like that: If you can't do better, you need to re-check what the TFP aims for.

I am so SICK of this place turning into a run-of-the-mill shitass forum. Posts like this belong on Fark. Not here.

She asked a legit question about why smoking is such a targeted and socially beat-up addiction. Instead of such a "no thought required" one liner that doesn't even address the question, why don't you try asking yourself:

"Why do I hate smokers so much, that I transcend all normal levels of self righteousness when people even bring this subject up?"

Why don't you do that, and then maybe answer the lady's question in an intelligent manner. Or, hit the back button. Your call.

/takes deep breath.

Snowy, I don't know why people target smoking so much. It's easy to get on two particular bandwagons in today's age. Anti-smoking is one of them. Hating fat people is the other.

All the “fun” categories to hate have been taken away. It’s not cool to be racially bigoted. Most American whites have actually got themselves to the point where they honestly think they harbor no racist tendencies, so it’s not even a subject we can talk about. That level of honesty usually requires admitting some pretty ugly things may live in our heart of hearts. Not happening in today’s culture. We don’t like to scratch the surface. Shit under the first layer of bullshit gets ugly fast, and we’d rather not deal with all that mess. So, no racism.

Religious bigotry is a touchy one. If you make fun of the right religions, you’ll be okay. Making fun of “overly” conservative Christians is cool; Wiccans are easy targets; Catholics are pretty fair game (hey, their priests opened the door on that one – I was raised Catholic); Scientologists (freaks – In this case, I believe they are freaks, so I’m saying what I believe and accepting the consequences of how that causes others to view me.) are okay to make fun of; Muslims - especially you’re one of their extremist’s bomb targets you can make fun of…SO no religious bigotry (with a few exceptions).

You can hop on the "I am disgusted by fatties" wagon pretty easy. More Americans seem to be fat than not, but the common opinion is still that it's okay to look down on the chubbies. Sure, if you're blatant about it someone will say "Hey, save the whales, be nice." Eventually someone will defend outright abuse of chubby people. However, for most purposes bigotry about fat people is socially acceptable. Fat jokes abound, and no one says “enough.” (Ok, a few people do. They’re the good few that actually speak up for their beliefs. Honestly: 3 in 10 Americans. Tops.) Fat kids are bullied to tears on a daily basis, but ask a parent if they think “their kid” would do that. You’ll never ever find a bully’s parent saying “yeah, my kid is a DICK to other kids…especially those fat ones.” No one says shit about fat kids until they bring a gun to school…then it’s all about what video games they played. Fat people are abused every day and it’s cool.

But, like I say, unless you’re really rude about it no one will call you on your fat hate. You’ll be especially safe if you adopt the “it’s soooo unhealthy” tone early. No one can touch what you say if you’re concerned about the lardasses’ health. In that case it’s extra acceptable for you to be disgusted by fat people…after all it’s about HEALTHLY LIVING. Moving on to smokers…

Beating up on smokers is a populist, easy to jump on, bandwagon.

I was a 5 year half pack a day smoker. I stopped. 2 years ago. It. Was. A. Total. Bitch.

Nonsmokers don’t get this, nor do most of them care. In their minds, smoking is just something you can stop doing whenever you want. LOL on that. To add to their pile of smoker-hating-righteousness justification they’re on the “right side” of this debate by simply not smoking. It takes no effort!! “Join now and you too can look down on someone else’s personal choice – BECAUSE IT PERIPHERALLY AFFECTS YOU!!! – instant justification.” And yes, it peripherally affects you. You have to be in the same area as smokers to get secondhand. They’re not invading your homes and lighting up. I promise.

That’s right, go off on your anti-smoker “But bars STINK etc etc etc yammer” nonsense rants. I give a shit. I still have ONE question for all the passive aggressive anti-smokers who vote from behind a curtain to curtail someone else’s rights: If non smoking is SO popular, and EVERYONE agrees that bars, eateries, etc. should be non smoking, how come this change had to come from law?

Why didn’t bar owners have the economic incentive applied to them by their non-smoking clients to ban smoking in their establishments? No law prohibited any bar owner from making his/her place non smoking only.

Why didn’t bar owner say: “Hey, you know what? A majority of my clientele wish this place were non-smoking, and I’m going to cater to their business by making that change? WHY IS THAT????

It’s because the non-smokers are by and far (god knows, a few of you have strength of conviction and I salute you!) passive aggressive motherfarkers who won’t tell an establishment owner they’d like the place better if it were non-smoking. They can’t fill out suggestion slips and make it happen. They can’t avoid their favorite place BECEUASE IT DIDN’T MATTER ENOUGH TO THEM!

If secondhand REALLY bothered so many people so much, they’d have voted with their wallets. They’d have stayed out of bars that allowed smoking, and they’d have some sort of button/bumper sticker movement to make it publicly known that’s why they were doing it.

Instead, the most extreme of them formed a lobby to legislate morality and personal choice. To join that you only have to vote, and to be honest, that’s pretty easy. You register and you push a button. That takes a lot less balls than actually GIVING UP DINNER at a place you like, and going out of your way to tell the owner that’s why you’re doing it.

Very few people cared enough about secondhand to do anything like that. They went to the bars with all the smokers, and they bitched about it to each other. Somehow, they lacked the energy to find a way to use their economic power to affect change, so they lobbied for it.

That’s how change comes to Americans now: Don’t actually do anything, just sign your name to a cause and let a few fanatics do the actual work for you. Let them take time to get petitions signed, let them get something on a ballot, let them convince people, all you have to do is get on the bandwagon. American’s love bandwagons.

It’s a joiner thing. For years people got along with smokers. In fact, most people were smokers. Then we figured out it’ll kill you. Then people stopped smoking so much. However, we didn’t have this social phenomenon of smoker hating until recently. That’s new, maybe only going back to the late 90’s or early 2000’s? What would you say on that? When did it become not only “okay” but actually encouraged to actively hate smokers from afar? It used to be a country of “live and let live.” We used to put up with a few things we didn’t like. Now we’re an over-privileged, over-indulged, over-spoiled, bunch of WHINERS who legislate anything we don’t like. And that’s the best part…the hypocrisy

If I choose to go outside and light up, few of my friends or co workers would say more than “hey dummy, that’s bad for you, and we don’t want you to die.”

However, in a forum or group of fellow smoker haters, the vitriol comes out in spades. Now it’s a campaign to raise the bar on who hates second-hand the most. A game to see how evil and disrespectful one can paint smokers as being. A challenge to get the most self-righteous by virtue of NOT DOING SOMETHING.

People really think that HMO costs are through the roof because of smoking? Of all the possible causes that healthcare is nigh-unaffordable, they think SMOKING is doing enough damage that it’s the one personal choice they’re willing to legislate? It can’t possibly be the incredible complexity involved in the treatments our huge population of aged Americans is receiving. There’s no way it’s insane profiteering by drug companies. Lawyers and HMOs adding parasitical costs to the system, that can’t be part of it. God knows that America’s collective Obesity problem has nothing to do with it. Diabetes is rising at unheard of rates, that can’t have ANYTHING to do with rising costs, nor could the cause of all the Diabetes be out of control caloric intake.

It’s got to be, it HAS to be, the smokers. THOSE BASTARDS!!!


/yeah I understand it’s a huge angry post. At least it’s honest. There’s got to be one or two members left who will appreciate that.

Pre-posting, post-reviewing thought:

I jumped on what’s-his-face fairly hard for the one liner he posted. I feel bad about that. But, not bad enough to apologize for calling a one-line, zero-effort post what it was.

/pre-response comment:

There’s no f’ing way I’ll debate any one of you on that line-for-line rebuttal bullshit that’s incomprehensively still so popular. No one in real life has conversations that way. There’s no way I’ll do it here. I learned that lesson years ago.

You make a comprehensive point with your statement, I’ll respond to that if it’s any good.

__________________
I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence:
"My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."