"Really, the anti-smoking craze is all because people don’t like the smell. Okay, well don’t hang around smokers then is your business. But if you stand around them, and complain about the smell and preach to them about their health. That’s not your business and you can pound sand."
So I said this in reply #12:
"A smoker has no more right to pollute my atmosphere than does a prankster with a stink bomb or a terrorist with a lethal gas. Conversely, I have no right to stop a smoker from pursuing his addiction in the open where it does not affect me and, equally, neither do I have the right to enlist the government to stop him.
I will even go so far as to say that compulsory healthcare paid in part by the taxpayers does not justify the government in restricting smoking because it adds to the cost of healthcare."
This hardly sounds like preaching to me.
Equally my reply #42 which simply says let's leave each other in peace. For heaven's sake, I note that I would legalize drugs and that certainly would include tobacco. Finally, I stated I do not oppose E cigarettes, so why am I lecturing people gratuitously about anything?
I even believe that vapor tobacco consumption should be permitted in crowded places because the practice is not offensive but cigarettes are offensive and should not be allowed in crowded places. Why is that moralizing? I suppose the observation that my alleging moralizing was predicated on a social environment that has not existed for many years, is based on the assumption that I moralizing-I am not. But even if I were, the "moralizing" is limited to being left alone by smokers and that is a context which can occur in a social situation such as a private party in a private home even today.
I don't feel particularly abashed about moralizing over smoking no matter how defined, after all, it is a deadly killer but I don't see the utility of moralizing, it tends not to work and leads only to resentment.
I do see a great deal of virtue in defending my right to be left alone.
