Peggy Noonen: "Them" [one group for whom liberals have no tolerance at all]

Wall Street Journal ^ | Nov 15, 2002 | Peggy Noonen

[The Raven]

There's a lot to think about this week--the rise of Nancy Pelosi, the meaning of the Republican triumph--but my thoughts keep tugging toward a group of people who are abused, ostracized and facing a cold winter. It's not right what we do to them, and we should pay attention.

[cinFLA]

Ask anyone in the house, I’m sure they’ll rush to help you.

We don't have to help you. Your coke, horse and tobacco will put you in an early grave.

[cinFLA]

smoking stinks and smokers kill.

[calenel]

"I don't like it unless my sense of smell is articially suppressed(ie drunk) and then its a matter of toleration."

Shame on you! Don't you know how evil alcohol is? It impairs your judgement, damages your liver and brain, and causes you to put yourself and others at risk! Not only that, but drinkers smell from the alcohol their poor abused bodies are desperately trying to dispose of!

Actually, I drink lightly and I smoke. But when I go outside to smoke while at work, I am still working (my job involves figuring out how to do in 10 lines of code what someone else tried to do in 100). I also don't smoke in my own home because I have children in the house (even though the second hand smoke dangers appear to be bunk). Nor do I smoke in someone else's home unless they also smoke and do so in their home. It's only polite.

[YankeeReb]

I do like drinking -- a lot -- and I can already see the writing on the wall for alcohol use....

There's already talk of a tax on fast food to cover the "increased health costs" incurred by those with coronary disease. That's always the first step.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Let the pious and the politicians contemplate the increase in their own taxes that would ensue, if smokers and drinkers should one day decide they are not going to carry everyone else in the country on their backs anymore and quit using their over taxed products. Who would the government choose to screw to fill the hole in revenue left when no one uses the products that have been laden with sin taxes, and they sit on the shelf and grow stale? It would be interesting to behold the panic among politicians and the gnashing of teeth among the pious who would at last be forced to pay their share of taxes.

[CharacterCounts]

Do you think that I am a coward?

No.

[Great Dane]

#251........ You're good, I am impressed, a big thank you to a non-smoker.

[Great Dane]

Savings from lower health care costs would probably be greater than the lost tax revenue.

Not by a long shot.

[pina]

Talking about the smell???
I just can't stand working with someone eating garlic every morning for breakfest and getting another dose of it at lanch. And I have to communicate with them face to face, makes me puke sometimes, riding a bus is a nightmare for me, when there is someone filled up with garlic.
Some parfumes that have been used by some individuals kkills my sense of smell, some people smell (when they sweat) even when you are 10 feet away, and I have to work with them 8 hours a day. I have to put up with the smell of my Asian neighbours, when they make their dinners at home. It's killing me, I can smell it in my badroom, kills my sex-drive.
So what do I do about it? You say to a smoker that you can't stand the smoke and that's it, he/she will never light up near you. What do I tell the garlic freak? How do I tell you that your parfume that you spray on you five times a day at the office, makes me sick? The only way I can deal with the smell of my neighbours food is to find another place to live. I can go on and on but what's the use of it. Can i get through to a brain washed mind of the antismoking freak? Noooooooway. But life goes on.

[potlatch]

And if they make a smoker's lounge, isn't that making SPECIAL concessions to them?

Making them go outside was a SPECIAL concession to YOU!!

[Leisler]

Yawn.

[Leisler]

I vaguely remember being taught that we learn about a subject through writing. Those were but off the cuff observations. I know that if there wasn’t any smoking, these wretches would be scuttleing about with their pants about their ankles about something else. It is psychological for them. As in “psycho.” No doubt if it was the late ‘30’s and Germany, they would be saying that Jews in restaurants smell and carry diseases and are a threat to their health. I am surprised they don’t do it now with Jews or blacks or whomever, as I a sure that somewhere, someplace there is some smelly bastard with lice, or a undiagnosed tuberculosis coughing as a patron in a restaurant. Naturally, in this example, if the person was say a Jew, and another patron did get sic, then cinFla and all the rest of pantywaists would start there predictable sissy fits about Jews. They are psycho, obsessive and smoke is just their latest attachment.

[Madame Dufarge]

The poster was calling you a coward.

A coward who pretends to moral superiority, as they often do.

You (JimSimon) chose to defend a poster who's become infamous on smoking-related threads for her venomous, irrational attacks against smokers.

Picture a mob of people surrounding two combatants; picture a faceless member of the mob who reaches out and shoves one of the combatants at the other, and then fades back into the crowd to enjoy the fight. The faceless member of the mob hasn't the courage to get bloodied himself, but can revel in the combat while assuming the role of innocent onlooker.

The innocent onlooker is, of course, the whole time bemoaning the barbarity and incivility of the event, while immensely enjoying the spectacle.

[laredo44]

I did finish with: But maybe that isn't true anymore, wasn't that what the big tobacco settlement was all about, yeah, that's it.

Sorry, I didn't think you were serious with this line because of the last three words. I thought you were using that old Saturday Night Live sketch imagery where the guy punctuates his obvious lie by saying, "Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket."

For the most part a beef with smokers, or those compelling us all to pick up the health costs are one and the same, or they are the relatives of smokers who won't bear the costs for their own families like dashole whose poor mother can barely survive on her social security.

Two reasons I ask about the cost. Most importantly, if your objection is to forced cost sharing, we share a common perspective, and I suggest our fight is with those imposing that - illegitimate at the federal level, IMHO, burden on us. We need to tell legislatures to stop passing these burdensome laws and remind the courst they should be striking them down.

If your beef is with smokers and their behavior on private porperty, say a shopping mall, or business office, I say it is none of your business. The owner sets the rules. not the government, and if you don't like it, don't go there. If you go there not knowing the rules and find out smoking is permitted, and it bothers you, leave.

Second thing about costs of smoking. Are you aware that studies show smokers are actually cheaper for society that non-smokers? It is these long-lived sneiors that are costing us the big bucks. We need a tax on good health to even things out.

[gitmo]

1)While I do find smoking to be a disgusting habit that stinks up clothes, lips, breath, furniture, etc I AM AGAINST special taxes on cigarettes

I'm against special taxes on anything. We have special taxes on gasoline, soft-drinks, alcoholic beverages, batteries, tires, telephone calls, and who knows what else? In North Carolina we have a special food tax!

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

They are the punished, the shamed. They are the Smokers. liberals As they stood there--I imagined a wreath of smoke brain fog curling round their shoulders like the wooden collar of the stocks of the 17th century--I thought: Why don't we stop this?

Thats kind of how i envisioned liberals and their way of thought !