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.

[metesky]

Face to face? I wouldn't stoop that low, but maybe if you got a stepladder...

[cinFLA]

Did I say coward? I meant lying coward. Take some advice. Quit being so unimaginably reactive. You're so far behind the power curve you don't even know you're lapped. It doesn't matter what you say, you are typed. You're a psycho. A neurotic. Everyone's on to you. Everything you state is viewed through a glass darkly. You are witless. You lack style and snap and never fail to be weak and uninventive. In short, all the hallmarks of the left side of the Bell Curve. You have been kicked around so much on this thread by everyone that I imagine, for you, abuse is better than no attention at all. Come on, you can do better.

Please ... I knew smoking affected the body but the brain, also?

[cinFLA]

Face to face? I wouldn't stoop that low, but maybe if you got a stepladder...

Another infantile response.

[cinFLA]

Oh, yeah?

Good one. Haven't heard that since the 2nd grade.

[hattend]

Bttt

[Leisler]

If someone is smoking, you're against it. If you are said not to have dragged your ocean sailboat while mountain climbing on diving gasses, you say you have. Calling Dr. Freud, Dr. Freud.
We know you have no friends here, and all your friends and family have long since passed away (I wouldn't be surprised if they looked forward to crossing over and away from you). So, I guess I have answered my own question as to why you like the beatings.

And what comes back? "Please ... I knew smoking affected the body but the brain, also?" Oh, well, for you, Free Republics very own small-bus helmet-wearer, a little repetition. "Quit being so unimaginably reactive. You are witless. You lack style and snap and never fail to be weak and uninventive. "

[metesky]

We know you have no friends here, and all your friends and family have long since passed away

I say it's more likely that they moved in the middle of the night, leaving no forwarding address.

[laredo44]

Little lies such as the one about the smoking cars being 80% empty just open the door for the big lies to waltz right in...and have you noticed that hot august night has not replied to me? I wonder why.

August hasn't replied becasue he knows he's been "outted". We all realize that there are so few with August's alleged levels of smoke intolerence. The rest of us would immediately abandon cramped confines of the non-smoking car for the capaciousness afforded smokers. We also realize that even if what August alleges were true the LIRR would at some point realize this and adjust the ratio of smoking to no-smoking cars.

August needs to stick to preaching to the converted.

[Cannon6]

Re Post # 8. Male or female? (grin)

[laredo44]

Tell your kids that!

Trust me, I have. I've counseled them to treasure liberty and keep constant vigil toward those who would diminish it. I've given special care to exposing tyrannts like you who propose to exchange their liberty for the alleged benefits of an avant-garde straight jacket.

Tyrannts don't ascend to power by promising tyranny. They promise a better way. Liberty can take us only so far, then the really smart folk have to step in and make the tough decisions for the rest of us. Smart folks, tyrannts if you will, but good tryannts, tyrannts who only want what's best for us. Smart folks like you, cin.

Talk about getting physically ill, know what absolutely turns my stomach? Burkas. Putting tents on adults in public. But guess what. The Taliban actually believe that's the way to a better life. Sad. Sadder still is that you share the same reverence for liberty as they.

Some facts. Science does not hold that second smoke is dangerous. Nothing but an assertion holds that second smoke makes you ill. Science does hold that second hand smoke provides some level of immunization against lung cancer. Tyrannts love good little doobys like you.

[Leisler]

1865

It appears Mr. Twain was familiar with an anti-smoker or two. Having been a writer, and smoker, his entire life, he probably met folks that attempted to force the third precious thing down his throat on many occasions. You bet!

He also said:

"I don't want any of your statistics. I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc., etc., etc. . . . You never see but one side of the question. You are blind to the fact that most old men in America smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, they ought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine and survive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yet grow older and fatter all the time. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime, (and which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone,) nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from NOT smoking."

Mark Twain San Francisco, 1865

[Leisler]

Churchillian oratory -- American style -- from the Oxford Union

by P.J. O'Rourke

On February 27 last, months before it played host to Mr. O.J. Simpson, the Oxford Union Society met to consider the following proposition: "This House Believes That Smoking Is a Right, Not a Privilege."

Jenny Carter-Manning, Pembroke ex-treasurer, opened the arguments in favor; Amanda Pritchard, the St. Anne's College librarian, spoke first against the motion, Other participants included Lord Harris, president of the Institute for Economic Affairs; Kevin Barron MP, a leading proponent of smoking legislation; Martin Broughton, chief executive for British American Tobacco; Pamela Furness, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health; and Sir Walter Bodmer, director-general of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.

The debate meandered until one other participant addressed the chamber: Mr. P.J. O'Rourke, introduced as "America's foremost satirist." After his remarks, Teller for the Ayes Claire Lomax tallied 162 votes for the motion; Teller for the Noes Robbie Hamilton counted 112 against. Mr. O'Rourke saved the day; his speech is recorded for posterity below:

" Most assuredly smoking is a right -- it may be a small, stupid, nasty, inconvenient, and very trivial right but a long accustomed, fiercely defended, and much exercised right it is. However, a further proposition: That to debate smoking rights is also small, stupid, nasty, inconvenient, and very trivial. (No offense to the fine minds here assembled.) I object to the debate itself on the grounds that this sort of public interchange at an august institution is, by its nature, a political event. And I see no reason that smoking should be subjected to political discourse. Smoking is strictly a civil and social activity -- a personal matter that can and should be decided among the smoker, his friends and associates who hate the smell, and his doctor who loves the high payments for cancer treatments.

The very fact of this debate is a symptom if the loathsome modern tendency to make all things a part of politics. Politics should be limited in its scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class. "Smoking -- right or privilege?" The question is a left-wing dialectical leg-hold trap. "Smoking -- none of your business or what?" That would be more like it. Let us look at this question from a -- meaning no offense to our worthy opponents -- soggy, wet, left perspective: Under modern statist governments nothing is an individual right, because rights entail responsibilities, and we don't have individual responsibilities anymore -- only collective, political responsibilities.

Smoking is not a collective act unless you're passing around a joint . And that's another debate. Smoking can't be a privilege either, because privileges have been eliminated. I mean, we are all egalitarians, aren't we? Therefore, smoking must be an entitlement -- something we receive as our due from the government. (You know that the source of all goods and services is the government, don't you? Of course you do. That's why you're about to elect Tony Blair.) Well, entitlement spending is too high. Even the Labour Party admits this. Some entitlements will need to be cut... So let's cut smoking, because who can defend that? Thus our opponents ask you to make smoking a political question. And since Britain is a democracy -- or will be until the dictatorship of the proletariat arrives -- decisions about smoking must be made by democratic means, by majority vote.

But think what life would be like if every decision were made by majority vote. All clothes would be trainers and track suits. The only food available in England would be... English. And we'd all be sleeping with Emma Thompson. She wouldn't like that. Actually, however, an increase in the scope of political power has worse results than a mere lot of voting. More political power always means more power for the politicians, more power for the bureaucracies that hire politicians who are too pathetic to get elected, and more power for the various "experts" who are too pathetic even to be hired by the bureaucracies.

The main reason to be opposed to political control of smoking is to keep power -- even the smallest and silliest kind of power -- out of the hands of such as our opponents here. Oh, they're lovely people, I'm sure, and very trustworthy around the house. But they are members of a dangerous class -- the class that knows what's good for us better than we do. They are altruists. You know the difference between an altruist and a charitable person? A charitable person comes to your house and says, "I heard you were hungry so I brought you some food." An altruist comes to your house and says, "I heard you were hungry so I brought you some OxFam literature." I never fully trust the alarms of altruists.

Didn't you ever wonder if Chicken Little had an agenda? I mean was Chicken Little going around telling all the other chickens that the sky was falling out of the goodness of his heart? Or was there something that Chicken Little wanted? Once Chicken Little had all the other chickens convinced that the sky was falling, was there all of a sudden a Labour Party motion to create a Ministry of Falling Sky? And was Chicken Little, perhaps, named Minister of Things That Hit You on the Head? We all know that a cabinet post is an excellent springboard to higher office. One can almost hear Chicken Little's campaign speech: "My fellow chickens -- all our eggs are in one basket, our coops are guarded by foxes, we're living on chicken feed, plus the sky is falling. In these troubled times who better to lead us in clucking and pecking and running around after our heads have been cut off than the Honorable C. Little -- a real chicken!"

In the alarms of the altruist there is also an element of moral bullying. "Oh, I know you care about the health effects of smoking," says the altruist, "but you only care about the effects on you or a few select friends and family members. I care about everyone. I care so much I can't sleep. I can't eat. It wrecked my marriage. I care, and care, and care. And, you see, since I care so much more than you do, I must be a better person than you are. And since I'm a better person than you are, I have the right -- nay, the duty -- to tell you what to do!" You mustn't smoke because it harms everyone. "It harms everyone" is the great cry of the new-wave totalitarians, the happy -- face fascists, safety nazis, snuggle-puppy Stalinists. You throw these people out the door of politics, and they come crawling back in the window of health. Being fat harms everyone, too -- same medical and social costs as smoking, plus the threat of getting sat on in a bus. So next they'll tell us what to eat. And divorce harms everyone. So they'll come get in bed with ourselves and our spouses and sort things out. Which brings us to sex. And, God, how this harms everyone -- overpopulation, AIDS, rape, prostitution, Madonna. Our opponents -- if they but knew their business -- would belong to the league for Sexual Repression. We ought not to be debating tobacco.

We ought to be debating the debate. The question is of power and control. Thousands of lives and millions of dollars are wasted by smoking. But millions of lives and billions of dollars are wasted by collectivist states. Fifty million died in the war caused by fascism. Twenty million were killed by the Soviet Union. Untold million starved in Mao's Great Leap Forward. And during all of these horrible events, by the way, everyone concerned wanted a smoke.

[Madame Dufarge]

Ba Da Bing, Ba Da Bump.

[metesky]

Here and here.

[lonestar]

1)My father was right to make that concession. Why the hell should the furniture STINK to high heaven of cig smoke?

My father was more right than your father and exercised his right to smoke under his roof. Anybody who didn't like it, could go outside.

[Great Dane]

I have climbed mountains you would not tread on, I have soloed the oceans, I have my pilots license, certified scuba, driven race cars and hot motorcycles and so much more .... But then again, it is easy for you to call someone else a coward from behind your keyboard.

Point being, you are doing a lot of risky things, possibly causing injury to yourself and others...... should we ban all things you enjoy, you sure are narrowminded.

[Great Dane]

Good ones.

[cinFLA]

Science does hold that second hand smoke provides some level of immunization against lung cancer.

Is this what you tell your kids everytime they ask you to stop blowing smoke in their faces?

[cinFLA]

Point being, you are doing a lot of risky things, possibly causing injury to yourself and others...... should we ban all things you enjoy, you sure are narrowminded.

I never said ban smoking ... Just don't smoke around me.

[cinFLA]

here ye, here ye.