An Allegory

Let’s say I drink beer.  I have a beer when I wake up in the morning, a beer with breakfast, a beer in the car on my way to work, a beer at 10 am, a beer with lunch, a beer at 2 pm, a beer in the car on the way home, a beer with dinner, and a beer before bed.

Pretty much everyone would regard that as problem drinking, and my employer would bitch about time lost.

Let’s say I spit half the beer out, over my carpet, my car, the business’ floor, and on your clothes when you are around me.  It would stink and be nasty.

Let’s say I spilled my beer into your food, your drink.  It would probably piss you off.

If my boss, the people around me, and the people who were drinking my spillage objected, would it be fair for me to complain about them violating my “right” to drink?  I could switch to light beer.  That would be better, right?

Let’s say 80% of the population got fed up with this, and insisted I not spill beer or spit on people in public establishments.  I get together with 50 of my beer swillin buds, and bitch about our “rights” being violated, and that business owners have a “choice” to let us drink and spit and spill, and that we’ll stop going there if they don’t let us.  We tell people that we’re not forcing them to drink—except we are.  We tell people that it doesn’t affect them—except it does.  We tell them businesses have the right to choose either way—except we’ll throw a huge, alcoholic, whining tantrum if they don’t choose us.

Sounds fair, doesn’t it?  I mean, I LIKE to drink, spill and spit with my meal.  I have a RIGHT to do so.  Don’t I?

~~~

If you don’t see “Smoker” where I have “Drinker,” then go back and substitute now.

Yes, your smoke stinks.  Yes, it’s bad for everyone’s health, and lethal for some of us.  Yes, everyone around you DOES have to put up with your bodily waste.  Yes, it DOES get into clothes, hair, cars.  Yes, anyone with a normal, non-smoker nose can tell.  When my daughter walks in the front door from a friend’s house where the parents smoke, I can tell as soon as the air current shifts.  That’s because my nose works properly.

Yes, you’re an addict.  Get help.  I mean, really.  It’s not as if you’re getting enough buzz from that dosage to matter.  It’s just enough to keep you clutching for more.  It would be pitiable if it wasn’t pathetic.  I’ve tried Native American tobacco—that crap will put you on your ass, stoned.  I have a good cigar (well, about half of one) about once a year.  At one point I smoked, and I smoked a man’s cigarette—unfiltered Camels.  Then after a few years it became a pain in the ass, so I quit.  However, at no point did I ever insist I had a “right” to smoke, and I didn’t smoke any pansy filtered, “light” or “ultralights.”  If someone said, “Please don’t,” I didn’t.  I didn’t sneak into the bathroom, the elevator, under my desk or table, the back hallway or the closet (And you know this happens on a regular basis).

I have friends who insist that “most” smokers are polite.  They’re not.  When I worked at a place marked “no smoking,” it’s true that only an occasional asshole walked in with a lit smoke.  However, about half would take a huge drag outside the door, walk in, and exhale, apparently too stupid to grasp that EXHALING SMOKE IS SMOKING.  In places that are notably nonsmoking, including military installations, they’ll congregate right outside the door, sometimes standing IN the open door (Because if the door is open, it counts as outside, see?  No need to get cold or wet), with all the side smoke blowing inside.  I’ve even encountered a couple on forums insisting that as addicts, the ADA REQUIRES that I allow them to smoke.  (It doesn’t, FYI.)

Utter pathetic, contemptible ADDICTS.

Go outside and you’ll find butts all over the ground, and wrappers.  I’ve seen trailers catch on fire because some asshole flipped a cherry out the window in traffic.  There’s a reason they have no smoking signs in forest fire areas.

At one time, tobacco was a religious and ceremonial material.  Then it became a pub item, in pipes, with the intent of getting a nicotine high.

Then, as with cheap beer (like Buttwiper), someone found a way to package it into little convenient phallic symbols for morons to walk around sucking on, while usually denouncing the Freudian implications.  It was chemically made more addictive, and less potent—so you have to smoke more to get any effect.

At that point it became a pointless nuisance.  Your typical cigarette smoker would get sick from real tobacco—in a pipe or cigar—and has even gone along with laws and rules to ban the smoking of real tobacco, as long as they can get their fix.  And boy, do they need their fix.  Work has to come to halt, and 80% of the population has to be at least inconvenienced, if not endangered, so they can suck that little white phallus.  Oh, you’re on the ground having an asthma attack?  Well, I’m sorry, but this is about my RIGHT to smoke.  Oh, the concert hall doesn’t allow smoking?  But everyone knows people smoke at concerts.  If that’s a problem for you, maybe you should just not go to concerts, because rules, your health and lifestyle aside, you know, this is about my RIGHT to smoke.  That’s much more important.  Yes, I know it’s not allowed inside, but it’s cold or wet out there, and you know, I have this RIGHT.

Thing is, all along, beer produces its own residue.  And when that happens, the drinker goes to a little room in the back designated for the purpose, takes care of business, washes hands, and then returns, without complaining that not being allowed piss on the carpet, the food or the table violates their rights.  It takes a few minutes, it doesn’t bother anyone else, people hold their seat for them, and then they come back.  There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Designated smoking areas don’t work in restaurants.  If it’s near the door, the non-addicts have to walk through the haze, and if it’s at the back, an addict will have to choose between walking through and blowing waste all over the non-addicts, or putting the smoke out.  Guess which they’ll choose?

Side note:  If this is really about business owners having a “right” to allow smoking or not, we mustn’t stop there.  Surely a business owner has the right to not have fire extinguishers, not wash hands, not keep rats out of the kitchen, not have fire exits, not have handicapped ramps, not hire ugly chicks, not refrain from groping the hot chicks, and not to serve blacks.  Right?  Is this about the business owner’s rights?  Or about the “rights” of an addict to stuff drugs?

Given average military pay*, and deployed duty schedules, a smoke break every couple of hours for 30% of the deployed military (not total, just those deployed) is costing taxpayers $800,000 A DAY.  With 312 duty days in a year, that’s $250 million A YEAR.  Or, as of right now, $2.25 billion dollars, just in salaries paid for work not done since the current war started.  In the private sector, where breaks are more lenient, it must be incredibly more.

So, I should be able to take a beer break eight times a day, right?  Or a masturbation break?  Or maybe a heroin break?  IT HELPS ME STAY CALM!  IT MAKES ME FEEL GOOD!  I HAVE A RIGHT!

You’re an addict.  Seek help.

~~~

*And speaking as a veteran, you have no business smoking in the military.  I can tell you from years of OPFOR, it destroys your night vision and sense of smell (I can get within FEET of a smoker in good darkness, undetected), and I can locate you up to 1000 yards away on a calm night.  Yes, really.  There’s an 8 hour bottle to throttle rule for alcohol for a reason, and marijuana is not allowed because the effects linger for days.  Same with tobacco.  Ignoring lungs, because they probably won’t wear out for a few years and you’ll be adequate physically, it does destroy your sense of smell and night vision.  That means your buddy’s ass is on the line for your addiction.  But that’s not important, is it?  YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO SMOKE!

You’re an addict.  Seek help.

If you're an addict, don't bother commenting, because you're unable to be rational regarding your addiction.

Everyone else knows I'm right.