Well, it's really heating up, isn't it? The war against smoking,and more particularly, the actual smokers themselves. I don't know about you, but I think the whole thing is pretty ridiculous.First Big Tobacco companies are a cash cow, and then all of a sudden, they are all summarily drug into court, and have to pay through the nose for marketing a product that is consumed globally, by millions of people,which is a naturally growing plant.This is not something that the companies made up,and sold for a drug. This is a plant, put here by God, for a reason.But now our government is on the war path,taxing cigarettes,to ostensibly pay for ways to "help smokers quit!" And to shore up the insurance, and health care plans that employers are saying the smokers illnesses are causing the costs to soar out of control on...they take too many sick days,and that lung cancer is just rampant..and on and on. You know the drill. We hear this stuff every day, all day, and that in itself is just enough to make anyone sick.In fact, if we are to believe all the claims made against smoking, then all it takes is for everyone to stop smoking and everyone will be healthy and live longer...or perhaps, it will just seem longer, since a great many people really enjoy smoking. Now, wait. If all smokers cave in to the pressure being put on them, health-wise,and advertising wise,and ban-wise, and quit, then where is all this money going to come from, when those taxes stop rolling in? How will the health-care cost problem ever be solved, if the scapegoat disappears? And, likewise, if you have been listening, there are a great number of other places allocated for that cigarette tax money to go. I know that many smokers have already taken the pledge,and quit,and there are less smokers now than ever, and NOW, they want to raise the SIN TAX even higher! Why? Because there are less taxes coming in, since so many have QUIT! And now, the situation is even more intense, since a number of states and cities have banned smoking, not only in office buildings and other work places, but now, you can't even smoke in front of the building.Or in a bar.Or a restaurant.
Oh Yeah, they want to keep you buying the cigarettes, but don't you dare smoke them, unless you are at home, with the shades down and the blinds drawn! Look, you can go into a bar, and drink until you fall off the barstool,and that's okay.But don't you DARE light up a smoke. You can be stoned out of your mind on booze and legal drugs,and get in your car a drive,and kill somebody, but don't you dare walk down the street, minding your own business, not bothering anybody, out there in the fresh air, where your smoke isn't going to harm anyone else.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, the honest truth is, you're never going to totally remove every irritant in our Eco-system, that is a possible trigger for those pesky free-radicals.It's just not possible.We have mined too much coal and burned it for too many years to rid the air and soil and water of it all, and the same thing goes for hundreds of other such nasty things.Oil, crude and refined, is everywhere, you don't see any governments going after that stuff, do you? No. Nor will you.America.Britain, Europe, would grind to a screeching halt, were that to take place.And other, innumerable things that also lend themselves to the problem such as pesticides and herbicides are everywhere.They are in the air we all breathe, the water we drink and give to our meat/milk producing animals to drink, they are in the soil where we grow our crops.Everywhere. Hundreds of them. And all the experts, if you pin them down, have to admit, they don't really know what is the exact cause of cancer, or any of several other problems brought on in our modern world. They are guessing,and have found something to blame it on. Now, let me throw something else at you that a lot of you, including a lot of Christians aren't going to like, but it's true, so I'm going to say it.
Jesus himself said:"It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, it is what comes out of his mouth, that defiles him-for out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks!"
Now, I am not foolish enough to believe that my position on this issue is a popular one. That is why I have entitled this blog as the new witch hunt. Anyone defending a witch, in the Salem trials was suspected of being a witch themselves. That is why so few tried to save anyone accused. And, that is why you don't hear a lot, or see a lot of individuals standing up and saying leave the smokers alone! Even most smokers themselves will agree that it is an expensive habit, probably not a healthy choice, and they should probably slow down, or even quit, and that's all most will say.They don't tell you that it can be a nice quiet interlude, after a good meal,and can be very relaxing. It gives you something to do with your hands when you are nervous, and having a serious conversation.It doesn't make you sleepy like a tranquilizer, nor does it alter you perception when you are trying to concentrate,but it does have a calming effect.It steadies your nerves, after an emotional or physical blow.Consider the man who reaches for a bottle of scotch at such times. No one blames him for needing a drink, now-a-days,but if that same man lights up! Oh, Horrors! Oh,Yeah. Better he should trouble his kidneys and liver, with booze, than to chance cutting his wind with a cigarette.
And finally.After all this uproar and outrage, vilifying cigarette smoking as being this huge killer, there is one more point I would like to make.What is the big deal? Did you plan to live forever? What is it? You want to live healthy, so you can leave a healthy corpse? No matter what you do, some day your are going to die. It's just a fact of life,so you'd better get used to the idea.So, if the notion that smoking causes you cancer,and you want at all costs to avoid this ending, then by all means, take all the precautions you like,and exercise, eat healthy,and don't drink or smoke. That is your choice, your prerogative. But at the same time, does it make you any healthier to bedevil smokers,and make them miserable, to deny them a pleasure they enjoy and see no harm in? After all, none of us knows what their end will be. You can live a perfectly healthy life,and drop over at a young age from something no one ever suspected you of being at risk for.It happens all the time. A young boy in our area, who never did anything to compromise his health got out of the swimming pool at school recently,and dropped dead, right there, from heart failure.The autopsy showed he had a congenital heart defect that had never been detected when he had his school physical. On the other end of the spectrum, I have known men and women both, who drank heavily, smoked,and ran around, and lived long lives of productive work, retired,and lived to see their grandchildren,and even great grandchildren grow up,and died at a ripe old age, of old age. Look at George Burns, who smoked cigars all his life, and lived to be 100 years old. My point? You just don't know how these things are going to work out. Let's just get off the backs of smokers, leave them alone to live their lives happily. Live,and let live.If drinkers can drink, without being hassled, then it's only fair that smokers should have the same right.
OUI?
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