Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Ban Everything

The Lode website is up and running again, but for some reason all the articles are from about a month ago. Newpapers aren't terribly good at being up to date, but this is a mite ridiculous.

Anyway, this is a bit unfortunate because once again something I wrote drew a reaction from the ordinarily sleepy Tech crowd, and, without a link, I will be unable to replicate the fellow's comments in total.

Briefly, he took issue with my assertion that secondhand smoking is not to be feared and certainly not to be made illegal. The brunt of his piece highlighted various statistics which, apparently, prove that secondhand smoke is deadly and something one must avoid on pain of, well, death I suppose.

I do not doubt the validity of the statistics, though I am fairly certain that they have been manipulated in such a manner as to impress most fantastic and ominous visions upon the nervous reader. I will readily grant that, given a choice between clean air and air which is infused with cigarette smoke, only a fool would prefer the latter. The issue is not, as is commonly thought, whether or not secondhand smoke is dangerous. The questions are: How dangerous is it--and what extent of it is considered to be substantially dangerous; and is it possible to avoid this assumed danger without resorting to meddlesome laws?

Puritan proponents are hesitant to answer these questions for the same reason I am hesitant, namely, an honest ignorance of the specifics of the case at hand. But we can determine, from their behavioir and their boisterous proclamations, how they would answer these questions if pressed.

Anti-smoking zealots evidently believe: 1) secondhand smoke is so dangerous that it must be banned; 2) any amount of secondhand smoke is dangerous enough to merit the ban; and 3) secondhand smoke cannot be avoided. When put succinctly, the advocation of smoking bans becomes preposterous--which it is--and we need only examine the three implicit replies to get to the heart of the folly behind all the silly crusading aimed at doing away with secondhand smoke.

If secondhand smoke were only a nuisance, it would need not be banned. But it is so toxic, so onerous, so deadly, that bar patrons must be saved from themselves and cannot be allowed, under any circumstances, to be near anyone who smokes.

Further, we cannot assume that patrons can indulge in such paltry doses of secondhand smoke that they will suffer no harm. This is an especially curious point, but it is not in the least surprising. That it is entirely possible for a man who does not smoke and a man who does smoke to enjoy a drink together at a bar is beyond consideration. The non-smoker is suffering for every moment he spends with his deplorable companion. We must cease his suffering by making his friend suffer--whether this suffering will in turn make the non-smoker suffer is an insufferable question as it is surely impossible for a non-smoker to ever care for one who cares for tobacco.

Lastly, as is implicit in any form of puritanism, we cannot allow any men to think for themselves. No one ever says this, of course, but it can be readily inferred. If a man can prevent himself from pelting his lungs with secondhand smoke, which he assuredly can, but he will not be allowed to do so, it is only because whomever it is that makes the laws says that he can not. And as he is capable of choosing, it must be that he is too stupid to choose rightly.

But there is another point to all this nonsense about secondhand smoke. If secondhand smoke is all that we have previously said that it is--a point I am not willing to concede--what on earth are we to think of firsthand smoke? If an hour spent in a smoke filled tavern is enough to give a man cancer, a solitary cigarette, inhaled firsthand, must do all the more. And if a solitary cigarette, what of a pack, or, heaven forbid, the packs and packs a smoker may use in the course of his lifetime? In short, if secondhand smoke is so perilous, why not simply ban smoking altogether?

My rejoinder is easily concocted. Tobacco, in and of itself, is not evil; no created thing is. That it can be abused is only admitting that it exists. I do not propose that man only be allowed to use things which cannot be abused because there are, to my knowledge, no such things. And if a world were comprised of only those things which are, if not wholly good, at least unlikely to be used for ill, I would think it a terribly boring world. For one thing, it wouldn't have any people.

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