Oh, the hysteria people get over smelling a whiff of secondhand smoke. While you walk down a street full of diesel trucks, inhaling microplastics, microwaving your food in plastic, drinking water from plastic bottles, eating processed foods with nitrates, corn sugar soaked in round-up, standing out in the sun, getting body scans and dental X-rays.
You know the only people who got lung cancer from secondhand smoke were people who worked in airplanes and bars and casinos for 20 years and were in condensed, extremely smoky environments day in and day out, right? I smoke. I understand that everything is a cumulative risk factor. The absolute crazy freak-out hysterical reaction people have to cigarette smoke versus all the things I just named is purely a product of decades of expensively paid-for indoctrination. No one in their right mind would argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer, but if you literally think you are being harmed by smelling smoke, you must surely have a problem living in this world without a filter on your face at all times, because there is a lot more poisonous shit you encounter every single day, everywhere you go - and that's if you're lucky enough not to work in a plastics factory or somewhere that makes microwave popcorn.
[edit] While I'm at it, I just want to give a shout-out to all the people I know who heat up teflon pans before cooking in them. Who would never let someone smoke in their kitchen!
> purely a product of decades of expensively paid-for indoctrination
No, it's because being around a smoker is deeply unpleasant.
I'm old enough to remember going out before the indoor smoking ban took effect. The next morning I'd step into the shower and the smell of smoke would fill the bathroom as I washed it out of my hair. I would have a sore throat. It was all absolutely disgusting and we're so much better off where we are today. I'm sorry that your vice of choice is such a gross one.
Being against things like TFA does not mean one is against things like banning indoor smoking. Just like being for alcohol doesn't mean one wants to legalize drunk driving.
> No, it's because being around a smoker is deeply unpleasant.
Being around anyone who's disrespecting your own preferences sucks. There are two useful things to do and one antisocial thing to do in that scenario.
Useful: Don't go there, or ask someone near you to be considerate.
Antisocial: Hide and wait for the government to ban people doing it, until some theoretical future day where you feel comfortable being in a public space around people who may make you uncomfortable.
I'm a very considerate smoker. I'd never smoke by someone who was bothered by it. It truly pisses me off when smokers are inconsiderate.
On the other hand, shaping other people's behavior to your liking strikes me as sociopathic. Using the government to do so strikes me as spineless. If I'm going into their happy space, to a yoga retreat or an orgy or a wedding, I have to accept that they will do lots of things I might not enjoy. The difference is that I don't have a sense of superiority because I lack their mental flaws and sociopathic addictions to whatever they believe, but they have that sense of superiority in judging mine. And only because they have safety in numbers, which makes it even more pathetic.
This is also how I feel being an all night coder. Everyone is fine with making noise during the day and waking me up, because that's "normal" and my schedule isn't. But if I feel like playing piano at 4am, that is a problem, even if the asshole next door takes out his lawnmower at 7am. This is a division between people who want to be nice to each other, and respectful, versus those who think there is a single correct way to live and that anyone deviating from it doesn't deserve equal respect.
"Live and let live" seems to have lost its currency among the hysteria of everyone who righteously disapproves of other people's behavior. Not everywhere in the world needs to be safe for someone's individual bundle of neuroses. What's unfortunate is that we can't rely on individuals respecting other individuals now, so via the government the most repressive scenario presented by the least imaginative party in each case largerly wins. Everyone who wants to ban someone else's behavior should have the opportunity to have one of their own banned as well, to understand this phenomenon. But the safety in numbers overrides this. Which is also to say that the mass of humans are conformist cowards.
You know the only people who got lung cancer from secondhand smoke were people who worked in airplanes and bars and casinos for 20 years and were in condensed, extremely smoky environments day in and day out, right? I smoke. I understand that everything is a cumulative risk factor. The absolute crazy freak-out hysterical reaction people have to cigarette smoke versus all the things I just named is purely a product of decades of expensively paid-for indoctrination. No one in their right mind would argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer, but if you literally think you are being harmed by smelling smoke, you must surely have a problem living in this world without a filter on your face at all times, because there is a lot more poisonous shit you encounter every single day, everywhere you go - and that's if you're lucky enough not to work in a plastics factory or somewhere that makes microwave popcorn.
[edit] While I'm at it, I just want to give a shout-out to all the people I know who heat up teflon pans before cooking in them. Who would never let someone smoke in their kitchen!