I believe you are correct ‘MATE’, that the pendulum swings a bit far to the right sometime. As for looking only at the $$ involved with treating medial issues, you could consider that smokers will be canceled out of the equation much earlier and may well consume less costs in the declining years than the nonproductive arses of the nonsmokers.


Your attitude is something that would be welcome by most smokers, WildIrish, and is one that would perhaps allow us to deal with a matter we are much less pleased about ourselves.
I’m pretty sure that the “liberal doses of righteous indignation” are seen to come TO the smoker rather than FROM them. This thread (and others on this topic) attest to the eagerness for the supercilious. I know that I have an innate reaction to arrogant, condescending, pompous, patronizing assholes that I’m working on dealing with in a better manner, but I do think the natural progression is for a target to first become defensive and then aggressive when threatened. It’s a natural human trait to elevate ourselves by promoting the transgressions of others, but I can tell you that the perception of persecution triggers a defensive reaction rather than one of cooperation.

__________________

Those that know me understand that I'm all about sharing this world with others, and that the only way that's going to work is if we all respect each other.

We can agree on a global topic like homelessness and disagree on what to do about it while still being respectul of each other, can't we? Well, actually in the real world, no...we can't, and it saddens me. If we could, we'd have the problem damn near solved.

well once again, I am apart from the ordinary. I am the most earth friendly person I've ever met and I happen to be a smoker as well. I was more disgusted than any other time in my life when I visited OSU campus.

Not only do they have the balls to outlaw smoking everywhere but there's only an ashtray like every 3 blocks!!! Not seriously but all of the smokers I talked to were as disgusted as I am by the lack of cigarette butt recepticles. It's not a choice there, what are we supposed to do stick them in our pockets and throw them away when you get home making your door smell like cigarettes anyway!?!?!

Us smokers have been giving and paying out the ass, all I'm asking is for nonsmokers to be willing to give a little as well.

They should have more so that you can make their door smell like cigarettes then??

__________________

Lixy, I'm glad to hear that you feel that way about cig butts, although I'd say you are the exception rather than the rule. Perhaps the views on cig butts are generally different in your neck of the woods, but in my 'nation of slobs' it seems I'm the only one who actually frowns on it! My next door neighbours are a prime example....their house is always immaculate (much cleaner and tidier than mine) but we share a drain (although it's on my property) and it's always full of cig butts.

I'd like it to be known, just for the record, that I own several ash trays, and that, in fact, when people who are smokers come to my house (which is fairly rare as a lot of my friends are non-smokers these days) I am quite happy for them to smoke inside - mainly because it disrupts the evening if my guest has to keep running to my front door to smoke every few minutes, and there's also a good chance they'd end up letting my kittens escape into the night (they aren't allowed out after dark).

A number of my friends have recently taken up smoking again after years of being non-smokers. I worry for their health and Fussy and I have both noticed that their smoking has a detrimental effect on our social group (there's always a little clique of them outside at a party not socialising with the rest of us, so I only get to spend time with them if I'm willing to freeze my butt off on the door step) but I don't look down on them, or think less of them than I used to. Hell, I daredn't even tell them not to throw cig butts in my flower bed for fear of them feeling unwelcome in my home.

As WildIrish says, it's a case of being polite and being a polite non-smoker is just as important as being a polite smoker.

__________________
"Time flies like an arrow -
Fruit flies like a banana"

M Y - N A U G H T Y - P I C T U R E S ! !

We would do what is called "field stripping" the cigs and put the butts in our pockets/purse/baggie to throw away later... no ashes, no tobacco etc in pockets, just the butts..

__________________
A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults.