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Awfully smug, aren't you? So very assured of your own superiority that you feel qualified to sit in judgment of what someone else is doing. Well...bully for you.
"What's wrong with that," could as easily be written as "Why shouldn't someone have the right to do whatever the heck they want, including make poor decisions." Or, would you object to phrasing it that way too because for you, the issue isn't what they're doing so much as your right to feel superior to them.
No, not smug at all, just looking at the issue rationally and dispassionately. I was not questioning anyone's "right to do whatever the heck they want, including make poor decisions". That phrasing is totally different in meaning from your original "What's wrong with that?". I gave the obvious answer to "What's wrong with that?" and you somehow make it into an issue of feeling superior. To imply that there is nothing "wrong" with smoking is simply perposterous and indefensible. Don't you feel morally superior to serial killers? I would hope so, and there is nothing wrong with that, because it would be rooted in rationality, not in an immature emotional need.
To a 13 year old part of it is going against the establishment...they don't think about 5 or 10 or 20 years down the road...they just want to go against what their elder's have passed on to them. It's peer pressure too and a way to fit in. A 13 year old isn't thinking past today or tomorrow or next year and if they have undiagnosed mental cognition or other abnormalities the will is greater to go against norm. As adults that is hard for us to comprehend but if you will put yourself in the shoes of that 13 year old you might understand better. Most smokers I have known started at about that age which is when I started too. Now of course, a 13 year old will have a harder time buying cigarettes than I did when I was 13.
Smokers also don't smell it like non-smokers do either which is probably part of the reason they keep doing it. As a new non-smoker with one in the house, it smells awful but until I gave them up I didn't notice it like I do now.
It seems like smoking is also a habit or activity that is passed down in the family. Most everyone I know that smokes has a parent that smokes. I've seen quite a few young teens smoking with their mom with them as well.
It seems like smoking is also a habit or activity that is passed down in the family. Most everyone I know that smokes has a parent that smokes. I've seen quite a few young teens smoking with their mom with them as well.
Oh, no. There are other habits and activities which can passed down from the parents, such lying, stealing, sexual indiscretions, etc.
In the end, though, we are all responsible for the decisions we make, right, wrong, bad, good or indifferent.
And, in relation to that, here's the thing which irritates me most about these anti-smoking threads: We ALL make good and bad decisions! ALL of us. None are perfect, yet these kind of threads invariably degenerate into a self-righteous exercise in condemning smokers just because they smoke, regardless any other redeeming qualities they may have (if any). It becomes an endless litany of suppositions, accusations, faulty logic, outright lies, speculations, and condemnatory assumptions based upon prejudice. They're all low class, addicts, too dumb not to stop, uneducated fools, not as bright or as knowledgable as we smarter people. It goes on and on and on. You can already see it right here in this thread.
That's why I come into every smoking thread I see. Not because I care whether everyone else likes smokers or not, but I do care when our fellow citizens who happen to indulge are treated like Untermenchen, like they have the plague, as if they aren't good enough for respectable company.
And, I will continue to do so. You may say I've become something of a radical smoker but, in reality, I've become something of a radical defender of justice, right, tolerance and liberty.
In the end, though, we are all responsible for the decisions we make, right, wrong, bad, good or indifferent.
And, in relation to that, here's the thing which irritates me most about these anti-smoking threads: We ALL make good and bad decisions! ALL of us. None are perfect, yet these kind of threads invariably degenerate into a self-righteous exercise in condemning smokers just because they smoke, regardless any other redeeming qualities they may have (if any). It becomes an endless litany of suppositions, accusations, faulty logic, outright lies, speculations, and condemnatory assumptions based upon prejudice. They're all low class, addicts, too dumb not to stop, uneducated fools, not as bright or as knowledgable as we smarter people. It goes on and on and on. You can already see it right here in this thread.
That's why I come into every smoking thread I see. Not because I care whether everyone else likes smokers or not, but I do care when our fellow citizens who happen to indulge are treated like Untermenchen, like they have the plague, as if they aren't good enough for respectable company.
And, I will continue to do so. You may say I've become something of a radical smoker but, in reality, I've become something of a radical defender of justice, right, tolerance and liberty.
Now I understand you better. I see all the baggage of other people's past posts which you brought with you to the reading of my posts and which led you to mis-read them and to impute to me things which I did not say. I could not agree more that all of us have made bad decisions; I have made some horrible ones. Also, I have personally known many extremely intelligent smokers whom I admired greatly; I always regarded their smoking as an unfortunate bad habit picked up in their younger days and which is terribly difficult to kick. And I always sympathized with them about the matter, and felt bad for them.
But when you over-reacted and implied that there is nothing wrong with smoking, I had to part company with you. But you seem to be admitting, rather reluctantly, that starting to smoke is a bad decision. That is our common ground, a place from which we can start together. I regret that so many people apparently get carried away in the other direction and demonize smokers (I do not normally frequent smoking threads). But I am just me, and I cannot curb the excesses of others. Let me just say that I respect your humanity. Peace.
Now I understand you better. I see all the baggage of other people's past posts which you brought with you to the reading of my posts and which led you to mis-read them and to impute to me things which I did not say. I could not agree more that all of us have made bad decisions; I have made some horrible ones. Also, I have personally known many extremely intelligent smokers whom I admired greatly; I always regarded their smoking as an unfortunate bad habit picked up in their younger days and which is terribly difficult to kick. And I always sympathized with them about the matter, and felt bad for them.
But when you over-reacted and implied that there is nothing wrong with smoking, I had to part company with you. But you seem to be admitting, rather reluctantly, that starting to smoke is a bad decision. That is our common ground, a place from which we can start together. I regret that so many people apparently get carried away in the other direction and demonize smokers (I do not normally frequent smoking threads). But I am just me, and I cannot curb the excesses of others. Let me just say that I respect your humanity. Peace.
Thank you. And, I apologize for over-reacting. I suppose that's another one of those bad habits picked up over the years.
I think the entire premise of this thread is false...
Clearly MOST young white women do NOT smoke....that fact isn't even debatable.....
As for the rest of the thread.....There is no need to demonize SMOKERS but there is very good reason to demonize SMOKING.....
Right and I think many, many smokers would demonize the act too. I'm an adult, I make my own choices; good or bad. Unfortunately this is a choice that is usually made by teenagers that don't know any better; so instead of coming in these threads to insult us, get out and educate the youth if you feel that strongly about it. Until you've walked in my shoes you don't know how hard it is for me to quit. Accept that and move on.
I don't see that many women smoking to be honest. Where are you seeing them?
In bars.
Bars are not typical of normal sober human behavior.
Smoking is at 20% or so of the population now. Perhaps lower.
As Branson correctly notes, smoking can often be correlated to social or economic class.
As a former smoker, I can't stand the stink of the stuff and I sincerely hope that all smokers will quit someday. I can smell smoke coming from a car ahead, from someone smoking 50 to 100 feet upwind. Nasty habit. Not to mention expensive.
Sure it helps you lose weight-is a causal factor in lung cancer.
I believe what Gisela was referring to is a general belief that smoking cigarettes is an appetite suppressant. People who believe this are frequently afraid that if they stop smoking, they will gain weight. Whether this is true is debatable.
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