This is a bit of a carpet bomb on the subject. You can't hate the people but you certainly hate what they do. There's certainly enough reason to justify doing so. Smokers really need to take a step back from their pasttime and look at it in the context of the world, environment and the people around them, the majority of which do not smoke.
Look it's simple - smoking is a personal pasttime and as such other people should be able to ask smokers, when in public, to moderate themselves. Unlike reading a book, smoking has an area of affect. Many smokers will argue that the harm of passive smoking is 'unproven', but that is beside the point. Passive smoking certainly is not comfortable and making others endure it is certainly not considerate.
The standard response to this, that I get from smokers, is that it is 'equally inconsiderate' to infringe on their right to smoke. The thing is, I am not infringing on their right to smoke. They still have that right and are free to use it. However, just as we have a right to do a great many things but not in public or particular contexts, so too must it be with smoking.
It is illogical and downright stupid to impose a cut off before complaints or requests to stop are allowed. By cut off I mean the assertion that passive smoking must be 'proven' harmful or otherwise it's 'okay'. People have a right to smoke just as they have a right not to. People also have a right not be affected by other people's personal habits or pasttimes, within reason of course.
Many smokers have said to me that such complaints are hypocritical because those same people do not complain about car exhausts. That is a severe logical flaw. Cars are part of our society and are integral to its proper function. And yet of course people complain about exhaust fumes, but not much can be done about it directly. And it is against the law to drive a car that does not comply with regulations pertaining to air pollution.
There are laws pertaining to air and water pollution and laws pertaining to sound pollution. There are legal avenues for people who feel that their personal boundries in public are not being respected. If smoking were not an entirely personal and private and what's more, optional act; and smoke from the cigarettes did not cause surrounding people physical discomfort; I'm sure there'd be no debate. Smoke all you like.
Sadly, a great many smokers in the country I live in, partake in their habit in ways quite disrespectful of others and the environment. The footpaths are covered in butts, yet I'm certain many of those same smokers would balk if they saw somebody throw a can on the ground. I've seen smokers light up in the middle of a queue for a bus, right next to children and the elderly. Smokers amble down the streets leaving noxious clouds in their wake.
They appear to live in a world in which they are the centre, and they then get upset when other people say that 'NO', that world does not exist. Smokers take the entire act of smoking, and all that it entails, for granted. For them, I'm sure, being stuck in a small room full of smoke, or in a queue stuck in a cloud of smoke, is A-OKAY. Of course! They smoke! A majority of people do not, however, and it is unfair and plainly selfish to demand that they endure the by-product of other people's personal and private act.
Now, I'm bracing for a savage reprisals from smokers who'll skip through all I've said and only take from it that I 'must be' a person of incredibly arrogance, desiring to take away their rights. As per usual, I'll be lectured in all manner of Ad Hominem and Reductio ad Absurdum attacks. Usually, I'll be hit with something like, 'well what if you see a girl wearing a mini skirt and you are greatly offended - would you ask her to change it?' To that I would say no, I wouldn't. Obviously there are limits. If her mini skirt was covered in offensive language or imagery, then yes, I'd have grounds to complain. If she was dressed that way in a context in which such clothes were inappropriate, I'd also have grounds. The fact is however, to split hairs over these hypotheticals is absurd when clearly, its only purpose is to avoid discussion on the real issue.
