Annexation from Society

Achtung! (That means Warning! but with different letters): This post contains somewhat bigotous, perhaps controversial topics. If you don't realize what I'm all about, then please GOSUB 500.

There was once a time when smokers were the creamiest of the crop. All of the coolest cats could be found with a pack of Luckies rolled up in their t-shirt, straddling a steel hog and with the thin yellowed fingers of their smoking mistresses wrapped around them, inhale nicotine all through the world.

Smoking was not only cool, it was healthy for you. Don't believe me? I don't care, it's true. It was previously legal to smoke in hospitals, colleges, even on airplanes. Can you imagine? I can.

But now we, as smokers, have been thrust into the shadows and corners and frigid outside climes of the American landscape. Even those once sacred smoking ground, the pubs, bars and dives of every seedy back alley establishment, have been over run. Who wants to live in a New York City that makes you stand outside to smoke? "Not I," I said.

And why are smokers hated so much? Because we exude a smell that clings to your hair and doesn't let go short of a shaving? Because we get sick and die in record numbers and everyone else has to pay for the health insurance premium hikes? Or is it because our dreaded second hand smoke means that we're not only killing ourselves, but anyone around us?

Bullshit. Big fucking time, bullshit.

In America, obesity is as big a problem or bigger than smoking. 60% of people in America are overweight. I have no idea what the percentage of people in America smoke, but I'm sure as hell it isn't 60%. So why don't we force obese people to eat outside, to sit in small sections away from the band, or to go huddle in a corner in the freezing middle of winter to enjoy their food?

"Because smoking is a disgusting, filthy habit." Well I disagree. And in turn, I find fingers dripping with salt and grease disgusting.

"Because obesity doesn't have an effect on my health insurance." Anything that puts people in the hospital or sends them to a doctor has an effect on your health insurance.

"Well, fine, but obesity doesn't have a 'second hand smoke.' No, not unless you consider that as long as Americans keep eating like maniacs, and supporting fast food and TV dinners, and not demanding that companies stop stuffing every box with transfats just so they can have a shelf life of 20 years, then food makers will have no incentive to make healthier foods. And sure, you can always go to Whole Foods or the like and buy healthy foods, but at a premium. If we as Americans said "Okay, I'm only buying healthy food." and stuck to that then the Nabiscos and Krafts would be forced to improve their everyday products, not just introduce Healthy brand alternatives. So in this way, there is a contribution to your health. Unless we all choose to be healthy, someone is always going to lose out.

"Well, you can quit smoking, you can't always lose weight." I wholeheartedly agree, and that's why I can distinguish between those people who have diabetes or some other disease that causes them to be overweight, which is the sad part about me writing this, that perhaps someone might confuse the issues here. However, it is no harder to lose weight than it is to quit smoking. Both are major oral fixations and both require a lifelong struggle to overcome.

I suppose it is a case of majority rules, however, and as long as smokers are in the minority and made to feel like criminals while the overweight population is a good majority and allowed to feel like victims, nothing can change.

Now it should be noted that I don't actually think that overweight people should be subjected to such heinous acts as shoving them outdoors or forcing them to be on a separate healthcare plan. It's just a fucked up double standard and you non-smokers should thank us yellow-teeths for enduring it so kindly for you.


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