A middle-aged Western journalist living in China decides to do like many, many Chinese men and start smoking. The verdict? "I enjoy it so much that I don't know why I didn't take it up earlier."
Any smokers, or ex-smokers, among the readership? Do you, or did you, enjoy smoking? If so, why? I'm not asking so I can say, "Bad smoker! Bad!" I'm genuinely curious.
Cigar smoking looks like something I would in theory enjoy, but I can't stand the smell, so it's hard for me to imagine that I would take pleasure in it. Ergo, I can't muster any interest in trying it.
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Using the power of the state to stop other peoples vices is pretty much the definition of Puritanical.
No, not really. What is the law itself if not using the power of the state against vice? The "Puritanical" part comes in when the state overreaches, which is a matter of subjective judgment, of course (a Puritan in Boston may be a libertine in Tehran). Or, more cynically, a "Puritan" is someone who wants to use the power of the state to stamp out my preferred vice.
Eric
Fair enough, but there's still a distinction there. In one instance the kid is being exposed in a public classroom while in the other instance it is from their parent. If we are going to apply the same public restrictions we apply to schools to private behavior by parents, then the state has a pretty major opening into all private life. I don't smoke in the car with my kid, but I don't believe it's my business or the governments if someone else does.
Rod
OK, it wouldn't be the first time I've overstated things here, but I also think the vice in question matters too. We aren't exactly talking about opium here. Tobacco use has been widespread in Western society for about 350 years. In my lifetime it has gone from culturally accepted to stigmatized and legally questionable. How is the anti-smoking crusade different from the temperence movement of a century ago?
I go to Europe every couple of years and always have to brace myself to deal philosophically with all the smoking in public places. Of course people have the right to smoke, but the fact is it's unpleasant to have to smell, if not breathe, cigaret smoke as you walk down the street or sit in a stadium. I like to come back to the States where I don't have to worry about it. Good old immature U S of A!
Mrs Pringle
Second-hand cigarette smoke has always made me sick, so I was never tempted to smoke; my wife doesn't smoke either. But my mother-in-law was a smoker when my wife and I met.
A few years ago she had an experience similar to another post above: One day, out of the blue, she started coughing up blood.
She quit smoking that very day, and hasn't smoked for five or six years. I commend this method of quitting to everyone. :)
Oddly, my mother-in-law was the only case I know of where I could stand to be in the same room while she smoked. I think it was because she was very diligent about keeping her ashes ground down; her cigarettes reeked less than most.
Most smokers, of course, don't bother to do _anything_ that would make their noxious habit the slightest bit more bearable to those around them. I've often wondered why, if the U.N. can create countries for people groups, it can't create a country for smokers, where they can practice their nasty habit all they like, far away from the rest of us.
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