An editorial in the Rochester Post-Bulletin of Minnesota calls for absolute humiliation and ostracism of smoker pigs, setting the stage for reader comments, which suggest putting the smoker pigs in jail or, better still, simply killing them all.
The editorial decries debate in the Minnesota Legislature on "smoker shacks," suggesting instead removing the theatrical exemption loophole which led to Theatre Night defiance in Minnesota. The editors are apparently unaware that antitobacco is afraid to re-open debate in the legislature. Prohibitionists fear this would invite more exemptions instead of closing the loophole.
More exemptions would surely not please the editors of the Post-Bulletin. They dread even the smoking shacks. At best, they say, these might be amusing, affording a chance to see smoker pigs "drink their beer quickly to keep it from freezing." The laughs would end, however, if the shacks grew to a point of providing genuine shelter from the elements, even seats, or God forbid, adequate heat.
The editors are aghast at the potential for pigs being treated like humans. Smokers must be eradicated. They must be harassed always and everywhere. The progress toward making their lives impossible, intolerable, and a joyous hate-fest for all others, must not be abridged. Safe and healthful barroom boozing by Master Race members, enhanced by the entertainment of seeing smoker pigs outside freezing, not in any "shack, tent, or lean-to," but in the gutter where they belong, is a natural and just prerogative.
The editors know best. The editors represent the Master Race, "we the people," as opposed to the pigs. Freedom, permitting calm tolerance, and choice, makes it "easier for people to smoke." Freedom, calm, tolerance, and choice, must therefore be abolished to the atom: regarding them, of course, never us. We know what justice is. We know how and where to insert it into them.
The editors admit that the smoking ban is killing barrooms but there will still be enough around for them to guzzle at. They state blandly, "we’re convinced that over time, nonsmokers who enjoy a smoke-free environment will help these businesses recover some of those losses." That’s good enough for them if not for the bankrupted.
The editors also opine that smoker pigs, "sooner or later, will opt for good company at their former watering holes over smoking at home, alone." The smokers aren’t just smoking at home alone. The bar owners aren’t just weeping either. They’re organizing to depose fascists and take revenge on them and their supporters.
Reader comments following the editorial are to a great extent appropriately condemnatory of the hate-mongering. The usual semi-literate haters are evident too however (sic):
"Ban smoking completely! OH NO! Now I’ll be lumped with the ‘tyranny of the majority’ again! And I’ll also have to tolerate all of the mindless ‘gee whiz, why don’t you also ban this, than and the other thing too, or it just ain’t fair’ drivel! Drat!"
"I am excited for when insurance companies will refuse coverage and payment on procedures for smokers and people with poor diets. This is already beginning and will become quite common in the coming years. So; to the smokers out there; you might as well quit now before it is really too late for you! It will cost you in more ways than just poor health!"
A reptilian representative of the fanatical American Lung Association also slithers into the conversation to explain that his "science" proves smokers are absolutely irredeemably toxic and shudderingly intolerable anywhere at any time under any and all circumstances. Including every circumstance. In case we missed that.
What a dismal state antitobacco has created. It will take great force to turn this around. As to the "shacks," in point of fact, the Post-Bulletin editors seem as ill-informed as they are on the general legislative situation in Minnesota. If the smoker shacks come to be they will be humiliating tiny affairs with no food or drink service. One of the readers comments regarding the shacks: "Last time I checked about a quarter of this cou[n]try still smokes, why not throw them a bone." Smokers are not dogs deserving doghouses. Antitobacco fascism must be taken down.
We do note appreciatively that most reader comments excoriated this cretinous editorial. Minnesotans take note. We have previously suggested, what with there being no safe level of fascism, a total boycott of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Star-Tribune. Impose the same on the execrable Rochester Post-Bulletin. Help put them out of business. We can follow their hate-mongering online for free for as long as they may be around. If the editors end up living in shacks let’s tear those down, let ’em freeze, and when they start dying enjoy the show and deny them any care.
Keep organizing. Keep fighting. Make the bastards pay dearly in the end.
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