Jeff Wagner's a Pussy

This analogy is getting very lame very quickly:

I personally think that smoking is a bad habit and that the world would be a better place if no one smoked. On the other hand, I like an occasional glass of single malt scotch on a cold winter's night - even though I know herbal tea would be better for me. I like to order a big steak every once in a while even though I know that broiled fish would probably be healthier. I also know that I should probably floss my teeth at least twice a day - even though I don't always find time to do so.

(emphases added)

On a cold winter night I enjoy about 10 glasses of single malt scotch just to forget how fucking bitter the existential hell which is the Wisconsin January is to endure (what is this "tea" Mr. Wagner speaks of?). And fish? The only fish I have every eaten I have captured with my own bare hands, which is to say I have never eaten fish. I just can't stand the thought of digesting an animal that doesn't have a memory ...

The point is this: Wagner's bought into the fallacy that smoking is just like eating or drinking too much. It's not. If I -- or anyone else for that matter -- wants to eat a 79 ounce steak no one else in the world will be any fatter for the decision except for me. The chain of action-leads-to-consequence starts and ends with a single individual. The same is true if I want to guzzle a handle of Popov vodka in a single sitting (so long as I don't get in car afterward) -- the only liver suffering the effects of that decision will be my own.

Smoking doesn't work that way. If you light up in an enclosed space, like a bar, the smoke will expand until it occupies the entire volume of the room. It called Boyle's Law. The people that aren't smoking will have to breathe it in and wear the odor on their clothes, which doesn't happen when someone eats a steak or drinks their oh-so-sophisticated single malt scotch on a cold winter's day.

I am sick and tired of the anti-smoking ban "nanny state" rhetoric. I'm sorry if your mother was an overbearing bitch who made you practice the violin instead of letting you climb trees, but that's between you, The Moms, your therapist, and the Almighty -- stop taking it out on the rest of us.

And while you're at it, stop acting like you're valiantly defending Freedom and Liberty by defending smoking. You don't need to beat your chest over this one, folks -- I'll be happy to accept that your balls are the size of grapefruits on faith. Find another battle to lose because you're not winning any one over with this bullshit.