The New Niggers

I drafted this a couple of days ago but was going to bin it. However, after reading this comment from Leg Iron on, err, Leg Iron's blog, I've had second thoughts.

The recategorisation of smokers as subhuman meant that many had accepted their role as some sort of smoking animal rather than a real human who happened to like a smoke.

As the push has continued, these worms have started to turn. Okay, you can fool them that teh smoking ban in pubs was 'to protect non-smokers' but banning it outside? Banning it in the smoker's own home? That is not about protecting anyone, it's simple thuggery.

So, to continue on that theme ...

{cut to dream sequence}

This article from California says a lot.

Starting Monday, Starbucks customers are welcome to sit outside and sip a while — as long as they don't light up. The international coffee giant is extending its ban on indoor smoking to outdoor patios and dining areas in California.

It says a lot for three reasons. I'll bullet them.

• That, as the comments to the article show, there are quite a lot of retarded Americans.
• That state-ordered smoking bans were not necessary. If the free market wishes them, they will happen.
• And, most importantly, that smokers are now the new niggers.

Whoa, Dick, I can hear you shout. The new niggers? A bit of a hefty one that, isn't it?

Not really, no. You see, the rights of smokers to smoke in the open air, where no health risk exists, or will EVER exist, is being banned because non-smoking customers don't like it. Not very different from one set of customers being prejudiced against another in any other category. Yes, it's a private business and they are entitled to do as they choose, but can anyone truly insist that outdoor bans would have occurred without the avalanche of anti-smoker sentiment promoted by governments? And without the reciprocal right of the business owner to cater for their smoking customers, this is one way traffic. The kaffir-isation of smokers.

Not convinced, I see. OK. Then let's pop over the Irish Sea and take another example from someone who remembers the unenlightened "No gays, No Irish" past.

We decided to bring Sandy with us on holidays this year.

Virtually every single advertisement clearly stated “no smokers”. Some even went so far as to capitalise it. “NO SMOKERS”.

Smokers are now perceived as a sub-species that shouldn’t be allowed into any decent establishment We are the new pariahs, the new outcasts that taint any decent respectable society.

They don’t refuse holidays to alcoholics, the obese, paeophiles, politicians or even people from Cavan. Anybody is allowed except smokers.

Remember that neither of the above is sanctioned by legislation. But also, neither is rooted in any semblance of threat or danger. Further, neither measure is protected against prejudice by the relevant state, in fact there would most likely be approval.

The same governments which righteously condemned apartheid - and gloried in its dismantling - are now silent as their actions, based on no science whatsoever, have created an entirely new hatred.

Smokers are the new niggers, and the state is wholly responsible for making them so.

It was never about health. Oh yeah, and diversity my arse.