It Was Never About Bar Workers - Official

I made a bold statement last week about what some of the more gullible amongst us still believe.

If you're a normal, healthy-minded individual, you will be well aware - because it's really not too difficult to spot - that the point of the smoking ban in your particular jurisdiction had nothing to do with saving bar workers from imminent death. [...] The real reason was to make you, and everyone else, stop smoking. Simple as.

I did so with reference to a House of Lords Committee's publication which stated categorically that the measure was part of a policy to "restrict choice".

Just to show that theirs is far from being an isolated opinion, here's European Commissioner for Health John Dalli emphasising it again at the weekend.

Such bans were effective, Mr Dalli said, arguing that at the very basic level they helped undermine the idea of the cigarette as being a social lubricant.

“The fact that you have to interrupt whatever you are doing at an entertainment site and go outside, sometimes in the cold, to smoke a quick cigarette is not very appealing,” Mr Dalli said.

Have a good look if you like, but I saw no mention of bar workers there, nor in the Lords' piece.

It was never about bar workers' health. It was, however, about irritating you until you stop making free personal choices which governments don't approve of.

How dare we object to such policies? We should, instead, of course be bowing down and accepting the decisions politicians have made for us.

By accepting the bullshit that bans are solely imposed to protect bar workers, those who would suspend their belief for selfish ends - I'm being generous in assuming they're not actually stupid enough to think it's true - are tacitly endorsing deceit and mendacity as legitimate means by which to deprive us of our liberties.

And that's why anti-smokers are so very, very obscene.

H/T F2C