There is a disturbing trend that's been growing and growing and growing, so much that it's grown to near epidemic levels. Tell me if this sounds familiar:
"Boy I love this country! We're the melting pot of the world, giving us such a wonderful mixture of cultures, preferences, foods, drinks, games, toys, personalities, shoes, styles and languages. More than anything, I love that I am free to be me, along with everybody else!"
Notice anything askew in that paragraph? No? Read it again, and pay more attention this time to the last sentence. I can wait...
We have reached a point in this country where the prevalent stance toward diversity is "everybody is free to be me." NOT themselves! The issue that's gotten me riled up this time round happens to be smoking. Look at the facts:
- inhaling smoke of any kind is toxic
- when not used to it, cigarette smoke smells disgusting
- smoking can adversely affect one's health
- smoking can be extremely irritating to non-smokers
- smoking is nasty
- smoking is legal
That's right…it's LEGAL people! I don't care how much you may hate it; the fact is that it is legal. Let me explain why this is getting my no-frills black boxer briefs from H&M in such a twist…
As a society, we have begun defining "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as broadly as it ever has been defined. It used to mean that we are free to pursue what we wish, how we wish, provided of course that we aren't hurting or holding down anyone else. Great! That's how life should be! Do what you like, do what you love, just don't mess with anyone else's life! These days though, it's beginning to get more of a "you have no right to do anything that I don't like" sorta feel to it. What the fuck?? Where did this ideology come from?? People seem to think these days that if they don't like something, they have every right never to be exposed to it. "I don't like cigarette smoke, ergo, vis-à-vis, concordantly, you have no right to expose ME to it!!" To expose YOU?? Listen, I smoke occasionally. Not real often, but sometimes it just feels too damn good to pass up. Yeah, I will acknowledge that it's nasty, disgusting, and terrible for both my breath and my health. If you don't like it, DON'T STAND NEXT TO ME GOD DAMNIT!! It's a free country, which does NOT mean that you get to stand your ass comfortably anywhere you damn well feel like. It means that, if something is bothering you, you have every right to LEAVE. Living here does not mean that you get to have everything smell like motherfuckin' roses all the god damned time.
The entire idea behind a "free country" is to provide a society where everybody can feel free to live their lives as they wish. If somebody wants to destroy their body, that is their business, not yours. Yes, I understand that secondhand smoke is not healthy, but unless somebody is holding you down and blowing it in your face, shut up. In other words, as long as you have the ability to remove yourself from a situation that upsets you, there is no reason for you to bitch to me or anyone else. Of course, this requires that you let go of the pride that has been instilled within your blackened soul. This requires that you not think along the lines of "well why should I have to leave? Why don't YOU leave?" I will tell you why: because I am doing nothing illegal. If that means you can’t go to restaurants because they allow smoking and you can't stand to be near it, well it sucks to be you, but that's the way it is.
What's that? "It's not fair" you say? It's not up to me to say whether it is or is not fair – I won't presume to make a call like that – but who ever said life, or this country, is fair? There's a reason it doesn't read "life, liberty and the pursuit of fairness." Shit isn't fair, deal with it or move to a communist state where the ideal is for every person to receive the exact same fucking thing…no more, no less. That's fair.
But it's not free. If you truly want to live in a free country, there always will be haves and have-nots. There will be people with more, and people with less. Most importantly though, there will be so much shit that you cannot stand that it'll make your ears blue and your blood boil. And that's the tricky part about living as we live: learning to put up and deal with everything that we disagree with that we allow everyone to do, regardless of whether that disagreement be based on physical issues, ideological issues, child-rearing issues, or issues violating your own personal fundamental philosophies. I can't ever recall anybody warning us how hard it would be, but conversely nobody ever said that living free was easy either.
I love my country, I really do, but we Americans have to ditch this arrogant, indignant feeling of entitlement to be exposed only to what we want and are comfortable with, and nothing else. If we succeed in legislating preference, we are going to end up as one massive country of clones, and lose all of that wonderful (albeit sometimes infuriating) diversity that we cherish so dearly.
Freedom is uncomfortable...get used to it.
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