Thought Police

They're everywhere. William Saletan has some comments:

But check out Farley's second argument: Kids shouldn't "have to be watching someone smoke." We're no longer talking about breathing even a particle of smoke. We're talking about banning bad habits to prevent cultural contamination. . . .

Why is a huge outdoor smoking ban justified even in the absence of substantiating medical evidence? Because, as one anti-smoking leader tells the Times, "There is no redeeming value in smoking at beaches or parks." That's the bottom line: Any basis for a ban, no matter how slight, is now sufficient, because the value of smoking is zero.

I'm trying to figure out the redeeming value in this kind of neo-Puritanism. As far as I can see, this is the exact left-wing equivalent to David Parker's lawsuit against Massachusetts schools for including same-sex marriage in their health and family classes. No difference.

I find it hard to believe that I'm actually agreeing with Saletan, but I think he's pretty much on point here. In Chicago, when the new anti-smoking ordinance went into effect, Starbucks posted signs in all their outlets (I can't call them "coffee shops") stating that no smoking was allowed on the patio or within fifteen feet of it. I'm waiting for some busybody barista to try to stop me from smoking within fifteen feet of a Starbucks patio. I'll file a complaint for interfering with a public thoroughfare. (The funniest example is the Starbucks at State and Erie, near where I work -- no smoking within fifteen feet of a "patio" that is right on the corner of two major streets, and within twenty feet of a bus stop. Yes, the left has its share of idiots. I'd boycott Starbucks, but I don't patronize them anyway -- the coffee sucks and the atmosphere is, as we used to say in the '70s, "plastic.")

So the left has found a new minority to oppress. I guess it was only a matter of time -- they tend to concentrate on safe targets.

(Full disclosure: Unlike Saletan, I'm a smoker. For reasons of my own, I've cut way down, but every time I see a story like this, I have an overwhelming impulse to light up and blow smoke in some asshole's face.)

Via Sullivan, and I can only echo his conclusion: "Jesus, these busy-bodies need to get a life."

Saletan has a follow-up.