From: "Cameron (withheald)"
To: forum@forces.org
Subject: I am pissed off!!!!!!!!!
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:21:52 EST

FORCES:

I saw your website today and I see that you really seem to support smokers and I really appreciate that. My buddies and I have been totally discriminated against because we smoke. Maybe this is like something you are interested in or not, but I thought I would tell you about it.

These two friends of mine and me are seniors in high school and we are all 18. We are in this Media class and we did a group project last week in which we were supposed to do like a video essay about ourselves. The whole purpose according to our teacher was to practice our camera skills and also help everybody in the class to get to know each other and learn about our personalities away from school. Two of my best buddies are in the class with me so we teamed up and last Wednesday we spent like three hours taping each other hanging out at my house just asking each other questions and showing how we spend some of our free time. We had a lot of fun doing it and when we got finished editing it on Tuesday we were pretty proud of it, and thought it turned out pretty good.

Today we showed it in class and everybody else seemed to like it except for the teacher. The whole time she didn't say anything. Then when it was over she totally got on us because it showed us smoking cigarettes as we told about our lives and our thoughts and stuff like that. She said it was inappropriate for us to be smoking in the video. She said something like, it's our business if we wreck our bodies, but it is not something that should be part of a project like this. So she said we had to either re-do it, or get an F for the project. And she was all like, she was doing us a big favor by giving us a chance to do it over. We are really pissed because we spent a lot of time on it and were totally serious about it. We were totally being ourselves, which is what we were supposed to be, but I guess that's not really what she wanted. She just wanted us to be how she think! s we should be. That really sucks! What kind of teacher is that? I am able to accept other people's opinions with no problem usually, but I think she is being totally uncool about it.

I don't understand why some people think it is so bad to smoke cigarettes. My parents both smoke too and they are pretty damn good people. Last May I decided that I really liked to smoke and they had no problem with it, and now it is totally a part of my lifestyle. My buddies are both great guys and we are legal adults now and we are smokers! It's just not right for some people to try to make us feel like shit because of that.

My girlfriend smokes too, and anybody who thinks she isn't a great person, has some serious problems!!!!!

That's what I think anyway.

Your friend and supporter,

Cameron

________________________________________

Dear Cameron,

Antitobacco has become so widespread because it allows people to externalise their lowest instincts, and have a moral and pseudo-scientific reason to do so. This is, of course, is not new. In recent history, it already happened between 1920 and 1940 in America and Europe with Prohibition on one hand and fascist regimes on the other. Both eventually failed, but the price to pay was very high.

Who is your teacher to establish whether smoking on video is "appropriate?!" Of course, this is a rhetorical question, for she simply has the power to force you, and she uses it - and watch out - be grateful that she's giving you a second chance! Isn't that something? Antismoking people, and bigots in general, consider freedom of information, such as a video or a billboard, not to mention personal liberties and the rigor of science, just nasty obstacles when they cannot be used for their agenda. The spirit of those liberties, which did cost millions of lives (and not even computer-generated!), totally eludes them, and they are perceived instead as old, meaningless "regulations" from a time that was "behind" - regulations that one must try to go around with technicalities, to achieve what they have established to be "a greater good". The same applies for scientific disciplines.

Try not to be pissed off - though it ain't easy! Consider those folks for what they really are: people who are sick enough to use force to make the world fit them, for they lack the ability to fit the world. Instead of being pissed off, coldly think of ways to make their lives as miserable as they make yours - the more the better - and to make sure that they know that you are responsible for that, while there is nothing they can do to hit you back. We are sure you can think of tons of ways! It is only fair and, by the way, obtuse people only understand what is forced on them - waste no time in arguing.

It is clear that most of the youth can see through the sickness that has affected our generation. As our cohort, and its obsession with health and bigotry, fades away to make room for yours (thank God!), it is going to be up to you to restore values of personal and institutional freedoms, as well as integrity of science, and to fortify them so that they will be "bigot-proof" for generations to come.

Smoke and enjoy. If that will "wreck" your health, so will almost everything else you'll do in life. Regulation and prohibition are designed to take joy out of life, so you can live longer - or so it's said. Which one would you like better: 70 years of what you like to do, or 100 of what they tell you to do?

God bless your parents for giving you the ability to think on your own.

Take care.

FORCES International