Letter submitted to The New York Times on
September 16, 2001 in
response to the hate article "Smoking
or Non-Smoking?," and ignored by the NYT along with many
other letters of outrage from disgusted citizens
In his Sept. 14th column, "Smoking or Non-Smoking," NY Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman embraces a third party's sick and twisted analogy. He underhandedly delivers a personal prescription to sustain a civil war that takes place right in our own backyard by admiring an equation that likens terrorism to tobacco companies and terrorists to smokers. In one revolting fell swoop Mr. Friedman has reduced one third of those involved in the rescue attempts and one third of those they are desperately seeking to locate to the equivalent of the dirt they are bloodying their hands upon.
I am a NYC Police Officer but have not personally been to "ground zero." In my private time I run a NYC based grassroots smokers' rights group. By the sheer symbolism of the uniform I've worn for 17 years and my personal
strive in defense of civil liberties I feel the need to speak on behalf of all my fellow uniformed officers, police, fire and emergency service personnel alike, in response to this denigrating column.
Mr. Friedman, and anyone who rallied to his side after his opinion made print, doesn't deserve to stand in the presence of the men and women who now selflessly struggle physically and emotionally 12 hours a day to reach
just one of those trapped beneath the very symbol of NYC fortitude. For many their only comfort and momentary relief is a cigarette break. Tobacco hatred has reached its ugly zenith as you've just lumped the living and
the dead heroes in with the terrorists without a second thought. As an active smokers' rights advocate I knew the extent of the blind hatred. Now the whole world knows it too.
America has been attacked because of the freedom it stands for. Mr. Friedman's twisted logic is the antithesis of what we are about to defend in honor of what this great country stands for. Painstaking and deliberate preservation of our civil liberties is our first defense in the face of those who hate what we stand for, yet Mr. Friedman is allowed to print a column that glorifies the anti-smoking movement, fanning the flames of hatred anti-smokers harbor against smokers with his illustrative comparisons and endorsing a movement that seeks to remove the freedoms of one group of American citizens.
Those who will be defending our constitutional rights in the weeks to come will also be smoking cigarettes as a form of comfort. Not for your health, Mr. Friedman but for our health, stay out of the "smoking section" you now associate with evil because it is you and the anti-smoking cartel who are the devils in disguise.
Audrey Silk
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