🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ij7gm$2t0@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca> af329@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) writes:
  
  John McCarthy (jmc@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
  : There are good arguments against smoking, but the anti-smoking
  : movement has acquired strong elements of a persecution and attracts
  : people with inclinations to persecute other people.
  
    What forms of persecution are you referring to Mr. McCarthy?  
  Persecution in the form of not being forced to consume the smoke created 
  by others?  The persecution of having their stay in the hospital partly 
  paid by non-smokers?
  
    You realize Mr. McCarthy that if your words create an environment in 
  which more people are prompted to smoke, then by your own <logic>, and in 
  your case I use the term with reservation, you will have to consider 
  yourself guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and/or murder.
  
    I would hate to think that you have one set of rules for yourself and 
  another for others.
  
A good point.  I did think quite a while before making
anti-anti-smoking pronouncements.  My opinion is that the danger from
self-righteousness is larger than the danger from smoking, but there
is also a simple desire to speak what I see as the truth about a
psychological characteristic of a part of the anti-smoking movement.

The persecution of not allowing any restaurants in Palo Alto to allow
smoking.  You could require such a restaurant to display a sign with
a warning on it.

-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/