A bit more from yesterday’s Gazette (yesterday’s post), this time from the “Readers’ Voice” segment, featuring small quotes from readers who’ve called in to offer their opinions on various tidbits. Based on the topics covered in the Voice, I’m guessing that something over the weekend put people’s minds on smoking, because that’s what seemed to come up a lot.

What do the Gazette’s readers have to tell us about smoking? Here are a couple of my favorites:

Yes, smokers are stupid. Overall, they are a lower class of people.

That one was just nice, wasn’t it? Gave me the warm fuzzies. I wouldn’t have bothered writing this post at all if it hadn’t been for this comment, which was brought to my attention by my boss as she went out to have a cigarette and noted that, according to this reader of the Gazette, she was a member of a “lower class of people.”

To the smoker in Readers’ Voice who said that the smoke “we put in our bodies . . . is none of your business” is dead wrong. Second hand smoke kills 32,000 non-smokers each year, plus it stinks. Don’t forget the poor taxpayers who pay your medical bills for smoking-related illness.

I’ve never cared much about the smell of cigarette smoke. While I can’t say I like the smell, it does somewhat remind me of my grandmother, so it doesn’t repulse me, either. I’m mostly including this one because no discussion about smoking ever leaves out second-hand smoke. (I’m shocked that they said 32,000 non-smokers instead of digging up the number of children it kills, honestly.)

Last week when my husband and I ate at Cracker Barrel, one of the female employees was taking a smoke break just outside the door, blowing smoke in everyone’s face. I really don’t think this should be allowed.

Honestly, I want to meet this person, because my response was to ask myself, “It shouldn’t be allowed by whom?” Cracker Barrel? I think that’s potentially a fair argument, and I’d fully support this person’s using the market, by walking into the store, asking to see a manager, and informing the manager that they won’t be eating there as long as they allow workers to do that. But if they think that the government should be worried about where someone stands to take their smoke break, I want to smack them with my rolled-up copy of the Gazette and scream “Bad American!” a few times. Am I the only one who wishes that Americans would remember that the country’s single most defining philosophy is a love of liberty?

I’m becoming really irritated with the arrogant smokers that think that watever they put in their body is their business…

I bet you think this person’s going to talk about second hand smoke again, don’t you? Surprise!

…They get sick, they go to the hospital, and my medical insurance premiums go up. Yes, it is my business.

The libertarian in me cringed when I saw the last one. When I read this one, he broke down and cried. Either this person is in absolutely perfect health and never does anything even remotely fun dangerous, or he/she is an idiot hypocrite. Smoking is far from the only optional activity that causes people to go to the hospital. This “medical insurance premiums” justification would give someone the right to stick their nose in people’s business for virtually anything. Extreme sports? Injuries cause you to go to the hospital! Can’t do that! Alcohol? Cirrhosis and drunk driving! Ban them! Sex? STDs and pregnancy are expensive, and really adventurous sex could lead to other sorts of injuries. We should outlaw sex, too. Actually, you know who really drives insurance premiums up? People with chronic illnesses who don’t just tough it out (or people with potentially fatal illnesses, like cancer, that don’t just give up and die)! Those selfish [expletive deleted]!

Finally, a quick quote about something besides smoking:

I left West Virginia in the ’50s because of the lack of job opportunitties. When I returned in the late ’90s there were still no jobs. If coal is so good for West Virginia, as the Massey ads say, then why are we still last in everything?

While I have my theories about why (pay close attention to the very first sentence) the state of West Virginia is last in everything, this one confused me. Is the contention here that West Virginia would really be better off without the 40,000 jobs (source) that the industry brings into the states? The coal industry destroys forests, mountains and natural beauty, according to its most outspoken opponents, but there’s plenty of all three elsewhere in the state. If the coal industry was hurting West Virginia, we’d see more money coming in (from logging or tourists, I guess) in those non-mined areas than we see from the mines, and that’s simply not the case. Can anyone help me understand how, exactly, the coal industry is supposed to have caused us to be last in everything?