No smokers need apply. Who’s next?

A BUSINESSMAN recently declared his hatred of smoking and justified his ‘No smokers need apply’ advertisement for a job in his company by claiming smokers were not intelligent enough to meet his standards.

He was afforded time on national radio to vilify and insult this group of people and encourage other businesses to follow his example by not employing smokers.

Had he singled out some other group for this kind of discrimination and attack, such as gays, lesbians, immigrants, Irish speakers, or left-handed hurlers for that matter, the outcry from politicians, trade unions and media would have been deafening.

However, defending smokers against discrimination is not trendy in the ‘PC’ world — hence the deafening silence from the nation’s custodians of civil liberties

Were Albert Einstein still alive, he would have fallen foul of our businessman’s contempt.

Einstein, one of the greatest of all geniuses, loved tobacco and was a member of the Montreal Pipesmokers’ Club.

Obviously he would have fallen very short of this businessman’s intelligence requirements.

Just what has been learnt from the struggles of the past century against tyrannical oppression and prejudice if, at the beginning of this century, we now find a new group of people to marginalise, ostracise and bully into submission for ‘the greater good’.

How easily those who trumpet the values of liberal democracy and the rights of the individual are seduced by the new wave of world health oppression and its associated propaganda.

Any society that can kick the elderly on to the streets with the smug glee that accompanied the smoking ban is heading in a very dangerous direction.

The issues go beyond smoking.

If that ban is tolerated, then who will be next? Drinkers? Gamblers?

Heil Health!

John Daly

Bernard Place

Waterford

www.sadireland.com