Thought police visible through tobacco haze
While initially I was disappointed that he did not allocate a special phone number for us to report our associates, friends and family who transgress his law, many years spent in California have taught me that right thinking people will not fail to call the local police to ensure compliance.
How trite the comments of former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani when he is reported to have stated: “Democracy is about accommodating difference, not about imposing majority rules.” And how marvellous that contained criminals should still be allowed to smoke.
Of course we do not want people who have nothing to lose rioting and possibly killing off police officials who will be so much in demand working with the OTC.
I believe that people who are medically incarcerated should be restrained from the habit because, if they revolt and kill their nurses and doctors, this will reduce medical costs considerably. Smoke detectors? Now there’s a novel idea.
Why not install them in all public places and have them modified automatically to call the police and print out a citation?
With the extended use of cell phones, surely this should not be a problem.
But there is going to be a major problem with the considerable loss of revenue that will result from the ban on tobacco. (We can ignore all the pubs, restaurants and hotel losses, as Mr Martin has assured us this will not occur.) But what if he is wrong?
We could also lose much of the ‘sin tax’ on booze, but I’m sure we can substitute new taxes. I am sure that non-smokers will be only too happy to pay them to compensate the state for its loss.
We could also extend the definition of the OTC to cover ‘The Office of Thought Control.’
This would deal with a lot of those malcontents who wrongly believe that we can only have rights as long as we are willing to accept the rights of others.
Rick Delahunty,
Coorogurm,
Mitchelstown,
Co Cork.
