perfidy

I'm back. 

So, speaking of New England, Boston has now banned public smoking. New York City has already done so, and a movement is underway in Chicago that will most likely result in a public smoking ban here as well. Everyone is taking their cues from California on this one. 

So people in those cities, working in the food and drink service industry, will no longer be exposed to the risks of second-hand smoke. While that's certainly understandable as the impetus behind smoking bans, in the bigger picture, there are a couple of other motives behind it.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth century, reform movements sought to legislate their vision of morality and impose it on everyone else. In both cases, it was drinking that was evil. Now moderate drinking is good for you. While it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the medical profession will ever outline the benefits of moderate smoking (because there are none), these smoking bans do have a certain amount of moral legislation behind them. While providing service employees with smoke-free work environments is fine, moral legislation is dodgy at best. So what's next in this new reform movement? 

My guess is that the new reform movement will center less on the legislation of morality, despite such legislation as a component of the smoking bans, and more on trying to protect people from their own stupidity and errors in judgement. A total ban on smoking has been on the minds of reformers since the early Nineties, and they're sort of accepting a compromise on the public smoking bans. But to protect us from ourselves, galvanized by public smoking ban victories, reformers will demand that smoking anywhere be legislated out of existence. Soon, in their zeal to protect us from our own dumb-assedness, helmets will be required for motorists as well as cyclists. We will have to wear helmets while driving, riding a bus, or crossing a busy city street. Those who do not wear helmets will be fined. 

Since most accidents occur in the home, we will have to wear helmets while preparing dinner. Adult-gates, a version of baby-gates, will be used to separate us from such hazards as bathtubs and pesky formica floors. When we have to shower or stand on kitchen formica, we will have to wear helmets. Activity will be monitored by cameras in the home. 

Red meat will be banned, along with anything that tastes good. We will become a society of non-smoking, non-red meat eating, non-barbecueing (causes cancer too), non-potato-eating (also a carcinogenic substance, apparently), moderate drinkers who must wear helmets while performing ordinary daily tasks. People who might be terrorists will have to sew a crescent onto their clothing, until they can be herded into camps, where they cannot hurt the helmet-clad peoples of America. 

Smoking will of course be permitted in the concentration camps. But just to be on the safe-side, SARS infected blankets will be issued. It's all to keep America safe and wearing their helmets.