Filth column: the politics of hate
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 The film director James Cameron, criticised for allowing a character to smoke in his blockbuster Avatar, defended himself by saying that he knows that smoking is a ‘filthy habit’ – he just doesn’t think he should be forbidden to show it.
"Thanks, James. With friends like you, who needs enemies?" So says musician Joe Jackson in his latest article for The Free Society website, published today. Joe writes:
I took a shower this morning and put on clean clothes. My teeth are brushed and my nails manicured. Can anyone tell me – I mean, in a reasoned, logical way – why I am so ‘filthy’ for smoking tobacco?
Is ‘filth’ a kind of euphemism, by which some people mean that that smoking is aesthetically unpleasant to them? If so, it’s purely a matter of taste, and to insult people just because you don’t share their pleasure is just plain rude.
Personally, I can’t stand dogs – I’m allergic to them, and think they’re smelly. But I can see that many people love them, so I bite my tongue and try to be tolerant. I certainly don’t want the government banning dogs from every pub in the land.
Living in the UK today, Joe concludes, is a bit like being back at school:
Rules and regulations, bullying and humiliation. Except that this is a school in which the teachers actually encourage the bullies to beat up the fat kids, or the kids who don’t like sports, or the kids who don’t like the food ...
One thing’s for sure: so much meanness, intolerance, divisiveness and hate must inevitably provoke a backlash. I can’t wait.
Full article HERE.
Reader Comments (15)
Can we ban people who come to work reeking of garlic please? Often these garlic-munchers are the worst kind of anti-smoking nuts, yet they are the ones who stink!
To be honest I think this has been blown out of proportion. The term 'filthy habit' is so widely used, by smokers as well as non-smokers, it's hardly worth considering it an insult when somebody says it in a passing comment. That's my opinion at least, don't be so touchy.
Personally I think whistling is a filthy habit, especially in confined places. Why this horrible, tuneless whistlers think that they have the right to impose their revolting noise on passers-by is beyond me. They should have their lips sewn up.
I agree with JJ. I personally prefer smoke smells than the usual smells of people in buses, subway or cars smoke or pollution. I like when I am walking in the streets and someone pass smoking. I think this lawas are only a way of testing peoples submission, like regulations on airports control. A way for people becomes habituated to repression. And another symptom of the culture of lies
The health official who Joe Jackson mentions in his article, states that "Smoking was like spitting in public, something self-evidently disgusting and uncivilised, and when it's finally wiped out, we will all look back and marvel that anyone ever did it at all"
I agree with him about spitting, as we all know that spitting up phlegm from the depths of one's stomach and lungs, spreads diseases. It is undeniably disgusting and uncivilised, so why haven't we heard of some sort of campaign to eradicate this disgusting habit? Even spitting out chewing gum causes the same problems, so again, why do we not educate our children (and adults) as to the filthy dangers of this disgusting habit?
The simple reason is that governments have not yet found a way of making money out of real health education, so it isn't worth their while bothering.
Over a year ago, I suggested government should legislate to force tobacco companies to take all harmful carcinogens out of tobacco products, and this can be easily achieved, as Philip Morris did experiment with it and found it could be done. I eventually got an answer from Gordon Brown, saying in his usual inimitable mixed up way, that it was not in the public interest to take something like this forward, so the government would not become involved in such an idea.
Not in the public interest? But I thought the health of the general public was very much in the public interest, at least that is what the government tells us when trying to sell us their packs of lies, which incidentally I think should be banned from public display in the same manner they are proposing tobacco products should be.
As we all know, one could go on all day about subjects like this, but where do you stop and where do you finish?
Joe Jackson ends by saying "in today's Britain, we must ban not only anything which might theoretically cause harm, but also anything which might somewhere, some time, cause offence"
Not quite true Joe, because this government and all the other left wing nanny governments around the world, are causing great offence to me and millions of others, so why are we sill letting them rule us, why aren't we banning them?
How I agree with Governments causing offence to me. Is it not about time that Government and local councils realised that they are not our masters, they are our servants!
Having loved in Greece, with all its financial worries, for the last six months (and thankfully returning there tomorrow) I hve come to the realisation that conditions in this country are rapidly deteriorating and if I stayed here I would be sure to get myself into some form of trouble as I raged against the petty restrictions that are now becoming the norm.
How on earth did we ever survive without Health and Safety? Why does the Government insist on 'buzz' words like smoking, alcohol, speed to lead their campaigns against the unfortunately usually silent majority.
I'm going back to Rhodes where our smoking ban, which began last July, lasted about three days before the ashtrays re-appeared!
My heart sinks Martin, when I read posts such as yours, where you state the facts we all know and have to live with, and how you are "going to a nicer place". How I wish I could do the same, but I do have a lot of family comittments and the only way I could ever do what you are doing, is to take all my family with me, which is impossible.
So here I am, like so many others in the rotten country, trapped and trampled on by this stinking government.
I have even just learned that what is left of my business, after Labour have decimated most of it with their unjust taxes, is now due to finish as well, as Spain's left wing government are about to bring in the same smoking restrictions there as we have been subected to here. My business "was" property rentals and sales in Spain, can you imagine trying to sell Spain now, as the country of Freedom?
I feel like saying "I give up" but I mustn't, none of us must give up, if not for our own sakes, then for the sakes of our children and their freedoms, which are being eroded on a daily basis by left wing governments around the globe.
It will not end untill the Left wing governments bankrupt there own states.
Probably with unsestainable green policy.
The sheeple only riot when hungry.
The NHS actively, and quite rightly, promotes extra health care for people who have chosen a gay lifestyle. Such people are never accused of having a "filthy habit" - again, rightly. So why us?
I have been against the bans from the beginning as a musician as there are less venues to play, especially if you are more of a local or regional artist playing clubs. Anyone that thinks otherwise, is not in the business or is in denial.
My heart sinks even further when I see the lead story in today's Mail, concerning my bete noir Sir Liam 'My God someone sneezed we're all going to die in a terrible flu outbreak' Donaldson. His latest suggestion is compulsory fitness tests for schoolchildren and strong warning letters to the parents of those considered unfit. Apparently obesity costs the NHS more than smoking - isn't it funny how that little fact has just emerged? Obviously he feels that he has triumphedover smokers so now he he turns his undoubted skills of exaggeration and statistic juggling to overeating and lack of exercise. One of the main reasons possibly for this concern was the habit of selling off as many schoolplaying fields as possible a few years ago and this fixation that competitive sport was bad for children. No sport is possibly far worse.
I agree with everything said in the main post. I am sick of being persecuted/bullied for being a smoker by the self righteous yoghurt weavers.
The government is trying to stop me smoking, which means that they don't need my massive tax contricution I pay on tobacco. That's fine, I will remove that contribution by buying duty frees/counterfiet/smuggled tobacco wherever I can.
If more people did this, the government might think again? But knowing them, they would prefer to cut their nose off to spite their face.
Well sod you nanny state, you ain't gonna stop me, nor are you gonna profit from me.
JazzBlues Musician: I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a singer/musician over in the States and I know exactly what you are talking about. There are indeed less venues to play at now, largely due to the anti-smoking inquisition. In addition to that, many venues now want up and coming bands and artists to have a pre-existing audience, which spells disaster for many new artists who quite obviously have to be exposed to an audience before acquiring a dedicated one..Why are so many clubs like this now? We know the truth.
Joe: I'm waiting for the backlash too:-)
JazzBlues Musician and jredheadgirl: too true. I stood in on bass for a band playing a Working Men's Club in Surrey in May 2008, and there were about 20 people there. The other members of the band (all non-smokers) said "We can't understand it. We played this place a year ago and it was packed to the rafters!"
I tried to explain it to them, but of course nobody even knew what I was talking about.
Martin,
I will be in Trianda at the end of July. Will you still be there then?