CompuServe Messages

I sympathize, but there are odors I find offensive and a few substances to which I have a reaction nearly as bad as you do with cigarette smoke, but I move away and do not go into screaming fits if someone is around with that. I also find a good deal of alcohol consuming types revolting, but I don't snatch drinks from their hands. The price of living in any sort of free society is that some compromise must be found for many things we find disagreeable and a certain level of toleration maintained. If not, then we all get to define our own prohibitions–all 260 million of us–and we wind up in a state of civil chaos. It's precisely the same as defining free speech. Those who would place a limit on free speech when that speech does not infringe on another's equal rights generally have the best of motives, but who gets to draw the line? Free speech does not extend to "Fire!" in a crowded theater because it infringes on a basic right of others to life. But when any subject, no matter how odious, can not be written or spoken, then a line has been drawn and that line, or bar, will be constantly raised until there is no right. By the same token, there are various habits, substances, and behaviors that I find either unpleasant or downright repulsive, but I must accept that to the degree that I can move to avoid them because those same people might have a list of objectionable categories that I might fall under. What we have been talking about is freedoms, compromises, and perspective. The mere consumption of a ham sandwich as a picnic lunch in the park would be both physically revolting and morally repugnant to adherents of several major religions. Do they have the right to ask you to throw it away, or, worse, snatch it from your hands and throw it in the dirt? A British comedian noted that there was an easy way to explain why Europeans thought Americans quite mad. "Hold it, kid! What do you have there?" "A 50mm Uzi, sir, and sixteen magazines of ammo." "Oh! Thank God! For a moment I was afraid it was a carton of cigarettes!"