Monday 4 October 2010

For the Cheeldren.

I don't like children. Nasty, horrible, fast-moving and unpredictable things. If you have children and adore them, and are offended by my attitude, all I can say is... I don't like them. Adore them all you want but don't expect me to. I won't damage them, I just want them not to be in my way.

If you are an antismoker with children, it's a little different. You will train them to Be Superior and to tell me off for smoking. So I will tell them that they will contract instant lung cancer because they are close enough to catch it from me. I will tell them they will die within a week but that, since lung cancer is infectious and moves faster in older people, they will watch their parents die first. If they go home after speaking to me then all their family will be dead by next week and it will be their fault.

Child abuse? It seems like a natural response when I'm being abused. Abuse me and I abuse you back. I no longer see the need to care about the age or intelligence of the abuser. Why? I'm already subhuman. You antismokers made me what I am. Take pleasure in your creation and when your children don't come home, know that they met me and are now scared to come home because they believe they are carrying a deadly disease that you made them believe exists.

Antismokers like children. Perhaps a little more than is legal. Is there any basis for this assumption? Why would I need any such basis? Nothing levelled at me has any basis in truth. Your game, antismokers, your rules.

It's getting colder outside, antismokers. Cold enough to kill a pompous Righteous child in one night. It would be terrible if they were scared to come home in case they passed on ninetieth hand smoke, wouldn't it? You think I should care. You think I should have a conscience. Why do you think that? Am I not the Caliban you made? Am I not subhuman and evil? Am I not your own creation, your monster, your demon? Am I not the result of your art?

It would be best if you kept your children away from this particular smoker and made no move to provoke a reaction. Oh, but wait.

You don't know which one I am, do you?

Never mind. Take a chance, spin the wheel.

You might get lucky.

17 comments:

JuliaM said...

"Nasty, horrible, fast-moving and unpredictable things."

You just need to swat them. Or, like me, get a glass and a piece of cardboard and..

Oh, wait. That's spiders.

Angry Exile said...

Leg-iron, while you're at it tell them Santa's dead because he had to go past your ashtray to deliver presents. Or maybe it's the millions of sherries. Depends if it's tobacco Righteous or alcohol Righteous you're dealing with, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

I particulary loath kids in pubs. Time and time again when I get the rare chance to sit in a beer garden its full of screaming running dwarfs.
I went to a beer garden 2 days ago which was quite full but I noticed that nobody was smoking, so I lit up. Within 2 minutes everybody but 1 table had done the same. Bliss, slighty spoilt by a sreaming brat.

Lady Virginia Droit de Seigneur said...

Looks like there is not much difference between the anti-smoking Nazis and the anti-Child fanatics.

Obsessed to an unhealthy degree

Anonymous said...

Well as Salvador Dhali stated.
No lika de embrios !

Anonymous said...

Lady Virginia, I see no fanatacism here, just a statement to the effect that because parents love their children they are not entitled to expect everyone else to. Whats wrong with that?
I am deeply suspicious of people who walk around going oooh lurverly cheeldren, I love cheeldren, aaah. I am frequently tempted to ask such people how they like them cooked.
Children are people, some you like, some you don't. Most you have to get to know before you decide. Hard to do with someone who runs around screaming and never listens to a word anyone says.

Trooper Thompson said...

@ Angry Exile,

"while you're at it tell them Santa's dead because he had to go past your ashtray to deliver presents."

Better; tell them that Santa ain't coming because he smokes and their parents banned him.

Trooper Thompson said...

... you can show 'em this picture as evidence:

http://www.quitsmokingpainlesslynow.com/cigarette-advertising/santa-smoking-lucky-strikes/

Indyanhat said...

Santa?...wasn't he that bloke as used to come down chimneys 'cause he liked a bit of a lungful of smoke, and didn't he have them reindeer..what were their names...Rudolph,Prancer, Dancer, Smoker and Cancer!

Children ? I like em but can't eat a whole one...

Leg-iron said...

JuliaM - Same thing, bigger glass.

The spiders can stay. They're quiet and politicians have not yet persuaded them to nag me about smoking.

Leg-iron said...

Lady Virginia - there's a little bit of difference.

I don't like children, but I have not called for...

- heavy taxation on parents
- a total ban on children any place I might want to go, and any place I might not want to go just in case I feel like going there some time in the future.
- the exclusion of children and child producers from the NHS.
- the death of children.
- forcing children to stay outdoors.
- setting up a fakecharity to pummel them daily with lies and made-up statistics.

I don't like them, that's the full extent of it. Have all the kids you want but don't expect me to like them.

Antismokers usually justify their hate by saying 'I don't care if you smoke, just don't do it around me'. If they left it at that (as I have with children) there'd be no problem, we could have smoking and nonsmoking areas and that would be that.

Instead they call for everything in that list and more.

So yes, I'd say there was a fair bit of difference.

Leg-iron said...

Interesting points about Santa. In all the old pictures, he was smoking. When I was little we'd leave out a glass of whisky, a mince pie and a cigar (Dad didn't like sherry) and there were always crumbs and ash in the morning to prove he'd had them.

So, Santa is a smoker.

The other red fireplace guy isn't. No pictures of Satan have ever shown him smoking.

Therefore (in the fantasy logic of the antis), not-smoking is the work of Satan.

It's fun, this anti-logic.

David C said...

What about kids that smoke? Do you like them?

Leg-iron said...

David C - no, they are still children. They won't get any booze or tobacco from me.

There are no children in my house and won't be. I have never, and will never work with children. If you ask me to be a teacher I'll ask if there's an option to fall into a vat of scorpions instead.

Yet I propose no laws against children and would never support any.

That's just my personal preference. I'm not interested in forcing it on anyone else.

Unlike antismokers.

Lady Virginia Droit de Seigneur said...

Leg-Iron

The tone of your article though is similar to the sort of anti-smoking nonsense that proliferates in the public do-gooder sector.

I have two kids - they do not annoy people more than kids (or smokers!!!) ordinarily do. They are not nasty at all - as you describe all kids in the first sentence of your pathetic rant.


Don't get me wrong - I support the repeal of the smoking ban in pubs but the tone of your blog here is not going to help your cause. You come across as the sort of obsessive that might attract the attention of the NuLab social order.

You target here is totally wrong - kids don't make anti-smoking policy - it's nannying do-gooders like Harriet Harman. Kids are just a tool they use to exercise their particular prejudices. If you direct your anger at the source you would be a lot more credible.

Leg-iron said...

Lady Virginia - credibility is overrated, I have come to realise. ASH don't bother with it and neither does government. What works for them is mob mentality control. That is what we smokers have to fight and we won't win with the truth. The only way to fight is to use their own weapons against them.

There will be casualties of that and that cannot be avoided. We smokers didn't start this war, nor did we define the rules of engagement, but we are now lower than paedophiles and people who crap themselves in public. If we try to fight fair we will shortly rank lower than the spider in your bath. This is no time for 'playing nice'.

I am sure your children are well behaved. As with those husbands who never have affairs or are never violent to their wives or children, the drinkers who have never thrown up over a neighbour's cat or the smokers who do not deliberately throw butts around or seek out non-smokers to blow smoke at, they are never noticed.

The Ferals are noticed. They are growing in number and starting earlier. two days ago I saw one who could not have been more than four or five years old walk past a man in a shop and casually thump him in the nuts. The man was too astonished to react.

I have seen gangs of schoolchildren throwing stones at passers-by. I have had stones thrown at me. I did not retaliate even though I could have lifted heavier stones and thrown them harder and more accurately.

If I had, it would be me in the dock. Not the Ferals. They have immunity.

We are not talking city-centre. We are talking about a town that's two miles long and half a mile wide.

I know not all children are like this. I know they are not all brought to the level of one O-level in drooling, despite the efforts of successive governments. I know why there is a push to remove certain vitamins and amino acids from their diets, especially those involved in brain development. You might be interested to know that one of them is vitamin B3. Nicotinamide. Also found in many beers, especially dark beers.

I know the Ferals are not the majority. However, they are the ones who are noticed.

My personal preference is not to be anywhere near children. Even good ones. I find them unpredictable and difficult to deal with. That's just me.

As I said, I have not and will not push for laws to control the movement or actions of children just because they are children. I am not 'anti-children' any more than I am 'anti-marzipan' which I also don't like. I choose not to associate with the things I don't like. I do not insist that nobody else can have them either.

I just don't like being around children. This means I will never apply for any job working with children even if no other job is available. Unlike the antismoker, I will not insist that schools are made child-free so that I can work in them. I just won't work there.

As for my cause - it's not a cause. It's a rage that needs an outlet and this is the outlet. I doubt I will live to see a repeal of the smoking ban. While it's here I will rage against it and encourage other smokers to do the same. The younger ones might win. I'm too old to see them win. If I can play a small part in stopping it getting worse I will count my time well spent.

If that means breaking the weapons brought to bear on me than I will do it, whether those weapons are sticks, stones or children.

No, children don't make policy, but they are used to enforce it. They are not the wielders of the weapons, they are the weapons.

We smokers are at the bottom now. We are derided by paedophiles. Imagine how that feels.

We have no other recourse but to bite upwards in any way we can.

If we cannot reach the wielders, and we can't because they refuse even to acknowledge our existence, we must break their weapons.

Don't expect the underdog to fight by Queensbury rules. Don't expect attempts at compromise.

We tried all that. Where did it get us?

Katabasis said...

Great rant LI - and sadly it would be just as valid if you replaced "smoker" with "denier" and "anti-smoker" with "alarmist".

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