Oxford CITY Council in the UK is currently considering banning smoking in their Council houses. This, of course, has been instigated by ASH UK, which is an example of one shower of bureaucrats talking to another.

ASH here in Ireland has been after the Irish City and County Councils to ban smoking outdoors in the parks and beaches, happy in the knowledge that this is likely to malevolently affect the disgusting poor, who they look down on, rather than their own peers and support base. 

But it got me thinking. What sort of poisoned little mind, in secure pensionable Government employment, has nothing else to do but go after a repressed minority with the expressed intention of denying them their rights? It must be a nasty individual indeed to even consider such a move. Does this twisted mind not know that the very people he has chosen to victimize are actual real people who help to pay his salary and guarantee his pension. The unemployed council dwellers pay VAT back on every penny they get and they spend it as soon as they get it too.

Never mind that it is impossible to police this proposed law or that the police would have no rational interest in enforcing it, this side of the irish Sea or the other. It is actually a nothing-law but my question still stands. Somebody somewhere on the Oxford City Council decided to pick this up and run with it. I would love to know what makes a shit like that tick.

As a boy I learned that respect begins with self-respect. As an adult I began to understand that respect was often feigned and I always knew instinctively that those that did so, probably had no respect for themselves. Without truly knowing and having pride in who and what you are, you can never truly respect another. The balanced person has long ago come to terms with their own good points and bad ones and the character and personality of the solid person is born of this. 

Respecting yourself though, is different to loving yourself. Loving yourself entails pampering and rewards while self-respect gives you a value system for dealing with others. 'Treat others as you would be treated yourself,' becomes operative when you know how you should be treated because of what you are. True self-respect then becomes the corner-stone of giving lasting love to another human being. It is an essential bedrock of the balanced person.

So getting back to the individual in his sponsored office at the Oxford City Council. He, (or she), is sitting there considering introducing hardship and fear into the lives of those who neither have the intelligence nor organization to fight back. The sneaky part of the whole scam is the mealy-mouthed explanation for doing it. "It's for their own well-being and health," you'll most likely hear. Well, no it isn't! A despicable person who would even suggest such thing is only doing it because, A) They can, and B) Because this selfish motive of their own could yield them a personal profit of some kind. A councillor pushing this agenda is on a crusade to get noticed and drive up their pay-grade before retirement. 

Ghetto's and high rises are routinely built to cram the poor into crowded collective poverty and take them away from the view of the privalaged. They are, in effect, being punished for not being born entitled. Not satisfied with this, there is someone out there in Oxford who wishes to put the boot in, right in their front rooms. People with nothing to look forward to in a pointless day but a consoling fag are to be criminalized for even that.

I believe it is high time that the tactics of the anti-smokers were examined by qualified psychologists to determine the real damage being done to the hunted minority of innocent smokers and society in general. It is not for our own good and never was. "How dare you decide for me what I want and don't want, while we are on the subject. Don't dictate to me what I can do in my home and cannot. If I'm not breaking the law of the land, fuck off!

As you might be able to tell from this intemperate outburst, I am finally losing patience with the busy-bodies and nanny-ists and their hidden self-promoting agendas. They don't smoke so it doesn't affect them, indeed it may lead to their advancement some time in the future. The fear and loathing they leave in their wake with never be their responsibility and they will never have answer to anybody for their nastiness. In fact they may well profit from it.

We really do need to become more aware!