From: mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu ("[*] The Compulsive Reader")
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,alt.flame
Subject: Re: The wages of Stupidity are Death
Date: 16 Aug 92 21:27:53 GMT
	<MJD.92Aug14114918@saul.cis.upenn.edu>
	<exuptr.301.713816029@exu.ericsson.se>
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: Eaters of Wisdom
In-reply-to: exuptr@exu.ericsson.se's message of 14 Aug 92 18:13:49 GMT

In article <exuptr.301.713816029@exu.ericsson.se> exuptr@exu.ericsson.se (Patrick Taylor) writes:


Oh, hold on.  I think I remember you.  Aren't you the guy who called
Sean Abbott a `dickhead'?  Ah. Yes.  

Very clever, that.  I don't think I've ever heard `dickhead' before.
Wait a moment and I'll write it down.

Okay, let's go.

>   >There is only minimal health risk associated with moderate tobacco use.
>   You don't strike me as the smoking type, Dominus.

    Some people in the audience may not realize just how stpuid this
sounds to me.  Perhaps I can get the point across by changing a few words.

Let's try it this way:

>   >There is only minimal health risk associated with moderate alcohol use.
>   You don't strike me as the drinking type, Dominus.

    Whether I smoke or not is irrelevant, Strachenpudlich.  There is, in
fact, only minimal health risk associated with moderate tobacco use.  It
is certainly less dangerous than, say, living in West Philadelphia,
which I do constantly, and yet which no sanctimonious net.assholes see
fit to berate me about.

    There are an awful lot of dangerous things to do in this world, and
if any of you tedious moralizers were actually worried about me, as
opposed to being worried about staying on your high horses, you would
advise me to look both ways before crossing the street, to stay out of
high-crime areas like the one in which I live, to move away from major
polution centers such as the one in which I live, to avoid airplanes, to
cease from my sexual promiscuity, to quit my programming job, so as
better to avoid harmful VDT radiation, to stop seeing my family members
(a substantial plurality of murders are committed by family members), to
avoid social contact with people who are mentally unstable, and soforth.
All of these are things that probably expose me to more daily risk than
would smoking, say, a pack of cigarettes a month.

    Of course you are not interested in this; you are only interested in
self-righteously harassing people who don't adhere to the details of
your own code.

    I will continue to smoke marijuana, tobacco, psilocybin mushrooms,
dried banana skins, cane toad skins, and old shoe leather.  If I become
seriously concerned about the possibility of heart or lung disease, I
hope I will carefully weigh risks and benefits, and, rather than
quitting smoking, I hope I will do the smart thing and move out of the
city.  This will cut my risk substantially; quitting smoking very
little, if at all.

    Now, please fuck off, all of you.  Do not say I am deluding myself,
and do not shake your heads sadly and bemoan my lost life; I am doing
what I like and I am taking reasonable precautions while I do it, and,
if it does kill me, at least I made my own choices with my eyes open,
instead of blindly following a bunch of Carrie Nation screaming
fundamentalist moralizer prohibitionist shepherds with voodoo taboos and
greasy eyelids.





--

                And for to see, and eke for to be seye
Mark-Jason Dominus 	  			    mjd@central.cis.upenn.edu