Authority figures should just shut up about the subject. It's hard to imagine anyone less cool than former FDA chief David Kessler, his eyes full of righteous indignation and magnified by the world's dorkyest looking coke-bottle glasses. Every time he made a public statement about tobacco thousands of kids started smoking in a desperate attempt to be as unlike him possible. Busybodies present a special challenge. Normal people achieve self-assurance by accomplishing things.
Busybodies can only feel important by looking down on others .
Any attempt to discourage their interference in other people's lives is doomed to fail. Without others to look down on, click their tongues at, and inspire their angry letters to Congress their lives would have no meaning. We can't stop them, but perhaps we can change the target of their wrath. Animal rights activists are always overjoyed to find others silly enough to join their cause. Their twisted statistics are even goofier than those used by anti-tobacco nannies.