P.J. O’Rourke is brilliant as he skewers progressive elites and their view of the poor — in this case, as it relates to banning smoking in public housing. As usual, his writing is on target and laugh-out-loud funny. Read the whole thing. Twice.
Progressive elites may be confused about the existence of right and wrong when it comes to wars against genocidal fanatics, market freedom, and the death penalty for mass murderers. But not when it comes to smoking.
Smoking kills smokers, which is about what they deserve for engaging in such lowbrow, wrong-headed, retarded, vulgarian activity, except they get sick first and that drives up the cost of a single-payer national health care system, plus their second-hand smoke is worse yet because it is a, yuck, inhalation hand-me-down from uncouth people who probably haven’t flossed, and it kills progressive elites who don’t even know anyone who smokes while also releasing greenhouse gases and stinking up the cheery curtains that elites hang in public housing group activity areas to brighten the lives of the underprivileged who are confined to concrete tower blocks with six-by-eight-foot living rooms, seven-foot ceilings, plexiglass windows, and sheet-metal doors with a dozen locks on them. Smoking is wrong.
