Our so-called representatives in government have no idea how enraged we are--or why. We were forced outside and away from others to shiver in the cold and freezing rain. We were forbidden to smoke in our own places of work. We were systematically isolated, condemned, humiliated, and demonized as a menace to bystanders and even to our own children. As the ANTZ put it, we were "denormalized" and "marginalized." We were taxed out the wazoo. Many of us spent a good deal of money on their approved cessation products which we found to be unpleasant, mostly ineffective and in some cases harmful to our mental well-being....
rage...
So the seed of our rage began to form.
And then at last we found a means to quit smoking--which is all they said they wanted. We did it because the free market and human ingenuity, unaided by government, devised and perfected a pleasant and relatively harmless alternative. We thought, "Now they'll stop marginalizing us and leave us alone." But no. Now they are attacking that alternative and threatening to all but destroy it, using the same tactics they employed so successfully against smoking and smokers, based on flawed, biased and misleading "studies," fear mongering, and a sick compulsion to regulate virtually every aspect of human behavior.
Over and over they have lied, abused the power entrusted to them, and betrayed us. They have forgotten that the primary function of the U.S. government is to protect and preserve our freedom, not to act as our parents.
So our rage reached a boiling point.
In all of this they have been aided by entrenched economic interests and uncritical media who have have failed in their essential role as the fourth branch of government--to keep a watchful eye, to inform the electorate when government abuses its power, and to expose its lies, thus further fueling our rage.
And we have failed too. Failed because we naively believed that good science, reason and logic would somehow prevail; failed because we believed that writing letters, sending emails and signing petitions would generate a change in policy, and failed because we and the vaping industry failed to organize, to join forces and to engage in the kind of all-out campaign necessary to defend our own interests.
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Thank you.
