On the same day as the American Medical Association and Thirty-One States' Attorney Generals publicly pressured the Motion Picture Association to label as “R rated” any movie which depicts smoking, the attorneys for our nation's most prestigious Ivy League colleges argued before the Supreme Court that our military should not be allowed to recruit on any college campuses in this nation. It is remarkable to observe that many poor smokers in America who are rapidly losing their jobs both in the public and private sectors, would be most envious and grateful if only they could have a “don't ask, don't tell policy” as to their allegedly “private” tobacco consumption. Increasingly in modern times, and in spite of this so–called tolerance for differences and coercive inclusion of all diversity, smokers are being fired or not hired if they dare to have a smoke on their own time, even if it is in their own houses. If only employers were simply forbidden from asking that McCarthyistic question; “Are you now or have you ever been a smoker?” They would welcome this vast improvement in their currently unprotected status.

At the same time, our best and brightest progressive academics have the arrogant audacity to tell our military they should be barred from all of our American college campuses because of “don't ask don't tell?” Arguing this as a 1st amendment violation makes Clinton and Bush seem quite credible by comparison. Who exactly do our “esteemed enlightened academics” think are the people putting their lives on the line every day so that they can continue to enjoy the 1st amendment, and all the other freedoms which they seem to be taking for granted in the first place? Forget for a moment that these same colleges all benefit enormously from federal funding. Nevertheless the outrageous audacity to try and ban all military recruiters simply because they are emotionally offended by the “don't ask don't tell policy” is laughable and ludicrous. Incidentally many of these same prestigious colleges (including Harvard) now openly boast and brag that white people are a minority of all incoming freshman students. I remember when I was in college (just before the industrial revolution) being almost made to feel as if I were evil in my honors classes because I was white. It was as if somehow I or my ancestors owed a personal debt to every non-white person in the room; and this “continued coercive enlightenment” in the classroom was anything but tolerant, accepting or inclusive where Caucasians or Christians were concerned, let alone if one dared to smoke or (gasp) was a straight WASP!

Given the current corrosive erosion of our modern “Jerry Springer culture,” which celebrates the only absolute remaining as rule #1 “There are no absolutes” and given the extent to which the so-called Reality TV shows make Springer's guests seem like etiquette instructors by comparison, our AMA and 31 fearless Attorney Generals want to dictate the censorship and R rating of any movie which depicts smoking ? Maybe I am missing something in these PC, hyper-risk averse modern times; but aren't we already constantly inundated with anti-smoking commercials 24-7, whether on billboards or television? Most of these commercials have been paid for from forced extortion of the tobacco companies in the first place. Our federal, state and local governments knowingly allowed tobacco companies to sell us their death products for an eternity so that they could collect the $money from taxe$; and then suddenly decided to shake them down like Jesse Jackson on Toyota twice! Smoking is already banned almost everywhere, smokers routinely suffer from open and blatantly bigoted (often govt. sponsored) discrimination in the workplace and now the grandstanding politicians want to censor smoking from the movies? This already has happened with the original Post Office stamps of James Dean and FDR.

If some of our most “progressively enlightened” elements soon have their way, military recruiters would be barred from all college campuses; whereas at the movies you can see a homosexual threesome or an orgy with transgender cross-dressing hermaphrodites engaged in group sex with all the obscene swearing and back stabbing of our prime time reality TV shows. The movie can be rated PG, so long as nobody dares to light up a cigarette after having sex? Perhaps our more nocturnally nefarious promiscuous protagonists need only turn towards the cameras and declare; “I'm proud to be smoke free!” Then any other content need not worry about censorship or grandstanding “save the children” demagoguery from our politicians. If politicians really cared about “saving our children,” they wouldn't send my friend to Iraq without enough amour on his HUMVEES and APC's when on an ambush patrol in Anbar province.

I trust the Supreme Court will eventually uphold federal law allowing for military recruitment on all college campuses which receive federal funding, however I am deeply concerned about some of the more dangerously alarming trends in these allegedly tolerant and enlightened modern times. Recently while driving past Stonewall Jackson's right flank near a civil war battlefield in Harper's Ferry, it occurred to me that if some of these politically-correct progressive people had been around several decades ago, we'd all be speaking German or Russian today! Then again, you can still smoke in any bar in Moscow . When my Marine buddy gets home from Fallujah and is told by the bartender it's against the law to have a smoke with your Budweiser; where is his FREEDOM which he has just bravely risked his life to protect for all of us?

It should be noted that the author is a die-hard Democrat who quit smoking over one year ago. These days it honestly takes more courage to keep smoking than to quit!