House Republicans now allow smoking inside Capitol, causing quite a stink

I know, that’s why I specified cigarettes in my comment. :woman_shrugging:t2:
When people talk about what a filthy habit smoking is, they usually don’t discriminate.

5 Likes

I’m reminded of the “worst office in Congress” scene from The Distinguished Gentleman.

Would post a clip if I could find it.

2 Likes

The cruelty is the point.™

And

iT bUiLdS cOmMuNiTy!!!11!1!

ETA:

I am beginning to suspect that in fact, it’s not merely that :tangerine: :clown_face: -ism is not only about normalizing white supremacy, hate-mongering, etc., cruelty, etc. but a furtherance of the Q-Anon dynamic: leveraging angry freaked out people who feel disenfranchised and their entitlement threatened, and crave community (possibly only through Facebook and FoxTV, not IRL). It’s sad. There are a lot of ways community can be a positive. Weaponized community and cynical manipulation of it ain’t a positive. It’s the tool the GQP needs to do political business.

Crikey, I need to go take a shower. This feels disgusting to contemplate before coffee.

18 Likes

That’s just it though, no one announced anything. A reporter said they could smell cigar smoke in the press room which is near Cole’s office.

He may very well have been smoking in his private office all along because it’s always been allowed.

4 Likes

Well, these people are gonna get theirs, at least. I watched my mom die of stage 4 lung cancer because she could never quite manage to quit (and oh god did she try for decades to do so).

It has to be among the worst ways to go. She had three months of pure hell at the end until her body finally gave out as an act of mercy. Fuck tobacco.

If you smoke, quit. Seriously. Quit. Do it now. You don’t want to go through what she did.

29 Likes

So are the staffers who have no choice but to come into work and be subjected to smoke being blown in their faces…

But my died also died of lung cancer, and my mom had a heart attack (and has finally quit!) and her husband has CPOD…

Excited Lets Go GIF

20 Likes

Yes, but Miss Manners wouldn’t approve.

15 Likes

Maybe in future the “libs” can pass a fire safety bill requiring monitored smoke detectors in every room.

They can then own the libs by banning fire safety equipment, and catching on fire :man_shrugging:

4 Likes

Unfortunately, those libs working the same building… as does the non-partisan staff.

5 Likes

Worse, at least when I was Canadian infantry, '81-'85:

MCpl: “15 minute smoke break. Some 'em if you got 'em!”
Me: “Decided I’d keep myself healthy to fight the Phantasian Army, no smoking for me.”
Sgt: “Come with me, fool, there’s $physical_labour$ to be done.”
Me: “Spare a dart, Mcpl buddy?”

I “smoked” for ~1 year while I was in. Started bumming smokes from buddies, then got told to start buying my own, then realized C$8 (~C$20 in today’s money) was a lot to burn every few days, so I stopped. Luckily I wasn’t fully hooked, so quitting was fairly easy.

I’d be interested in hearing how smoking and drinking are treated nowadays in the CAF. Especially given the recent relaxation of dress codes, hair length, jewelry, etc.

ETA linky goodness.

6 Likes

The Southern Poverty Law Center has published a great deal about how this works, and how trivially easy it is to get angry liberals to help right wing extremists recruit and keep members of their communities.

An extremely important part of the process is showing potential recruits that they are hated, disenfranchised, and opposed, and that only the right wing racist cohort will make any effort to accept them as human beings.

This is easier now in the Internet era. Back in the day, you had to send your recruits door to door so they could experience being reviled and demonized by relatively normal people.

5 Likes

I swear the joke about how many Republicans would keel over dead from asphyxiation, if Obama told them breathing is important, is less and less a joke as time goes on.

12 Likes

This is easier now that places like Fox News make up hatred and tell people they are reviled for being white or straight or so on twenty-four hours a day. But sure, I know the blame is always on the left for not opposing racism exactly the right way. :roll_eyes:

21 Likes

It’s all just weaponization of normal human behavior. By default, normal humans will participate. If you want to use that as a way to assign blame, be my guest; I have come to accept it as inevitable and don’t blame anyone.

Wait- EDIT: I definitely do blame Faux News and the socio-economic mainstream for weaponizing human nature to harm society. I meant I don’t blame normal people for being used as part of the radicalization process.

1 Like

I hear that it’s people who write about liberals being responsible for people becoming far right extremists who are the real encouragers of far right extremism.

23 Likes

No. It’s not. Wanting to murder millions of people who LOOK wrong is not NORMAL.

The fuck man…

21 Likes

Bigotry is not “normal human behavior.”

You should. In order for someone to be radicalized by this process, they have to have that hate in their heart from the beginning. They can get over it, but they aren’t the fucking victims here.

20 Likes

Also, when did bigots get defined as “normal people” and “liberals” as fucking abnormal. Fuck that noise.

22 Likes

… so “liberals” have to oppose bigotry without making bigots feel … “opposed”

That’s a heavy lift :thinking:

Are there any similarly Sisyphean tasks that bigots have to push up the hill, or is everything just always liberals’ fault

19 Likes

Silly, libruls existing is offensive to bigots. Libruls need to not exist first, then bigots can relax and stop bigoting!

18 Likes