Counterpoint: The war on smokers

It's called The War on Tobacco, only nobody makes war on an inanimate object. It's occasionally called The War on Big Tobacco. Big is a good target. Nobody likes Big. Big, as we all know, eats the little guys for lunch. And we side with the Little Guy.

Except in truth, in every aspect and phase of this little war it's been the little guys getting clobbered. It's the little guy, not the tobacco companies, who pays the exorbitant taxes and gets stuck with the major tab for Mr. Big's misdemeanors. The Attorneys General sued Mr. Big but then insisted that he pass on the costs to Mr. Little. And the only guys who made out big from that suit -- with a gigantic transfer of wealth from the Little class -- were a coven of Big Lawyers

And when smoking is suddenly banned in public places, it doesn't stop a tobacco company from having a cup of coffee, or a meal, or a glass of beer -- who it stops is the tired shopper, the guy or girl on a work break, or the family that wants to take its smoking mother-in-law to dinner and ... you get the idea.

But the warriors like to frame it as a blow against Mr. Big. After all, the cigarette that might be smoked with that beer or coffee is one less cigarette Mr. Big gets a chance to sell.

The argument passes absurd. The missing smokes are gonna get smoked. On the street. Or at home. Though it's actually more likely, that the dinner -- or the beer -- won't be bought to begin with if the cigarettes can't go with it.

Another Little Guy getting hurt. The guy who owns the restaurant; and the folks who work on his staff (many of whom smoke) who may soon be out of work.

The "health advocates," of course, will attempt to convince you (through insupportable -- though seemingly scientific-sounding inference) that the health or the very lives of these workers are at stake. This is hyperbolic nonsense ... but as a weapon in the ongoing war against smokers, it's their heaviest Heavy Gun. And legislatures everywhere have felt it pressed to their spines.

CLASH's mission is to rescue the constitutional rights of all -- to free assembly, equal protection, and equal access to public life. We ardently believe that the right to pursue happiness isn't -- or shouldn't be -- the right of one group to wrathfully pursue the happiness of others and try to run it out of town.

And that rights, in fact, aren't -- or, in any case, shouldn't be -- a zero-sum game in which for one group to have rights, another is made to have none.

This is not what we once used to call "The American Way."

And it's more than a fight about smoking now, it's a fight about basic values, a highly political fight about the way we're going to live.

It's a battle that's worth joining. No retreat. No surrender.

Audrey Silk is the founder of Citizens Lobby Against Smoker Harassment, or CLASH, based in New York City. Stewart serves on the organization's board.