I've asked CarolAnn early on in this thread to help us understand her passion against the anti-smoking crusades that have been taking place for the last bunch of years. I haven't yet gotten any reasonable response back to that inquiry.
T-Hawk Yooper may have stumbled onto something when he 'discovered' one Carol Thompson.
A simple Google search (I'm a big fan of Google) for '"Carol Thompson" smoker' produces a bunch of hits. One shows a 'Carol AS Thompson'. Other hits such as:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/317/7170/1423show the same level of, I'll call it, heated passion against the anti-smoking that our CarolAnn has shown on this thread. Some of the hits go back many years, some are somewhat current.
I'm guessing our CarolAnn and Carol Thompson are the same person as the T-Hawkster suggests.
If nothing else CarolAnn, you are steadfast in what you believe in.
That said…I'm really such a softy...If someone is in the least bit nice to me I'll do most anything for them and they’ll have my undivided attention. On the other hand if I perceive any hostility I immediately get in a defensive posture and it's an uphill battle to win me over...even to the point of 'coming back down' to a neutral position.
To make me even begin to look at and examine your arguments you have to stop pushing me away with the type of rhetoric that you've been using. It just backs me up against the wall and I want to fight back, not listen to or reason with you.
Case in point…I haven’t even begun to think about looking at what you support because we’re still trying to figure out what shape the negotiating table will be…(that’s an old Vietnam War thing for you youngsters out there (under 55)).
So, I'll ask again, where is your drive for this coming from? Where does this 'steadfastness' come from? What's kept you so active on this subject for so many years? What are you about? Maybe after I (we) understand why you're at where you're at we can begin a debate on the facts.
But to constantly attack will never win anyone over to your side...you can be right as rain on everything but you'll lose any possible support for your side and very possibly build support for the other side.
I'm guessing Hugodog, the original poster, would like some level headed discussion on the subject. Unless we've all been so argumentative that we've discussed him and turned him off entirely to joining in any debate...he’s probably ‘left the building’. He might also be thinking... “what kind of monster did I create?’.