The Puritans Are Back

By Jeffrey Hart | Wednesday, May 7, 1997

The United States is going through an astonishing wave of puritanism. The new-wave Puritans are trying to get the sinners to stop sinning.

In 17th century Salem, Ma., the hanging judges figured they were trying to save souls. The contemporary Puritans, whose no. 1 target is tobacco, apparently are trying to save bodies.

Soon, those who light up cigarettes will have to wear a large red letter on their chest, just as Hester Prynne wore her scarlet A for adultery.

The current crackdown is on tobacco, which is bad for you. Yet everyone knows that alcohol, too, is bad for you. Also fatty diets. And automobile exhaust fumes.

Then there are the things you don't do that are undoubtedly bad for your body. For example, if you do not jog...well, that might shorten your life.

No doubt some government functionary should look into the fact that you do not jog, just as the Internal Revenue Service will look into your case if you do not pay your income taxes.

The furor over smoking has all the earmarks of a religious movement. In a small New England town near where I live, there is actually a No Smoking sign in an outdoor parking lot.

The idea that drives many anti-smoking crusaders is that second-hand smoke is bad for you, and quite possibly it is. The opponents of second-hand smoke claim that it causes about 5,000 deaths per year. Let's assume that it does. Bicycle-related accidents cause about 5,000 deaths a year as well.

So, let's ban bicycles.

Just why there is a terrific furor over smoking is a bit of a puzzle. After all, people have known for a long time that tobacco is bad for you. I saw a study in 1949 linking smoking to lung cancer.

Recent studies have added only the knowledge that chemicals contained in tobacco smoke cause cellular changes in lung tissue similar to the changes in cancer cells.

Stop the presses! Science proves tobacco is bad for you!

Of course, it is not enough to stamp out smoking. The new memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington is going to withdraw the cigarette holder from between his lips. Bad example. Forget that FDR's up-tilted cigarette holder was a jaunty symbol of optimism during the Great Depression.

I recently attended a symposium on public health at which it was suggested that people be allowed to smoke but that smoking-related diseases be treated at the smoker's own expense.

That sounds good. It certainly would reduce the medical insurance premiums of nonsmokers, and would help solve the Medicare-Medicaid crisis.

In fact, it is such a promising idea that there is no reason to limit it to smoking. Certainly it could be extended to cheeseburgers, which clog your arteries. And naturally, all alcohol-related illnesses should be treated henceforth at the drinker's own expense.

Being overweight poses huge problems. Studies show that many Americans are seriously overweight. Most of us eat too much and don't exercise enough.

Too much weight is bad for your heart. The government must look into that.

Although it seems clear that all citizens should be required to jog, that would pose some problems, in that jogging can cause knee and ankle problems. Conscientious citizens who do a lot of jogging can pay for any kind of knee and foot repairs themselves.

Something really will have to be done about that Winston Churchill character. He not only drank huge amounts but he smoked those awful cigars. Terrible example, much worse than FDR. Churchill also was over weight and was not known to jog. The reprobate probably should be eliminated from the history books altogether.

Adolf Hitler, who was a vegetarian and neither drank nor smoked, always referred to Churchill as a 'filthy old man.' In the new history books, Hitler's mortal stock is certain to rise. His personal habits can be an example to us all.

It also has been established that people sometimes have heart attacks during sexual intercourse. Too strenuous. That situation must be studied.

Doesn't it go without saying that all beaches must be closed? The skin cancer risk is just too great.

Just breathing the air in New York City or Los Angeles is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes per day. There is a fine judgement to be made here. Should we ban motor vehicles from large cities, or should we ban breathing outdoors? Look for a special blue-ribbon committee, led by Hillary Clinton, to be adjudicating the issue soon.

Of course, such great movements run into what can be called the 'Prohibition problem.'

The Prohibition movement likewise had genuine religious fervor behind it, enough for booze to be banned by a constitutional amendment, ratified in 1919.

That was a great moral step forward, in that after 1919 no citizen touched a drop, right?

Prohibition was a huge success, comparable to the present 'War on Drugs,' which has practically wiped out the use of illegal drugs, as I understand it.

In an essay published by H.L. Mencken during Prohibition, he describes a line of tankers full of booze anchored just off the New Jersey coast, just outside the two-mile limit.

High powered speedboats are unloading crates from the tankers and making fast trips to the beach, pursued ineffectively by the Coast Guard. Crowds lining the beach cheer every time a speedboat hits the beach and unloads its cargo.

The Puritans Are Back

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