The Happy Tourists of Terror Would Like the Non-Smoking Section of the Capitol Please

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Ok this is a little off-topic I know but I think I saw something no other American has noticed, or noted, or even for one minute considered.

Fair warning: It’s about the Capitol attack.

I know: oy. Yuk. Damnit.

But hear me out.

Among the violent insurgents of the January 6 Insurrection- no one was smoking.

I don’t believe I saw one cigarette smoker in the Capitol. They broke every single regulation except that.

So that’s nice. I don’t think they smoked in the Rotunda after they broke in. It’s against the rules.

This is progress.

Americans used to smoke like chimneys. I’m not kidding. Decades ago it was thought smoking was good for you.

Why didn’t the rioters light up? They smashed windows, battered doors, and took a giant dump in the citadel of freedom. But no smoking. None.

-Oh they lit shit on fire, alright, but not butts.

Why? Why didn’t they smoke in the Capitol?

You and I know exactly why.

Because it’s against the rules, there’s a regulation, a social stigma, a public health concern, and, frankly, it’s really bad for you.

Stupid!

The Insurrectionists know one thing for sure: smoking is bad, and you can’t smoke in public spaces- especially civic buildings.

The other thing the Insurrectionists know is that you can’t smoke in school or in museums or even at church- which makes no sense since there is no mention of smoking cigarettes in the B-i-b-l-e, of which I am aware.

There is holy smoke, of course, and incense, and possibly Old Testament smoking of some sort, I would think. But no commandment, among the Twenty Commandments- (on Mel Brooks’ authority) shalling or thou-shalt-notting smoking.

There are churchly ideas of “be ye sacred” and of purity, so that might indicate a path, a virtual spin down Non-Smoking Avenue for some rioters, for the prodigiously and religiously addicted, but there is absolutely no such prohibition against the macho pro-cancer wing of the Right Wing of Wings, the Cargo Shorts Coalition. There’s no mandate, religious or political, to bring back the traditional value of huffing nicotine.

There was no smoking by the Tourists of Terror despite the liberty thing.

Maybe they vaped.

At the January 6 Wingding, non-smoking section please.

Trucks and cargo shorts notwithstanding, most rioters checked their firearms in Virginia and adhered to strict non-smoking regulation upon Entering the Capitol.

You know why.

Americans of the type that attacked the Capitol are conformists.

They are conditioned.

(…And laws and mandates forbidding smoking were largely successful and became self-enforcing. Again, why? You know why.)

Because Americans of the Capitol-Crapping Persuasion are conformists.
They are followers. Just like me, in my stupid blue jeans.

(Why the fuck do I even wear blue jeans? God damn it! And why do I refer to them as simply “jeans” and drop the word “blue”? And say stuff like “God damn it”?

Because I am a complete conformist, too.

Please God, just tell me what to do, give me a simple repetitive task that I can claim to do perfectly, to please the Boss, who is probably in orbit somewhere and doesn’t know I exist, but anyway, I’m proud in my absolute conformity. There’s a payoff. And a hidden price, for such an attitude.

The price is that eventually you end up screaming in a store, in public, on the Internet, finally in Warshinton DC, because you are a conformist and you hang around with Like-Minded People.

Fuck, excuse me, but I must use my words:

Like-minded People are now the absolute worst kind of people, in this reverse-engineered Burt Bacharach tune that is Life.

Like-Minded People thought attacking the US Government was ok, but remembered, they don’t allow smoking in the Rotunda.

We learned something fairly recent, not many decades ago, which one could only have learned in the years since the temporary defeat of the tobacco industry and the almost total banning of cigarettes in work spaces, beginning in 1995.

We saw that a habit, deeply engrained and corporately and legally subsidized, can be affected by change. Boring. But here’s the thing. Conformity kicks in.

So the Insurrectionists followed an important government regulation, in not smoking in the Capitol. There are limits.

Where is liberty, in the Land of Conformity?

Conformity seems like what happened back there in history leading up to and including World War Two in Europe. And supposedly we went there to fight that. 2 cents.

Not smoking on the path to anarchy due to rigorous conformity. Happy campers on the path to perdition, following directions from a lunatic. Makes alot of sense.

Lock step and then follow along. Do what they do. I thought it was ok. Everyone says so.

A Final Thought:

For the top One Percent in the US economy, this has been a good day. January 6, a good day. Every day a good day. Conformity is good business, insurrection is good tv.

Thank you, Insurrectionists, for not smoking.