Peggy Noonan On Smoking

here’s one of Peggy Noonan’s finest articles from last November:

“A short word on smokers. They are people who?ve made a deal. They are old-fashioned, and it?s an old-fashioned deal. Their sense of life is essentially conservative: They know it is short, they know part of how you say thank you for it is to really feel it and enjoy it, and they know this life isn?t the most transcendent and important one you?ll be living. Smokers are disproportionately Catholic, did you know that? They know that eventually something will kill them. They accept death and illness as part of the equation. They love smoking so much, it so enhances their enjoyment of each day, that they?ll gamble. Some of them, they know, will die in a car accident next year, so it won?t matter if they smoked; some will die of old age at 97; some will get emphysema or lung cancer at 50 and pay the price. Fine. You buys your smokes and takes your chances.”