Posted on 03/28/2002 4:15:02 PM PST by Starmaker
In a neighboring town, a New York State Supreme Court judge in his ruling banned a woman from smoking in her own house and car as a condition of her young son's visitation rules because the judge believes secondhand smoke is harmful. There were no special circumstances of the health for the son, except the boy did not like it when his mother smoked. The woman told the judge that she did not smoke in front of her child. However, the decision by the judge was that the boy "should not live in or visit any house or car in which smoking took place at any time." Government is ordering this mother not to smoke even when her son is not in her home or car! This goes beyond prohibiting smoking in the presence of your child.
The judge ruled against a woman and some wonder whether the judge would have ruled the same had a man been before him. But that does not matter now because precedent has been set for government through omniscient judges to decide almost anything, including what foods to buy, for some foods may be harmful to children, such as junk foods. Government can dictate that no alcohol be allowed in a house, certain magazines may be harmful to children or government and even the layout of a house may be deemed inappropriate. Swimming pools and knives may be too dangerous for children to have in the home. In the name of children anything can be done. How and when will all this end? When people inform their politicians what they will tolerate and what they will not tolerate from government. Apathy is the father of dictatorship.
Remember, the government is already in your toilet bowl with low flush, which often doesn't work and repeated flushings are required. Maybe, government goofed and they should have mandated different flush settings, such as low, medium and high.
The power of the state is exercised through the judicial system and when that system is moving toward unlimited power, we as a people are losing our liberty. Many people are unaware of the growing power of government, or they believe they can do nothing about it. In either case, liberty is being swept away. The Supreme Court judge in New York State who made the ruling did not have a career as a liberal Democrat, but as a Republican county legislative majority leader. Whatever credentials the Republican Party may have towards advocating limited government; elected Republicans often implement Democrat party beliefs and sentiments in law. In fact, many Republicans could be labeled "Democrat light". Some have said there is not a dime's bit of difference between the two parties, for government is expanding almost daily.
Each day brings the promise of some new power that government has acceded to itself, almost like a thief. The concept of limited government is becoming a phrase with nothing substantive behind it. Yesterday's newspaper cartoon showed a huge child with the words, "Large classroom sizes" on his shirt and beside this child was a picture of a tiny schoolhouse with the words, "Reduced budgets." This cartoon occurs at a time when the cost of education is too high, the amounts poured into education are enormous and where educators make more money than members of the community they serve. Misinformation is the child of dictatorship.
Unlimited government and uncontrolled government are racing down the track and most of the American people are spectators at their own handcuffing of liberty. The control of guns, cigarettes, lotteries, schools, bicycles, motorcycles and almost everything else is before us, however, accountability of the individual appears lessening. Attorney General Janet Reno said she was accountable for the disaster and deaths at Waco, Texas. Accountability is not just saying one is accountable, but rather punishment through jail, fines and losing one's public office is being accountable. No one was held accountable for the occurrences at Waco.
Maybe liberty is an obsolete value or overvalued. Maybe the government knows more than its citizens. Maybe we should be more obedient to our politicians and judges because they have more power than we do, more information than we do as citizens. If that is the case, we the American people, ought to be called Citizen Serfs at the beck and call of our superiors who draw all their funding from the citizenry.
As Citizen Serfs, we have no more rights than the government provides for us as we meander through life hoping for the best for posterity and ourselves.
A New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled that a woman cannot smoke in her own home or car at anytime is now a fact of life if she is to see her son. It is a little thing of no importance, you say as a Citizen Serf.
To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Henry at uniskywriter@yahoo.com .
That woman better quit talking to the Bad Morning America crowd and excersize her right to the pursuit of happiness.
I knew a guy who got to see his kids every Thursday for two hours from 4 PM to 6 PM.
A judge signed that order.
I am sure there are other, and worse, decisions.
Here's a clue for everybody - ban divorce, and we instantly get rid of 90% of the source of judicial nonsense and insanity.
Or, maybe we can modify divorce so that the kids go to a neutral third party instead of to their parents.
Maybe we could simply beat the parents until they agree to get along and raise their children and quit trying to pawn them off on the taxpayers.
Or, maybe we could at least "de-sex" these folks, like so many roosters, and thereby reduce the tension.
Etc.
The right to smoke in your own home would thereby be preserved.
In the meantime, who wants to give this idjit judge an earful? Hmmmmmm? Get them dialin' fingers ready and SOCK IT TO 'EM!
Justice Robert Julian: 315-798-5877
Smokers: You don't have a right to put smoke into my kid's lungs. I don't care if you're the mother. I'm the father, the custodial parent, and I say "choose: the cigarettes or the kid."
Glad to see the court saw this as reasonable.
In all these cases, the strength of my opinions would be questioned, and most likely the verdict would be that we should work it out ourselves.
The problem in this case is that the judge happens to share a view, politically correct and extreme, with one of the parties. He has used his bench to advance his agendum. That is the problem.
Well stated. If the judge were to be consistent about the "health of the child," which, of course, this isn't, he'd have to prohibit TV watching, since the risk of that leading to violent activities (surely not healthy for the child) is higher than the risk of harm from shs. Wonder if the father allows the kid to drink whole milk. Whoops! Far higher risk of lung cancer than from shs! Ban milk! Even tap water shows a higher risk for the "health of the child" than shs. This is judicial misconduct and abuse of power, pure and simple. This guy should be run out of town naked.
I'm not sure where you've been, nor how old you are. And I certainly don't know if you've ever been divorced when there were children involved, but this MAY come as a shock to you: The courts decide who controls the parenting in the vast majority of divorce cases. Only when one parent does not contest the wish of the other, do things avoid having a judge decide, and even then the judge signs off.
So you see, the very moment someone decides to divorce the parent of his or her child, the courts step in.
Sorry, but I'm continually stunned by the complete lack of any sense of proportion by the vast majority of those who post on threads like this. This is how it has been done for decades in this country. That there is a "smoking" issue involved is irrelevant.
When my child stays in her mother's home--and her mother is a smoker--her mother knows she'd BETTER not be smoking around our daughter. My daughter reminds her that this is the rule.
I don't care WHOSE house it is, when I have full legal custody of my daughter, that's the rule, and she knows she's going to abide by that rule or the kid ain't gonna show up next Summer.
Do you demand that your ex not smoke even when your daughter is NOT around?
This is how it has been done for decades in this country. And now you are really hitting it.
This is what has indeed been done for decades because the courts, as well as the general culture, has been hijacked by the liberal elite. In these recent decades we have also seen the emergence of the activist judges who take upon themselves to promulgate a policy of some sort, rather than perform according to their mandate, which is to interpret the law.
Many people, including those who suprise you on this thread, know that this is neither a part of the Constitution nor a tradition of this country. Much like Hitler hijacked the otherwise very cultured nation, the liberal elite has hijacked ours (the degree of misuse, needless to say, is very differrent, but this is hijacking nonetheless).
Thus, you are taking the status quo as given, where most people on this thread and FR in general know the exceptional nature of this state of affairs and want to end it.
P.S. I am sorry to hear about your personal circumstances. I understand that, when it comes to your personal life you have to deal with the courts as given. Although I understand and empathize with that at the personal level, my previous post was addressing the question of principle.
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