Posted on 01/10/2005 10:52:26 AM PST by aynrandy
Hide your smokes and unhealthy contraband. The tyrants of wellbeing are back.
Apparently, the Denver City Council is never too busy to intercede with some good old-fashioned social engineering. And soon enough, smoking in restaurants and bars will be banned.
It's enough to make a holier-than-thou politician - with pristine pink lungs - shriek with delight.
Jeanne Faatz, at this point, is the lone voice of reason on the council. She still believes in trivial things like free enterprise and property rights.
She's sort of an outsider. And although she won't admit it on record, I'm certain the other council members put shaving cream in her shoes, lock her out of meetings and blow spitballs at her.
Don't misunderstand me. Faatz hates smoking. She detests the habit so strongly that she can't stop complaining about it - it causes her to be hoarse and sneeze and makes her stomach coil. She hates being put in this position, protecting smokers.
But Faatz, in contrast to the missionaries of healthful living, appreciates that the ban is not a smoking issue but a matter of freedom.
Faatz loathes sitting next to a smoker in a restaurant. Who doesn't? But she does something extremely peculiar: She gets up, walks out and finds an establishment where she doesn't have to.
"My decision comes from the fact that you have private ownership in business, and they should have the right to target whatever customers they feel the marketplace will give them," she explains. "If, indeed, nobody frequented a smoking establishment, I say, 'Right on, the marketplace has spoken."'
Faatz believes choices and decisions are key in a free society. It's expedient to say, "Yuck, I don't like smoke." But ask yourself this: Do you think government should dictate how a person runs a business? What about customers? Should they be allowed to decide whether they want an all-smoking restaurant or a nonsmoking restaurant?
What if the Denver City Council concluded that cellphones at work should be banned because they have been linked to brain tumors?
Are there justifiable reasons for intervention? Sure. If there is contaminated food or other hidden health issues, government must protect citizens. Full disclosure is imperative. But when the sign in front of a steakhouse reads "smoking allowed," adults should be able to make their own decisions.
Besides, a steady diet of steaks wrapped with bacon is probably apt to kill you a lot faster than secondhand smoke.
We all know what's next. "What about those unfortunate, powerless, coughing employees?" The logical answer given by Faatz is simply that "it is a person's choice where they work." Who is forcing you to work in a smoke-filled diner?
But for the moment, let's advance the argument further: If everyone with a risky job should be protected from all hazards, where would we end up?
You realize the stress a stockbroker goes through? What about the stress a cop experiences? Yes, stress kills far more people than the wildly overstated threat of secondhand smoke. And who can deny the dangers of being a bike messenger, a cabbie or a firefighter?
Smoke Free Denver, another group of sanctimonious nanny types, wants to sabotage freedom for smokers and property owners "to protect the health of Denver residents, workers and visitors from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke."
Well, what about the claims of tens of thousands of deaths due to secondhand smoke?
It's junk science. The University of Chicago's Dr. John Bailar, a critic of the tobacco industry, has produced a detailed analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine debunking the supposed link between secondhand smoke and heart disease. His study is one of many.
But if you don't believe them, there are long lists of smoke-free establishments for you to go to. Enjoy.
David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. He can be reached at 303-820-1255 or dharsanyi@denverpost.com.
What idiot managed to make an inference to crack from a smoking thread?
Also no grasp of property rights and individual freedoms either. sigh
Nice seeing you, too! :)
Crack, tobacco, heroin....is there a difference? /sarcasm
Actually, we had one the other night that flat out compared smokers to crack addicts, so it's not a big surprise to me. It's a lame argument, but it appears to be making the rounds amongst the more desperate. :)
Fleeting founts of fashionable fallacy?
They often have coffee and snacks at my Smoke Shop!
"Fleeting founts of fashionable fallacy?"
LOL...works for me.
Quit bothering me.
Ooooh, alliteration! Me likey. LOL!
Works for me too, LOL!
Well, while I've been posting I made Southern Fried Chicken. Hub wants to sit and watch FoxNews while we eat.
I'll catch up later. ;-D
Considering the nature of the bird (I know, I see them in my back feild all the time) I would stick to the idea of the adult beverage of that name if I chose it as a screen name.
I'm like a duck with water.....it just rolls off my back.
Thank you FRiend for sticking up for me, it's appreciated.
Hey, that's MY line, lol! Is the ignorance of the two really so prevalent?
For Wild Turkey's (and any other that may be interested) perusal:
Main Entry: cor·re·la·tion
Pronunciation: "kor-&-'lA-sh&n, "kär-
Function: noun
Etymology: Medieval Latin correlation-, correlatio, from Latin com- + relation-, relatio relation
1 : the state or relation of being correlated; specifically : a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone <the obviously high positive correlation between scholastic aptitude and college entrance
AND
Main Entry: cau·sa·tion
Pronunciation: ko-'zA-sh&n
Function: noun
1 a : the act or process of causing b : the act or agency which produces an effect
Enjoy!
Don't mind me. Just trying to cough some life into this thread.
LOL. This is just an example of what many have said before...we gotta have differing viewpoints (even lamebrain ones) or this place will get boring! :)
I will say one thing though...I am pleased to see a non-smoker out there putting it on the line. She gets what the important part is, and can apparently see the bigger picture that some non-smokers do not...the slippery slope.
Yep.
**Oh, and about that nosepicking thing? You're REAL lucky you weren't on an amphib. I could tell you tales that would curdle yer skin**
Ewww...I can only imagine. :) The BM's I knew always told the good stories...them and chiefs and seniors, of course. :)
WHAT I was laughing about in my original post was in regard to the idiot complaining about getting kicked off FR.
I didn't notice the new one had pinged JR to the post.....not that it scares me. I informed him of the issue at the time it occurred, and he is well aware of my references to the incident since.
I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Robinson and do my very best to abide by the posting guidelines here, as I am a guest in his private property and he has set the rules. Much like what we are discussing here, that business owners are the ones having their rights trampled with these smoking bans, not the smokers or non-smokers....the owners of the establishments.
One thing the gnatzies seem to forget in their insistance that governing bodies have the right to impose the bans, is if that is true, they also have the right to demand any and all businesses provide for smokers.
Can you imagine the outrage from the antis??????
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