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.
He must be a lonely soul, is all I have to say. Being beat up is one way of getting attention, I guess. :(
I think Wild Turkey is one of these two.
Oh, man oh man! That would be absolutely hilarious to see!
Busybodies walking out in a kerfuffle everywhere! ROFL!!!
My quote of your post was in now way intended to misquote you, and I apologies if it was taken that way. However, I must say that their is a tendency in these threads to use a FReepers name but not ping him. That's a violation of the unwritten rule as I understand it.
I think you're right, the posting style is exactly the same. I vote we just laugh at them, and make fun of them behind their backs when they hit the smoking threads. ;-D
If we get annoyed or irritated with them, then the wrong person is suffering. I vote we make them the object of ridicule.
Not anymore, not on these threads. You're a sissy. Quit whining.
Back at you! :)
I guess, if you're into that sort of thing. :)
Sure wouldn't be hard to do.
You couldn't be more wrong - as you're finding out. Governments exist to govern, not coddle stenchers...
A lame arguement is putting it mildly.
Before we moved last year, there were crack dealers living across the street from us.........more than once I had anti-smoker comments hurled at me by them and some of their "clients" about my smoking. And that generally happened when I was cleaning up their beer and liquor bottles, fast food wrappers, and crack vials in my front lawn.
When someone compares smoking cigarettes to doing crack I lose any possible idea I might have a bit of respect or the time of day for them. I know a couple that nearly lost everything because they had a crack addiction.....and no one knew, other than those they did it with, it at the time. They were both prominent attorney, doing extremely well and got busted on the day they were leaving on their honeymoon. She has since become a firm believer in the fact she had an addiction to it and is deeply offended when such comparisons of what she and her husband went through are made to people who smoke cigarettes.
A lot of times, I've come on to these threads and taken up an argument, and find that suddenly it's between me and one social engineer, nobody else is posting. I hate when that happens.
I absolutely know a lot of people are lurking, but I have begun to feel like I'm feeding mangy strays, they always get repetitious, fail (deliberately) to follow the argument or respond directly to posts, get snotty and then call us "enraged" or "addicts" when they have no further arguments, and use every chance they get to argue AGAINST private property rights.
I despise these people. If I ever saw one on an unrelated thread, where I actually agreed with them on something, I'd refuse to support them because of their rude tactics on the cigarette threads.
They should be isolated and put in their own (*smoke-free*) threads.
ROFL!!!!!!!!
It will probably FLY right over the heads ofo those who should pay most attention.
I think so myself. And I wish FR had an ignore button, so we wouldn't have to read anything they write. Just put their name on ignore, and the thread would post around them. I'd love that feature.
Goodbye, pig farmers! Goodbye, barns! Goodbye, airports! Goodbye, automobiles! Goodbye, food processing plants! Goodbye, forest fires! Goodbye, steel mills! Goodbye, sewage treatment plants! Goodbye, tuna salad! Goodbye, fresh onions! Goodbye, hospital surgery suites! Goodbye, sickrooms! Goodbye, public rest rooms!
We COULD pretend....oops! I just fed a smoke-troll.
My post 135 I mean. DRAT!
We get at least one volunteer on every thread!
That would be funny, wouldn't it.
I'm sure they would have the same reaction to find a help-wanted ad stating "smokers only need apply" or "non-smokers need not apply".........even though they glory in the fact that the opposite occurs on a regular basis in many places.
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