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.
The role of a FreeRepublic, among many things, is to decide what is proscribed.
You think the insults hurled at smokers are bad.......take a look at some of the threads about public schools and what is hurled at those of us that like the public schools our children attend.
The vitriolic insults on FR are not confined to the smoking threads.
I've got the grand slam of getting insulted here....I am a smoker against smoking bans and increased tobacco taxes, I am divorced and remarried, my only child goes to public school, and I don't give a hoot that some of my friends are gay.
Flame retardants are my life..........
No kidding. I got it really bad yesterday, and I was barely even involved in that one.
You and me both. I'm twice divorced and my kids go to Public Schools. I smoke, I drink, I am the Anti-Christ.
That practically proves it's CinFla. She would always start up, then call the Mods if anyone snapped back.
I don't want you to quit. I want your tax dollars to continue to lower my tax burden. I want your shorter life span to supplement my SS benefits. I'd rather you chain smoke.
I'm married once, 34 years...;-D Both my kids went to private Catholic parish schools...we're diverse. Plus I think I'm among the older FR demographic, at 57. But I sure like you all.
Do you have the choice to go to the supermarket and buy your food or go to a resturant and have someone else cook for you? Do you have the choice to go to one place instead of going to another? How long before your choices get taken away from you? I prefer to have options myself, but some have to have it one way or another. That is fine, but when there are no choices left to make for ourselves, what do we do then?
Hiya metesky! Check out post 206. Someone (peeeeyoooooo) is hysterical. ;-D
And in a self-governing FreeRepublic it is the responsibility of the citizens to subject the basis of those proscriptions to a critical objective examination.
Then what are you arguing about, hmmm? You are sounding more and more liberal all the time.
To quote Jeff Foxworth, "Tell me that don't stink!"
LOL!!
Me too. I prefer to have the option of sitting anywhere at any restaurant and not have to breath smoke. I have that option now in my state and it seems like I'll have that option before long in every state.
That too...........
Probably............and all the smoke gnatzies would find anytime something like was posted to be a bad time.
Of course, I'm not one of them.
If you think tobacco taxes lower your tax rates you arent playing with a full deck, you are the butter knife in the drawer!
The argument is over. The bans are a done deal. I have the best of all worlds. A general smoking ban and your tax dollars.
I'm merely here to explain to you that if you want to stem the tide from further encroachments, smokers need to take more responsibility over their smoke and where it goes and find some other argument than the private property one.
Will you just please go away.
Enjoy your smoke-free lifestyle, but leave the rest of us alone.
Good grief man, you're worse than a dog who won't give up a bone.
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