Posted on 02/15/2005 8:24:48 AM PST by SheLion
Do people who enjoy smoking have any rights? Increasingly, the answer is no. It is essential to keep in mind that smoking cigarettes, cigars, or pipes is an entirely personal choice. No one is required to smoke. Millions voluntarily stop smoking every year. People have been smoking, and enjoying tobacco products for a very long time, but now they have been demonized and ostracized.
Using the power of government, to tax, smokers are being ripped off at every level. Recently, New York City sent letters to 2,300 residents giving them thirty days to pay the taxes on the cartons of cigarettes they had purchased over the Internet. It's the law.
A single pack of cigarettes in New York City comes with a state tax of $1.50, a city tax of $1.50, and a federal tax of 39 cents. A pack of Marlboro cigarettes will cost you $7.00. A ten-pack carton will cost you more than $55.00. Purchased at an international airport's duty-free store, the same carton retails for just $16.00.
There are few, if any, people who do not know there is an element of risk involved in the decision to smoke. There is risk involved when any American gets into his car and goes anywhere. Driving kills over 40,000 Americans every year. It is the price we pay for the mobility, and other benefits cars and vehicles provide. There is, in fact, risk in every human activity, including the enjoyment of alcoholic beverages and even the simple act of eating.
The U.S. engaged in a hugely failed experiment, called Prohibition, to stop people from drinking alcoholic beverages at their favorite saloon. It took a Constitutional amendment to end it. For many years now, the same thinking that imposed Prohibition has been at work to achieve the same outcome with smoking.
It is un-American in the most profound sense of that term. In a nation founded on the individual right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, preventing people from the enjoyment of smoking runs contrary to the inherent right to enjoy this lifestyle option if you want.
Consider, however, some events in 2004. The first worldwide antismoking treaty - the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) - was ratified, and is now in effect. It is yet another example of the United Nation's intention to control every aspect of the lives of everyone on planet Earth. Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) is the lead organization in America, and it has promised to "now concentrate on enforcement efforts."
During 2004, six nations imposed a no-smoking ban. Among them were Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden. These nations are notable for their liberal, i.e., socialist political agendas. Here in the U.S., so-called "nonsmoker's rights" became law in Idaho, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. At the local level, thirty-two jurisdictions passed comprehensive workplace smoking laws in 2004, along with "less comprehensive smokefree workplace laws."
There's more. Eleven States, including Virginia, where historically tobacco was the crop that encouraged its establishment and growth as an American colony, substantially increased their cigarette taxes. Consider the example of New York City, and multiply it by other cities and states, cashing in, while at the same time, banning smoking, indoors and out. That is obscene.
Now imagine a similar level of taxation on a candy bar, a cup of coffee, or soft drink. Think it can't happen? Think again.
ASH has big plans for 2005. It plans to "take advantage of a new ruling which now makes it possible for sensitive nonsmokers to sue states which do not provide them with reasonable protection from tobacco smoke pollution."
These suits will eventually cost taxpayers millions, draining vital financial resources from serious needs such as infrastructure improvements. ASH will push for more and more bans, on people who smoke outdoors on beaches, and elsewhere. In California, it is already against the law to light up on the beach.
Let's say you've just bought a condo, or moved to an apartment. ASH intends to encourage and assist lawsuits by apartment dwellers who object to neighbors smoking in their own apartments. In the name of protecting children, ASH will pursue laws that ban parents from smoking around their children, by getting courts to issue orders to ban smoking in custody cases, or by a foster parent, or in a car, while driving children anywhere.
All this is happening in the "land of the free, and the home of the brave," as well as around the world, where the U.N. antismoking treaty bans any advertising for tobacco products, requires health warning labels similar to those on products sold in the U.S., bans any secondhand smoke in workplaces, public transport, and indoor public places.
It empowers a vast law enforcement program against smuggling, and there will be smuggling, leading to cartels that rival illegal drugs. There's more, but the ultimate objective is to eliminate smoking anywhere on the face of the Earth.
This is pure fascism - using the power of the state to deny this simple pleasure from being enjoyed anywhere. And, when the national and global antismoking campaign is successful, these same people will turn their attention to banning the consumption of meat, fish, cookies, candy, potato chips, soft drinks, or anything else they decide you should not enjoy.
Do smokers have any rights? Apparently not.
"Then you and I agree."
Not at all. You agree with using the government guns to prohibit a private property owner from allowing consumption of a legal commodity on his property and you agree with using government guns to invade homes when no actual harm can be proven.
Actually, you do too.
and you agree with using government guns to invade homes when no actual harm can be proven.
You do too.
"Sin taxes" aren't and never have been about "encouraging" right behavior. It's always been about filling the government coffers so that politicians can spend to their hearts content.
No I don't. If you want to be specific feel free, otherwise drop it.
You are saying that you would never object to anything a neighbor could do on his property or with his child. I simply don't believe you.
Fine. Don't believe me. Of course, you are probably failing to remember these key words, "when no actual harm can be proven."
You really don't believe that
Based on this, we can only intervene after your neighbor pollutes your yard even though you know he is in the process of doing so. We can only send police in after the parent drowns the children, not when they threaten it.
Trust me, you really don't believe that.
With your logic we better ban swimming pools and bath tubs. Children drown in them, so we better ban them.
See. I knew you believed that sometimes its necessary to intervene before absolute proof. The issue is deciding when and under what circumstances.
One day it will be illegal to eat any kind of meat, hunt, and fish...hunting and fishing will be redefined by the liberal courts as murder...liberals don't believe in the death penalty but they won't hesitate to go back on their word in the case of somebody who kills a deer for food. Yes...I believe that in the future, hunting and fishing will be punishable by the death penalty. In fact, during the reign of the antichrist, ALL politically incorrect activities (including politically incorrect speech) will be AUTOMATICALLY punishable by death.
The next target of the Health Nazis will be the soft drink industry. The lib-attorneys (specifically John Banzhaf) will pay medical "experts" to say that "caffeine is added to soft drinks solely to get consumers addicted", aspartame is an addictive drug", and "Splenda is an addictive drug". Soon the minimum age requirements that apply to alcoholic beverages will apply to all soft drinks (must be 21 or older to buy, sell, possess, and consume soft drinks; "No ID, No Pepsi"; possession of soft drinks on school property will be a federal offense and get student automatically expelled; driving under the influence of caffeine will be illegal; testing positive for caffeine in a company drug test will get employees fired and get applicant disqualified from consideration of employment"). Before you know it, it will be illegal to sell ANYTHING to anyone under 21 and require valid ID for all purchases..."No ID, No Purchase" sounds like the Mark of the Beast, doesn' it.
And when all of this happens, I will be lounging/lazing on a beach on an uncharted deserted island, with a strawberry daiquiri in my hand, a cigar in my mouth, and a bible in my lap, saying "Rush Was Right".
Thank God all charges were dropped against the Philadelphia Eleven (the ones arrested for hate speech and "possession of an instrument of crime" [bible or bullhorn...take your pick] at that Pink Parade last year). The next person charged with anti-gay hate speech in America [probably won't be so lucky.
(Some) Conservatives support the right of the government to go into people's homes to see that a man and wife are not enjoying each other in a non-approved manner; it's hard to see why smoking shouldn't get the same treatment.
Yeah...the ACLU will sure fight fore your rights if you're a child molester, kiddie porn peddler, atheist, or terrorist...but they don't want anything to do with you if you're a smoker, Christian, or republican.
Thanks for the reply. i didn't think the thread was about outside vs. inside smoking, but I would agree that there is somewhat of a difference there. There are people here who would subject their children to constant indoor smoke, and I believe that that is a real problem. i truly would take their rights away to smoke.
Mind if I join you?
There are people here who would subject their children to constant indoor smoke, and I believe that that is a real problem. i truly would take their rights away to smoke.
I agree that smoking around kids is stupid, how does one go about taking away someone's rights?
It gets reported and investigated, and the adult is punished, just like any other form of abuse.
One of the big problems with all smoking studies is that those illnesses associated with it are not dropping along with the rate of smoking as a percentage of the population; no one tries to explain this and those who are for more regulation will accept any correlation at all.
Overall air pollution has dropped even more dramatically since 1967 than the number of people who smoke yet asthma cases are increasing at an almost inverse ratio to the reductions.
Even lung cancer cases are showing a greater percentage of patients who aren't smokers than in the past decades.
Nobody is quite sure why this is so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.