An excellent editorial / essay on the machinations of the nanny state.
Seattle's and Washington State's chief anti-smoking nanny and enforcement personage. This is almost a caricature. Notice the smugness.
Posted on 01/19/2006 5:59:53 PM PST by elkfersupper
A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Roger Valdez, director of tobacco prevention for Public Health– Seattle & King County. He is in charge of Seattle-area enforcement of the statewide smoking ban approved by voters in November. I call him the tobacco czar.
We were talking about how enforcement was working out, including the 25-foot rule. In the midst of our chat, Valdez said something remarkable.
"Americans think they have a lot of rights they really don't have. Smoking is one of those things where people think they have the right to smoke, but you don't." He used "you" in the plural. "You have no right to smoke. It's an addiction. It's something you should see a doctor about."
He went on to tell me that people have no right to smoke even in their private residences.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattleweekly.com ...
An excellent editorial / essay on the machinations of the nanny state.
Seattle's and Washington State's chief anti-smoking nanny and enforcement personage. This is almost a caricature. Notice the smugness.
Ping.
As is typical, the biggest Nazis have the smallest weenies.
That guy needs to be bitch slapped around for a couple days.
You do have the right to commit sodomy and or buggery.
On and on and on.
I wish that Roger Valdez would walk up to me and tell me to put my cigarette out. Go ahead Roger, make my day!
He's the "Anti-Tobacco/Smoking Czar. He's probably packing an M-4, a fire hose and a grenade launcher.
But it doesn't matter, he has the full force of the law behind him, and has just won a major victory. You can see it in his face.
Perhaps, but he reminds me of someone who used to be stuffed in a locker during my high school days.
This is how it starts.
Definitely a good read...........and I'm only half way through :)
This article is an excellent primer on why my home city absolutely sucks.
And this is where it should end.
These clowns do not have the Constitutional authority to ban smoking, especially in a person's home. There are a lot of things covered by the 10th; the Founders anticipated these jerks and so wrote the 10th. There is no need to enumerate every "right" of the people. On the other hand, the Constitution does not limit the liberty of the citizens. It does, however, limit the authority of government. I think the Seattle do-gooders have it backwards.
I'm just kinda sad about it all. Has it all been allowed to go too far already?
Are the masses really so stupid as to allow all of these things to continue?
If so, I am just very sad and angry that Americans care so little about freedom.
Something else that irks me is when people say, "Smokers have no right to smoke."
Well, I do not believe that I have the right to smoke in anyone's property if they don't want me to do so. But I sure as hell have the right to light up in my own buildings, and anyone else's building who agrees with me, while drinking Mad Dog 20/20 AND schlitz if I feel like it!!!!
I am depressed.
"That sounds like the justification floated by conservatives when they want to censor free speech or ban gays from teaching: We must protect the children!"
It was the damn liberals, notably that paragon of liberty (as long as its "liberty" to kill the unborn) the rotten scum bag, Hillary the Witch Clinton who coined the "its for the chillllrun" crap.
I don't have much hope that Seattle's "progressives" will get it, though.
Don't be depressed. Be angry.
I get extreme joy out of simply walking around with an UNLIT cigarette or cigar in my mug or my hand (of course, my profile blocks out the sun for most people) :)
Perhaps if we all switched to pot, we would have a right then?
Last I heard, King County voted to make pot a minimal crime, the same time they voted down their Starbucks Tax.
It is my observation that the political left and right converge at both ends of the nanny-state propagation issue.
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