Posted on 03/06/2002 5:21:26 AM PST by farmall
They're coming after you
Posted: March 6, 2002 by: Walter Willaims
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Most Americans were pleased with the legislative attack on cigarette smokers, not to mention confiscatory tobacco taxes. We reveled in the Environmental Protection Agency's dishonest study concluding that second-hand smoke causes cancer. And, by the way, I'd like to hear whether the Food and Drug Administration would sanction pharmaceutical companies employing EPA's research methods to test drug safety – and if not, why not?
The real reason for the attack on smokers is that many people are offended by the tobacco odor. Unfortunately, in their quest to eliminate tobacco fumes, Americans are willing to trade away constitutional principles and rule of law.
Tyrants are never satisfied. They've lined up new victims. Surgeon General David Satcher has provided them with ammunition by describing obesity as America's No. 1 killer, costing 300,000 lives annually. As a result of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses, it's costing us billions upon billions of health dollars. That means, according to John Banzhaf of George Washington University School of Law and other tyrants, America's food industry is to blame and liable. New York University Professor Marion Nestle agrees, saying that the food industry "can't behave like cigarette companies. ... Yet there's a lot of people who benefit from people being fat and sick, and the whole setup is designed to make people eat more. So the response to the food industry should be very similar to what happened with the tobacco companies."
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is one of the Washington lobbies that wants to control what we eat. These tyrants not only propose taxes on what they deem as non-nutritious foods, they've also proposed a 5 percent tax on new television sets and video equipment, and a $65 tax on each new car or an extra penny per gallon of gas. You might ask why tax these items? CSPI Nazis see watching television and videos, and riding instead of walking, as contributing to obesity. And, as they see it, just as tobacco companies were responsible for people smoking, television manufacturers are responsible for people being couch potatoes, automobile companies are responsible for people riding instead of walking and the food industry is responsible for people eating too much.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has joined these tyrants. No reasonable person advocates drunk driving, but MADD has another agenda. It wishes to outlaw driving even after having one drink. It has successfully pushed Congress to lower the blood/alcohol level for a drunk-driving arrest to .08 percent. But its true agenda was revealed by Steve Simon, chairman of the Minnesota State DUI Task Force, when he said: "If .08 percent is good, .05 percent is better. That's where we're headed. It doesn't mean that we should get there all at once. But ultimately it should be .02 percent."
That's the way Nazis work – incrementally. If they had demanded Congress make the blood/alcohol .02, they wouldn't have gotten anything – not even .08 percent. I wouldn't be surprised if their ultimate agenda is alcohol prohibition.
The Center for Consumer Freedom keeps up-to-date information on these and other tyrants. You might say, "What's the fuss, Williams? These people will never get away with controlling what we eat and drink!" Think again. In the '60s, when the anti-smoking zealots were simply asking for smoking and non-smoking sections on airplanes, no one would have ever anticipated today's tobacco taxes, laws and regulations.
Most evil done in the world is done in the name of promoting this or that good. By turning away from rule of law and constitutional government, Americans are following in the footsteps of the decent Germans, who during the 1920s and '30s built the Trojan Horse that enabled Hitler to take over. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WorldNetDaily contributor Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
now here we go
He was right on SUVs too. His ability to predict the future is better than anyone else on the political front.
And no, I'm not a cigarette smoker.
When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.
- Thomas Sowell
MKM
See post #9.
Well, if you want to start hurling insults...
Are you really so lazy that you can't get up and move away from the smoker?
BTW, I am a smoker, but as a courtesy I do not expose others to my habit, I go outside, even at home.
almost if not all his articles i read i agree with
Before all the laws were passed limiting where smoking was permitted you could just tell the smokers of your condition and they would generally snuff them out without protest. But now that the smokers are feeling defensive about their habit most often you get some rude comment about this being the smoking area and to get lost. I know because my daughter is allergic to smoke and I’ve dealt with this issue for 20 years now. I was a smoker until my daughter was born.
It is sad to think that in this country we have replaced manners with laws. If manners were still taught in the home and at school most people would see these laws as unnecessary.
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