Posted on 08/05/2002 5:09:05 AM PDT by SheLion
"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke" -- Groucho Marx
Frankly, I'd far rather have the companionship of a woman than even a good cigar, but that's the way one of the greatest comedians in the world expressed his love for cigars.
But, I'll give it to Groucho, in a free society an individual should be allowed to make their own choices.
Duck Soup Groucho died at the ripe old age of 87, which surely shows smoking cigars was not bad for his health.
Sir Winston Churchill, arguably the greatest man of the 20th century, smoked cigars incessantly, drank like a fish, and ate as much red meat as he could get his hands on.
Winnie lived to be 91.
Adolf Hitler, along with Josef Stalwas one of the most evil men of the 20th century, was a vegetarian, abstained from alcohol, and would not allow smoking anywhere he was. Hitler shot himself in despair at the age of 64.
Now, would you rather pattern yourself after Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler?
Well, the anti-smoking zealots surely don't want to you to pattern yourself after Churchill and from their rigid, fanatical authoritarian and totalitarian psyche, you might well wonder just how far they'll go if they successfully ban smoking.
Some are already pushing the vegetarian agenda, others animal "rights."
Junk food and fast food are already being targeted, and some 'animal rights' types don't believe people should be allowed to keep pets -- that's enslaving an animal.
Yes, we're dealing not only with zealots here, but 100% proof crackpots. It's amazing politicians -- even Calgary's city council -- listen to them.
In my column "Orwellian dreams" (July 30) I pointed out how mean-spirited, petty busybodies --- some of them on city council -- are threatening to bring financial disaster to hundreds of small bars, restaurants and pool halls.
And at the same time throw thousands of young waiters and waitresses out of jobs as they enforce draconian smoking bans on these enterprising people.
I centred on Charlie Mendelman, owner of The Garage Billiards Bar and Restaurant in Eau Claire, who is typical of small owners who are now at the mercy of the city's stringent anti-smoking committee.
That column was well-received -- Charlie's a popular fellow in town -- but a couple of readers said I had neglected to mention an extremely valid point.
It is this: While the city plans to ban smoking entirely in "public" places, a bar, restaurant, pool or bingo hall or casino are not "public" places.
A "public" place is owned by the public -- through a government agency, usually -- but none of the bars, restaurants and other businesses now under threat from our aldermen are owned by the city or any other government.
They are owned by men and women who have often invested their life savings in them.
In a free society, such places are called private property.
That they are not public property where any citizen can freely enter is also evidenced by the fact that Charlie and his fellow bar owners are legally entitled to refuse admission to anyone they do not want in their establishments -- and can throw you out should your behaviour upset them.
Neither Mendelman nor any other bar or restaurant owner I have spoken with wants to prevent any other owner from voluntarily banning smoking in their establishments, they just want customers to have a freedom of choice in whether they want to go to a bar that allows smoking or one that doesn't.
Seems sensible to me.
Now here I'm indebted to American author and consultant Craig J. Cantoni, who put the matter of freedom of choice in a nutshell in a column in the Arizona Republican.
This is what Cantoni had to say: Free markets work this way: Person A allows smoking in his Mexican restaurant. Person B believes in the second-hand smoke hysteria spread by the anti-smoking fanatics, so he chooses to eat at a Mexican restaurant that bans smoking.
Person C refuses to eat at any Mexican restaurant because he does not want to clog his arteries with lard-drenched refried beans.
Person D does not worry about secondhand smoke or secondhand beans, so he patronizes Person A's restaurant.
All four people have made their own free choices and taken their own responsibility for their own decisions.
Seems pretty sensible to me.
To you, too, probably.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@calgarysun.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to callet@sunpub.com.
NO, we DON'T! We already KNOW that smoking might not good for us! As with ANYTHING ELSE!
And if your obese, YOUR NEXT!
So they go in and put the bars out of business. Sounds a little immoral to me!
While I do not know what your profession might be, I suspect that neither you nor shelion are English teachers...
And that's why you aren't on our puff list. For anything you throw at us, we can counteract with the truth. All you know is Junk Science, my friend!
We have researched this issue thoroughly, and the truth shall set you free!
We are a kindly bunch but your kind has turned us cranky. And no matter what you say, your going to get flamed. Sorry, but that's how it it.
If you thought you would come in here and turn our thinking around, you have another think coming.
If smoking is so bad, why don't they ban it?! It IS a legal commodity, you know. So get over it.
"As an oncologist," you should be aware that 75% of the cancer that affects the population is in nonsmokers. Granted, there are only 20,000 or so lung cancers a year in those who don't smoke and aren't around smokers, but that's still quite a lot.
Health Crusaders don't approve of bars, period.To me it's a bit more than immoral...it's money out of my pocket.So they go in and put the bars out of business. Sounds a little immoral to me!
It all started with the "Hillary Clinton of the 19th Century", one Carrie Nation. This harridan, in her zeal for Prohibition, went around physically destroying the insides of bars, presumably with her broomstick. It's a shame no tavern owner apparently ever exercised his Second Amendment rights upon her.
-Eric
Max, good one!
Is that the best you can do?
That and the fact that my IQ is over 100...
Deaths, yes. The number one CANCER in the United States, not by a long shot. And why is it that more lung cancer cases end in death? Could it be because the funding supposedly going for reasearch into a cure has instead been funnelled into engineering society? The American Cancer Society spends less than 16% of its billion-dollar-budget each year on research and a fraction of that on lung cancer. When the nico-Nazis jumped on tobacco as the cause of all the ills in the world, lung cancer became the red-headed stepchild because most were allegedly self-caused. Breast cancer, on the other hand, is a politically popular cancer and gets approximately FIFTEEN TIMES the funding spent on lung cancer, so breast cancer is now far less deadly. Even though far more women GET breast cancer than GET lung cancer, far fewer of them die.
As they lie on their beds facing the inevitable, they all look up and say one thing: "Why did I do this to myself and my family?"
And when they lie on their beds facing the inevitable when they lived what they thought was a "risk-free" life, they all look up and say "How could this happen?" because you and people like you have made them believe, even if only subconsciously, they will live forever if they don't do x, y or z.
Which reminds me of this article:
Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year This article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is the best article I have ever seen written in the published literature documenting the tragedy of the traditional medical paradigm.
Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year
You bet. Already done. Thank you!
Pity that your name doesn't reflect your attitude.
Anyway, I have added you to my list, so I won't be responding to anymore of your 14-year-old guy posts.
GROW UP!
Next time listen to your friends.
Let me see if I can help you understand; I may be pi$$ing on a flat rock, but we'll see. Everyone makes choices in life, be they "good" ones or "bad," and those here who you call "apologists" believe that is as it should be. We make our own choices based on our own experiences, and we don't take kindly to others trying to coerce us into living OUR lives the way THEY think is "good." Period.
I come from a long line of long-lived healthy smokers; I'm active and healthy and plan to live a long, full life. Neither my teeth nor my fingers are yellow and I'm less at risk than others I know who don't smoke but live stress-filled lives. In case you're wondering, I detest Big Tobacco--I don't use their products and encourage others to circumvent them as well--but I believe Big Government and Big Anti-Tobacco with their shoddy science and outright lies are far more dangerous to the very fabric of this country than Big Tobacco ever was.
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