Help! Help! Someone stop these evil fiends before they kill again!
These are surely future targets of some "Emergency Creation, er um Response Team"
Posted on 10/01/2002 11:16:00 PM PDT by SheLion
The movement to get the Dallas City Council to pass a city ordinance to make ALL establishments 100% smoke free is gaining momentum. They advocate preventing a bar or restaurant owner to make his or her own decision about giving a choice to the customer. They advocate putting into LAW that you can't... CAN NOT... smoke anywhere in the City of Dallas. "Well, how about the cigar bar in Del Frisco's after a big steak dinner?"
Nope. In fact if they get this passed, they might come back and try to get a law passed that we can't eat a big steak dinner because they found a study that suggests that the side-effects of other people enjoying a steak is bad for "the children".
In fact, there is no stopping a group of people organizing, coming up with their own "research", and lobbying to take our rights away because they don't like what others do.
I know that sounds ridiculous and that is why no normal citizen, who enjoys the rights that people before us fought and died for, ever thinks that anything as absurd as a law to take away any of those rights could be even considered as serious. That is where we have been wrong... dead wrong. It seems that advocates share a certain trait with politicians: they both feel the need to get "involved" with the issue of guiding our citizenry. In the meantime, our citizenry is comfortable knowing that our Constitution is protecting us so we can go about our daily lives working and enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Well, guess what? We were wrong.
There is a group in Dallas that is working hard to "ban" smoking in any establishment in the city limits.
They contend a restaurant owner has no business making a decision about his or her own policies. They think that the local government should decide what type of customers they should try to attract. This group has even stooped to the over-done, we-should-do-it-for-the-children-and-if-you-disagree-with-that-you-hate-children tactic.
They wonder why when they are with their "children" (because after all, they are pro-family... aren't you?) and someone in a restaurant lights up, the government isn't there to protect the health of their family. They wonder why they are expected to make a decision not to go to that restaurant instead of making everyone around them change so they don't have to.
To find the wisdom in our system, it is often necessary to read what our leaders said a long time ago. It was Abraham Lincoln that had words for this situation:
"Those who deny freedom for others deserve it not for themselves".
Let me be clear. I do not smoke cigarettes. They are nasty and dangerous. There are probably many chemicals and poisons that are let out into the air by smoking. But I reserve the right to smoke one day, if I want to. I won't smoke at your church, school, or in your government building. If you don't allow it in your home, I will totally respect that. I won't smoke in your car, or even near you when I can... I am not rude. However, when I choose a restaurant that wants me as a customer so much as to have a section for me, and you want to go there too (because the food and service are great), we have both made a decision based on personal freedom. Since you have made that choice, why is it my fault that you aren't comfortable? Why do you insist that city government get involved to make sure your dining experience is more pleasant? If you walk by a club and the rap music from inside is so loud that it seems offensive, will you go inside? No, of course not, and you wouldn't run to the city council wanting a law against rap music.
You simply wouldn't go. Get it?
I am not even going to start in on the junk science and so-called "surveys" presented as "irrefutable fact" by this poster group for political correctness. I will give you the link to the web site. Twenty years ago this web site would have made a great satirical magazine. It would have shown, in a ironic way, how fanatics try to push their agenda using any scare tactic they can. Sadly, this is not satire. It is a group that will not be content until others behave the way they think they should. It is time for common sense to replace political correctness.
It is time that people realize a perfect world is not formed by laws.
Here is the web site. Enjoy. http://smokefreedallas.org/
Please don't insult all conservatives. This guy is a poser. He is a right wing authoritarian.
More hyperventilation.
Property rights are alive and well.
So, which liberal's law are you defending?
And what do you think Davis would do, if a bill revoking the ban crossed his desk? (Hint: starts with 'v', ends with 'o'.)
Nonsense. You saying it doesn't make it so. Tyranny however is alive and well.
That's not quite correct but I'll give you a little leeway.
It also wasn't a thought on the subject of the thread.
Lacking proof of harm, why would the dissolution of a persons property rights , to allow a LEGAL commodity to be consumed in their place of business, be allowed?
I can give you the short answer now but you probably won't like it.
Nonsense.
What a bizarre mindset.
That's easy,,,All laws which establish the primacy of the state over the individual.
With the exception of a small cabal of like minded authoritarians, almost everyone on this site who has bothered to read your screeds thinks that about you.
A "no smoking" regulation in a restaurant open to the public is "the dissolution of a persons property rights." There's some overheated rhetoric.
Would your logic extend to saying that a state regulation requiring restaurant staff to wash their hands after using the bathroom is "the dissolution of a persons property rights?"
Even in a nation of unparalled freedom and property rights, there are miserable self-deluded ingrates.
Let's go back to, "Lacking proof of harm", shall we?
A "no smoking" regulation in a restaurant open to the public is "the dissolution of a persons property rights."
That sentence should have been, I believe, a question. And, yes, it is. If the owner of that business wants to make it a non-smoking business I have no problem with them doing so voluntarily. Having the force of law do it is, "the dissolution of a persons property rights" because there is no PROOF of harm and there is no allowance for those who would NOT have their business be non-smoking.
That's easy too. Anyone who resists with sufficient vigor.
Good description of those of like mind to you.
Uhhh, that's coming a little too close to home for me.
I'm afraid that this could be me.
Help! Help! Someone stop these evil fiends before they kill again!
These are surely future targets of some "Emergency Creation, er um Response Team"
Barking ain't biting.
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