Posted on 03/31/2002 11:31:40 AM PST by The Raven
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.
The "For Your Own Good" Police Are Coming...After You
By Walter Williams (March 27, 2002)
[CAPITALISMMAGAZINE.COM] Most Americans were pleased with the legislative attack on cigarette smokers, not to mention confiscatory tobacco taxes. We reveled in the EPA's dishonest study concluding that second-hand smoke causes cancer. And, by the way, I'd like to hear whether the Food & 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 (CSPI) 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 (MADD) 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.
Such a move would increase the Federal bureaucracy and create more people dependent on government.
It won't do a thing for the underlying health problems of being overweight, but that is not the point, is it?
As for the second hand tobacco smoke, you don't have a right to breath tobacco smoke in my face. Period. Ever. If you want to smoke your lungs out, fine. But you don't have a right to smoke around me or my family.
Libertarians want to be free to do what is right in their own eyes, they think that they live in a glass ball for a world, that whatever they want is all that matters. This may be news for the libertarians, but there are other people in the world, and some of their so-called "Victimless" are not really so. Their own self-destructive behaviors spill out and affect the rest of us who want no part of it.
BTW: First Offense DUI's need to be made into a felony. That will ensure that the libertarian scum who gets a DUI can't vote again, can't own a gun again, and has a long prison sentence to think about what he has done.
That's your SUV with the "I'm the NRA" sticker, right?
Great post Rich. My pet peeve is seat belts.
Why do adults have to buckle up, when children, who really need them on a school bus do not.
People riding(standing) on public transits system's are not required.
Motorcyclists are not required. Grey hound or tour buses are not required. Bicycle riders are not required. So,I have decided not to wear one.
If I go thru the windshield I will be the one to suffer. As far as health costs soaring, because of people not wearing seatblets, I think that is pure nonsence.
If you look at the defence budget, it is more than the heath care and education budget combined
And if there is someone else in the car between you and whatever wall or window you get thrown against in an accident, that person will suffer, too.
DO NOT take that as my endorsement of seatbelt laws. I am against them, but I do like to remind people that they are endangering the lives of others in their cars when they don't wear seatbelts. I never thought of that until a few years ago when someone mentioned it to me.
When you look at the "war on terrorism" for example, changes are being made here in this country in increments.
The park service videotaping you if you go near a national monument, federal security directors being appointed to bus stations, ports, etc. The testing of the waters of a national ID, and so on. Very incremental.
Kinda spooky.
You have every right to prevent others from smoking on your property. You have *no* right to mandate such prohibitions when you are on other people's property. If you don't like that a restaurant or other private establishment allows smoking, don't go there.
'If I knew for a certainty that someone were coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.'
-- Henry David Thoreau
Nope make that yer rusty Ford pickup with the "GUN CONTROL IS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT" sticker, man...
And with the this latest development discussed in this development, it's official:
Leftists are against mom and apple pie.
"Pound sand."
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