Posted on 11/07/2002 2:04:46 PM PST by prman
Two decades ago, before it became fashionable to detest tobacco products, anti-smoking zealots used to argue that their interest in banning smoking only extended to prohibiting the practice on plane flights. This was only reasonable, they argued, because aircraft ventilation systems had no way to filter smoke-tainted air, and non-smokers had no recourse if they didn't want to inhale it.
This proposed restriction was presented to the public as the outer limits on curtailing people's freedom to enjoy smoking. But with the stealth that guile brings, the long march to stamp out smoking everywhere was under way. Buoyed by the relentless drumbeat of sympathetic media propaganda and vested interests in the health care industry, the wheels of disapprobation ground inexorably finer by a thorough demonizing of tobacco producers and users.
The overt demonology became political correctness, leading corporate executives, facility managers and assorted government functionaries to curtail smoking in the workplace. Everyone has seen the sorry spectacle of huddled groups of beleaguered smokers, furtively sneaking puffs outside their workplaces in the cold and damp.
Demagogues like California Congressman Henry Waxman and Savonarola-like activist John Banzhaf have called for Draconian tobacco regulation far and wide, encouraging tort lawyers across the country to belly up to the bar and file whatever personal injury or class action lawsuit will allow them to pick the pockets of tobacco companies.
Not to be outdone, state and local politicians in league with anti-smoking groups push ballot measures in numerous states and municipalities that either increase already onerous tobacco taxes or outlaw smoking in various public areas and workplaces.
Following similar measures in California and Delaware, Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, is now pressuring New York's City Council to ban smoking outright in bars and restaurants in all five boroughs. Since 1995, smoking has been prohibited in city office buildings and in restaurants seating more than 35 customers. The new proposed restriction would affect an additional 13,000 establishments.
This heavy-handed coercion is all done under the banner of health care advocacy, which, in the minds of political animals, always seems to trump the rights of individuals to pursue their own pleasures, unless the lawmakers' own pockets are at stake. The recent defeat of Michigan's Proposal 4 ballot initiative, which would have redistributed tobacco settlement monies to private health care organizations, was heartily cheered by state politicos, since they were being used to fund other projects.
This long-running anti-smoking jihad is not unlike the Zeitgeist demonizing the liquor industry that brought about Prohibition in 1920. In the similar attempt to solve all sorts of social problems, proponents argued that by reducing the consumption of alcohol, crime would decrease, health and hygiene would improve and the tax burden of building prisons would be lifted.
As time would show, the Noble Experiment was a miserable failure. In the long run, alcohol consumption actually increased, organized crime and corruption got a foothold, an underground economy was born and the touted health benefits were not realized.
There is no question that heavy long-term smoking represents a health hazard to the smoker, as does habitual alcohol consumption for the heavy drinker. And while some argue that "second-hand smoke" might jeopardize the health of people in close proximity to smokers, over-consumption of alcohol certainly modifies the public and private behavior of drinkers, often to the detriment or peril of those around them.
The question remains: Should government regulate smoking as it tried to do with alcoholic beverage production and consumption? Have smokers no rights? Should a man who risks his investment in a bar or restaurant be put at an economic disadvantage because he is proscribed from allowing smoking in his place of business? Hasn't he the right to establish his own rules and policies to attract the customers he wants? After all, those who are offended by tobacco smoke also have the right not to patronize his restaurant.
The anti-tobacco and anti-alcohol crusades are cut from the same cloth. Today, anti-smoking forces are mercilessly metastasizing to kill off the last redoubts that remain for those who might enjoy a postprandial cigarette, cigar or pipe.
This is not only wrong; it is, as Prohibition showed, against nature. People must be free to choose – even if it means their own poison. The more intense the regulation, the more potent tobacco becomes as people find other sources to pursue their pleasure.
The spreading cancer of the anti-smoking Puritans should be of concern to free men everywhere. As economist Ludwig von Mises cautioned, "Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments."
Barrett Kalellis is a columnist and writer whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print and online publications.
Thats not what I posted. I said that is is not harmful for children to be around smokers. Smoking is harmful to anyone who smokes.
Why am I not surprised that you would try to misrepresent what I posted? Is it because the rabid anti-smoking Nazis like yourself are illogical and dishonest? Hmmmmm?
Imagine that, they were just talking last night about the extremely high rates of asthma in children, the soaring started in the mid 70ties, as I remember that was the first time the extreme fanatics did their thing.
It was admitted the reason is........ drumroll........ children are living much too sterile lives these days.
Please let me refresh your memory: "Any normal human should be able to handle a little smoke. Even kids. The steril environment that most kids are raised in these days is the reason so many people have allergies and other immune reaction problems." YOU are touting the benefit of exposing kids to smoke.
Nope. ""Any normal human should be able to handle a little smoke. Even kids. " Smoking involves more than a little smoke. I was refering to second hand smoke, the same as you were in the post I was replying too. If you read all my posts you will not find one instance of my saying that it is benificial for kids to smoke.
I suppose I should give you the benifit of the doubt, and assume you have problems with reading comprehension, rather than that you were being purposely dishonest.
"Posting that it is beneficial for children to smoke is not a tease."
Since this is clearly not what I said, which is it, poor reading comprehension or dishonesty?
Try telling that to the anti-smoking Nazis. They are immune to logic. If it doesn't fit their neat little world view then for them it doesn't exist. I get the feeling that the blind are leading the blind in US society. Anyone with a clue is ignored.
The anti-smoking Nazis are just a symptom of a far greater problem. The inability to think constructively. Conventional wisdom seems to blot out any logical thought. It leaves a giant void in the intellectual capacity of the Country.
Then your whole argument goes out the window since you can operate your bar in the locale that permits you to operate it with smoking.
He may wish but he still has to follow the law. Check. Checkmate.
If you want to play on their field you have to play by their rules.
There it is: fascism/socialism rearing its ugly head: It's not the property owner's domain it's the domain of the government.
Correct. A little smoke. As in second hand smoke. You said I wanted kids to smoke. That is incorrect.
sheesh..this isn't rocket science. Why is it so difficult for you to understand?
Yes, the state has the right to enforce state law and force businesses to abide by that law.
A small but critical/key distinction that is important to be accurate. The State doesn't have rights, it has power. The State has been empowered by the citizens via exorcizing their individual rights.
Obviously politicians and bureaucrats have usurped a ton of power. Usurped power that rightfully resides with each individual's life-and-property rights. Expose the fraud and regain individual power while collapsing government to its constitutionally valid service of protecting individual life-and-property rights from foreign and domestic criminals.
Ok. I got a little carried away with your teasing. I submit a correction. You believe that exposing kids to second-hand smoke is beneficial to them. However, it can be said that exposing them to this environment makes them more likely to smoke (at least thats what the tobacco companies believe) thus kids raised to believe that their are benefits to smoking are more likely to smoke thus it can be inferred that wanting kids exposed to second hand smoke means you also want them to smoke since if you did not want them to smoke, you would not want to expose them to that environment.
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