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.
Then you'll enjoy visiting Delaware starting Thanksgiving.
But you better get your visiting in quickly - the ban WILL be overturned in January.
It became such a major issue in so many races here in Delaware that long time incumbents were kicked out of office over that one issue and some open seats were won solely on that issue.
While it occurred too late to avoid the (temporary) implementation, the lies, deceit and major bucks of the antis were found out and made very highly public. Several incumbents who did get re-elected (only because they were unopposed) are going to pay dearly for their position and hand in the sneaky way the ban was handled - particularly in the loss of leadership positions.
You are exactly correct. In my daughter's pre-school there is one child that seems to constantly be sick with something, whether it be allergies or ear infections or colds. I honestly believe the only time this child is exposed to a little bit of dirt is when she is playing outside with the other kids. Her parents are very fussy, anti-smoking vegetarians - who feeds a 2 year old a totally vegetarian diet???
None of the other kids get sick any where as often - and they all have pets, are allowed to get dirty, and parents that smoke.
I realize it is just anecdotal personal experience and not scientific evidence - but it just adds another example that bolsters the "antiseptic" world theory of illness and immune systems.
There are studies which have found that children of smokers had fewer serious illnesses than children of non smokers. Sorry, I don't have the reference.
I expect part of the reason is that smoke, being an irritant, causes the muccus membrains of the respiratory system to secrete a bit more, which protects against airborn virus's and bacteria. Obviously too much smoke would be harmful, but a little is probably helpful.
People have rights, geographical areas do not.
People within societies have rights, not the societies themselves.
Governments have the ability to pass laws, which affect the rights of the individuals within their jurisdiction. That is not the same as the Government having rights, in and of itself.
Therefore, Governments have the capacity to ignore, destroy and restrict rights, liberties and freedoms, but they do not have the ability to grant them - rights, liberties and freedoms are innate elements of human nature.
You seem prepared to destroy the rights of a significant minority in society, based on your sensitive nose and the possibility that you or some similarly sensitive individual might go somewhere at some time in your life and be offended.
How you could possibly argue that this is a conservative mindset is beyond me.
Beat them at their own game. Stop giving them reason to go after you.
Aren't you proud of yourself?
What are you doing on a conservative forum?
Yes, massuh, I be cleanin' your boots now...if that's okay with y'all.
monday, he's already proven that...it's just a matter of time until some other special interest group with an axe to grind makes it law.
Hell, Gabz, in Floriduh, pregnant PIGS have more rights than business owners. I'm thoroughly disgusted with the American sheeple.
I've seen them as well, and I too don't have a link. although one beautiful references is the WHO/IARC study from 1998 which I believe was referenced in this thread earlier.
And your hypothesis of exposure to just about anything is right on target.
Not all of them, please Max - wekicked out enough antis from the Delaware Legislature that there is no doubt the ban here is going to last from Thanksgiving (when it goes into effect) until about mid January (when the legislature returns)
Dug up an interesting little piece of information this evening while researching bubonic plague (two cases have been confirmed here not far from us). Seems some folks have a gene that protects them from plague, which is why only HALF of Europe was decimated by the Black Death a few centuries back. A recent study (will be able to provide links but not tonight) indicates that may (typical wiggle word, I know) be the SAME gene that protects some smokers from those horrible "smoking-related" diseases.
Speaking of poetic justice...
Ah, but there's the rub .... you don't know what you are talking about. I never said "I" had the right but the state does.
What are you doing on a conservative forum? If you keep your pro-tobacco posts off here we will all get along.
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