Smoking ban could lead to tyranny
As of May 2010, no restaurant in Michigan will be able to sell cheeseburgers. Cheeseburgers are full of saturated fat and hormones from corporate farms, are unhealthy to the general public and therefore drive up the cost of health care.
Cheeseburgers will still be legal, but those restaurants that sell cheeseburgers after the appointed date will be in violation of the law and will be heavily fined.
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Just kidding. It’s a ridiculous idea, right? Yet, we don’t apply the same judgment to the ban on smoking in restaurants, which passed last month and will take effect in May. Why not?
Face it. Smoking is an easy target. Most Americans dislike cigarette smoke and I can understand why.
It’s nasty, it stinks and my wife has asthma, so we can never be around it without her coughing up a storm. My grandmother died of lung cancer from cigarettes.
The U.S. would be a much healthier country if no one else ever picked up another cigarette. Then why does this ban bother me?
What bothers me is private property, as it often does, getting thrown out the window.
The idea that the state legislators can decide whether or not a particular bar owner can have a legal activity go on in his establishment is offensive to me.
Thomas Jefferson said of property rights, “Nothing is ours, which another may deprive us of.”
Property owners have rights to their property as every citizen has rights. No one is forced to visit a place or work at an establishment that allows smoking. That is up to the individual.
My wife and I don’t go to restaurants with heavy smoke, and the sad fact is, no one ever held a gun to my grandmother’s head and forced her to smoke.
This seems like a simple idea, yet we go along with it because this particular mothering of our government is not so distasteful to us. It’s easy to take away the rights of those we find repugnant, but when the same measure is applied to us, we take righteous offense.
By then, it’s too late.
Precedent is set, tyranny established, power’s foot wedged in the door.
How many people die from liver failure, or drunk driving every year? How many families are destroyed by alcohol?
Yet the idea of prohibition seems a silly idea today, as it should, because “lifestyle legislation” does nothing more than take away the freedoms of consenting adults.
Smoking isn’t popular. It’s not healthy or good for society, and it’s certainly not too smart, but the last thing I think we need from our broke, job-leaking state is some maternal rule to prevent adults from making adult decisions.
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by Bob
If a bar is “public property”, does this mean that the owner has to let anyone enter? Kids, hookers, drug dealers, and undesirables?
by Mark Kmiec
by harleyrider1978
Note that the EPA report of 1992 on second hand smoke was tossed out as junk science by federal judge osteen.
Followed by 2 congressional comittees with henry waxman in attendance,both comittees also tossed the epa report as junk science………yet these same smoke free and govmnt health groups continue to make claims shs/ets harms people. Sg general carmona was asked to provide some names of the dead he claimed of 50,000 deaths to shs a year……..yet he couldnt name one and he declared the number was computer generated on the sammac system……….to this date there still are no names………note this too the relative risk factor of second hand smoke is a 1.1 while tap waters is a 1.24 and milks is a 2.4 yet we dont call these things carcinogens as the epa study of 1992 tried to claim…….then when we find not one smoke free group lists the true major component in second hand smoke is water vapor and air at nearly 94%…..surgeon general report of 1989 pg 80.
Then we have OSHA not making a rule of limits………..why because nano grams and femptograms are not going to harm anyone………what we have here is a lie and mass propaganda by health officials andnon-profits out to secure profits for big pharma elling the cessation drugs….the guilty parties are the robert woods johnson foundation aka johnson and johnson along with the american cancer society ,hired out by RWJF to lobby for smoking bans…….note also that all state wide bans include tax dollars for smoke free droups and 300-500 million dollars for purchasing and paying for quit lines and buy cessation drugs from big pharma…………This story is bigger than the global arming hype from the climategate emails………..follow the money and you will find the world health orginization is heavily financed by big pharma and lets not forget the world anti-tobacco treaty where countries were blackmaled to sign the treaty or lose world bank loans………….Even the tobacco companies had there hands tied by the MSA deal to stay shut up about anything tobacco control may say in the future……….leaving tobacco control prohibitionists the ability to make any claim they so desired and see it rubber stamped by government agencies staffed with people from the same non-profit groups…look at obamas hhs secretary or the cdc director all from tobacco control back grounds even the new surgeon general comes from tobacco control in mississippi…………….colusion you bet.
by Gary Burnaska
Here is a fun fact, do you know what was the first country to start a national anti-smoking campaign?
A. The United States
B. Great Britan
C. Nazi Germany
D. France
If you picked C you are right. Because in the early 30’s German scientists found out that smoking was actually bad for you health. This was in a time when in the USA people chain SMOKED in Church. Hitler had a bad smoking habit and quit in order to live a healthier lifestyle, he even became a vegetarian. Yes the leader of one of the worst crimes against humanity did nto eat meat and swore off smoking.
Since smoking also caused problems for pregnant women, the nazi’s realized that Tobacco was a threat to their fantasy of an Aryan Super Race.
So if you call these anti-smoking people fascists, well you are not too far from the truth.
by Tuck
Second hand smoke and milk are not the same… for one if I drink milk… you are not experiencing any side affects. Fact is many people don’t like smelling like smoke, I for one, nor do I want to smell it when I enter a building. Why should others have to breathe that in just for anothers enjoyment. One of our founding father’s had it right when they said that a person’s ability to swing their fist ends where my nose begins… same with smoking. But, I will also say this… I do believe in a business owner’s right to either allow smoking or ban it as they see fit. And as a courtsey, there should be no smoking within 25 feet of a buildings portals… as people will have to breathe it when the door opens and the smoke is drawn inside. Smokers as a whole have to be more aware of others rights as well, not just cry foul when they see their rights being infringed… this ban isn’t a smoker’s rights issue it is a business rights issue.
by Josh
Great article, Adam! I agree with everything said but, then again, I’m a smoker. That’s right, I’ve been killing children and grandmothers alike in bars weekly.
Honestly, I can see some of the disdain for smokers in restaurants. But bars? Come on, there’s worse things to ingest in a bar than second-hand smoke – and most people DO ingest worse stuff!
by Jordan
My uncle was once almost killed by smoked salmon. He’s allergic to it and while he was driving his wife home from a church fish fry his eyes swelled up and he had to pull off the road.
Smoked salmon is dangerous and should be outlawed.
by Linda
Come on people….If I eat a cheeseburger it is by choice, second hand smoke is not a choice….this doesn’t have to be so difficult, we all have enough in our lives, we don’t have to make such a big deal out of something that is good for EVERYONE!!
by Toadsan
Blah Blah Blah. The government knows whats best for everyone. Don’t you dare question the nanny state! Nevermind the private property rights of the owners who are forced to accept the supreme authority of big government. There used to be a thing in American called freedom and choice. You could choose not to do business with an establishment that allows smoking. Or you could just let the government run our live, breath for us, tell us whats acceptable and what is not. I don’t smoke either, but I’m tired of things being forced on us. What about liberty and the freedom to choose.
by Joe Goodhue
Mr. Nannini we salute you!
You’re an American Patriot. By far the BEST article I’ve read in the echo in the three semesters I’ve been here.An easy example of “soft” tyranny. Is there any Conservative or Libertarian groups at school?
by kenneth Barna
Most of you who are arguing that the government controls too much of our lives, are also missing the point of government control of anything. There is an oft used phrase I believe is in the Declaration of Independence; Promote the general welfare. There it is in a nut shell. They are trying to protect us from something that is harmful.
It’s the same reason we have other rules and regulations in society, like stop signs.
Those of you who are arguing that the government should get out of our lives, are probably the first that would scream for government protection the minute something went wrong. I also get the feeling that some of you want no government at all. Well, there is a word for that too, anarchy.
by Toadsan
Right, like how the War on Terror is protecting us from what is it again, oh yeah the enemies we keep making for ourselves. I’m sure if we keep oppressing people and “accidentally” killing millions of middle easterners with fancy new bombs they will eventually give in love American again right?
I don’t need to be protected, do you? I enjoy being able to depend on myself. What a nation of mindless cowards we are raising.
by Kenneth Barna
Dear Toadsan,
I do agree with you that we as Americans do not belong in other nation’s backyards, so to speak. Many of those bases were established as a way to quickly react to the former Soviet Union. Obviously they (Soviet Union) are not the threat they once were, so, bring the boys and girls home.
By protection, I mean agencies like the police, fire, and national guard in emergencies that come up from time to time. And yes I do expect to be protected from foreign enemies that may want to cause us harm.
Otherwise, like yourself, I think I can depend on myself in most situations.
by Toadsan
I Mostly agree with you too Kenneth. Big government as it grows too fat becomes lazy and lose it’s ability to have quality control over it’s services it provides. This is why people like you and me who may or may not agree on some issues should fight to protect our Constitution.
When our families are at risk from foreign or domestic enemies I will depend on the 2nd amendment for protection.
Until they take that away, which they are trying to do. They have been waging a war against the Constitution for some time now.
by Dave
My big questions is this…..why is it I can legally take my wife to get an abortion or any number of abortions with no questions asked, a complete disregard for human life from every angle you look at it….how can I except any form of justification that I am now longer allowed to smoke in public??????
Fact of the matter is…Jennifer thinks that abortion should be a choice, but there is no room for choice in smoking?
I do not understand at all!!!!!!!!!
And yes…..I was adopted at birth!