Legislating Morality

Welcome to 2008. For those of you in Illinois, you will notice that you are no longer allowed to enjoy a cigarette indoors.

While Smoking Bans are not specifically part of a socioeconomic system based on a classless society with common ownership of the means of production, they do reek of some form of government that is not based on a free market society.

Is it wrong for lawmakers to assume it is their right
to make decisions on behalf of business owners and patrons of those establishments? Too late. The debate is over, a freedom lost. Common sense lost - yet again.

Smokers are just like non-smokers in that, if you ask them nicely, they'll typically accommodate others. Smokers are aware others don't like the smoke, and most of them will gladly move somewhere else of asked politely. If you act like a jerk - they'll tell you where you can stick your righteous indignation.

Most of addiction is psychological - to smoke or not is a matter of choice and, in some cases, discipline or convenience. Cigarettes don't turn people into mindless zombies incapable of rational thought. People make their choices and live with them.

Despite the party line hysteria regarding the health effects of smoking, the bottom line is that everyone responds to tobacco differently. Thousands of people live to a ripe old age smoking a pack a day, while others get emphysema after only a decade of smoking. Sure the risks are there, but no more risky than fatty foods, a sedentary lifestyle, mass alcohol consumption, or working in an environment with toxic airborne chemicals. Stay tuned - those items are in Committee somewhere.

I have yet to see any hard evidence linking second-hand smoke to an epidemic of respiratory illness. Yes, there may be some individual cases, but it's quite a stretch to claim that all second-hand smoke is always dangerous to every person around. The fact the CDC can't name a single person who has actually died of second hand smoke has to be worth something to the argument.

In two states that passed smoking bans I've run across more people upset at the ban than happy about it - smokers and non-smokers alike.

Whatever happened to the power of persuasion? I don't have a problem with a business owner - be it locally-owned or a corporate chain - banning smoking on their premises. That's their choice and they could be effected by the wallet by their choice.

I do however, have a problem with corrupt bureaucrats who think they have the power to dictate what can happen on private property. Toss in threatening criminal prosecution and denial of property rights to those who don't comply with hysterical nonsense - oh yeah, I'm not so happy about that. The not-so-slippery slope is: now that the power and precedent to flex a 'ban' has been established and accepted - what's next?

Trans fats have already been banned in New York and Chicago. Chicago also has banned fois gras.

We lost prohibition. We lost the war on drugs. Yet we allow our leaders to continue to enforce morality on us. It just doesn't work.

However, once a freedom is given up - it will not be returned.

That is, without force.