All smokers have choices. Some are hard choices, like quitting. Some are no brainers, like not blowing smoke in the face of a baby, or lighting up at a table where others are eating.
As a long time smoker, I have exercised choice. I have chosen, of my own free will, to allocate a portion of my budget to purchasing cigarettes. And despite increasing social pressure, I feel no guilt for not taking that money and buying instead something more socially acceptable like, say, carbon credits or using it to contributing to some UN fund to cure poverty. Color me selfish.
My choice is called free will. Everyone has it. Only for smokers, it's not so free anymore. The self righteous arbiters of America's morals have decided to take away this choice. And they're succeeding in the court of law, the court of public opinion, and society at large.
Two cities in California are now considering unprecedented legislation that would ban smoking inside apartments and condos. We're talking private property and
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You're right to be worried.
October 9, 2007 - 06:06 ET by sarcasmoTobacco is a target of the prohibitionists, and they'd like to eventually outlaw it entirely. Occasionally, one of 'em is honest enough to say so, but mostly they like creeping socialism laws like the ones in California. For some reason, that state seems to function as a proving ground for individual rights usurpation, along with Maryland (for guns).
Anyway, thanks for saying this, it's scary how far the pendulum has swung politically on tobacco in my lifetime. It's also a pity tobacco company executives had so-few principles and couldn't simply admit they sell us an addictive drug. That lying congressional testimony paved the way for offensive forced speech I now must either pay-for (ugh!) or avoid taxes in order to avoid paying for it. Guess which choice I like...
JMR
Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.
Not to be difficult...
October 9, 2007 - 19:08 ET by LionKingNot trying to be difficult, but, couldn't you exercise your free will and live somewhere else?
It's a property rights issue.
October 10, 2007 - 04:12 ET by sarcasmoIf she's confronted with a single landlord or group of landlords that say "don't smoke in my apartments" that's fine with me. The landlord must face competition from other landlords, some of those may want smokers who pay rent, and the marketplace works.
What she's talking about isn't landlords, though. It's a one size fits all big government "solution" to smoking that leaves none of the choice and diversity the marketplace gives. One path allows landlords and renters the maximum freedom of choice, and the other gives government maximum-control.
Can you see why voting with her feet would be a lot easier and more convenient with market competition than with big-government control-freakery? And like I say above, make no mistake -- the prohibitionists have tobacco in their sights. Current smoking restrictions, no matter how draconian, aren't enough. Nothing but total control will be enough for them.
JMR
Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.
Just smoke by an open
January 21, 2008 - 14:41 ET by JasonCJust smoke by an open window. The apartment won't smell as much and unless you have like a sitcom-style landlord who drops in all the time, they'll never know.
I agree completely with Sarc's evaluation of smoking laws and the rental market. But as long as the majority of Americans are A-OK with the drug war, then prohibitions like this are likely to be accepted, even if begrudgingly. If you don't want the government telling you you can't have artery-clogging trans fats or can only smoke on your own private property, or whatever else, you've got to confront the fact that the spirit of these laws is the same as the wasteful drug war. Decriminalize narcotics, and the rate at which drug-related gangs, shootings, and DEA pork-barrelling all disappear will astound you.
"He was, and is yet, most likely, the wearisomest, self-righteous
pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself
and fling the curses on his neighbors." -Emily Bronte
I'm pretty sure you'll like
October 10, 2007 - 09:20 ET by sarcasmoThis timely Reason article: Your Place: The Final Frontier.
JMR
Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.
Paradox
October 11, 2007 - 13:51 ET by Jerry MackThe same people that want to ban smoking and spend millions of dollars to accomplish their goal want to tax it to pay for health care. No I do not smoke, never have and do not like to be in the presence of tobacco smoke. Causes my sinuses and nose to clog. If NancyVideo wants to smoke, I do not care.
Good column by
October 22, 2007 - 00:33 ET by Sonny LykosGood column by Nancy.
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I've been a smoker for about 50 years. Smoke about a pack of filters per day. My Dad died of cancer in the lungs and throat. I can only assume it was due to smoking about 6-7 packs of Luckys a day.
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I do not object to non-smokers not wanting me to smoke in thier presence in a room.
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I also paid about $1700/month for my medical premiums since I have had 2 heart attacks, not related to my smoking. Am now on Medicare - which I've paid for all of my working life. So financially, I'm a burden to no one.
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My choice and I pay for it dearly. Have tried everything possible to quit, but cannot. Type A personality which my doctors attribute to my difficulty in quitting.
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I want the government to say out of what I do in my private life, and the private lives of others. I'm tired of being told what I can and cannot eat, what I should drive, what fuel to use, what light bulbs to buy. Yet these same people think it's OK to kill a fetus. Tell me how to live to live longer but don't even give a baby - yes - a baby - a chance to even have the life they want me to live under their elitist guidelines and laws. Talk about arrogance!
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I'll smoke if I want to and eat fattening food if I want too. Although eating them hasn't helped my raise my 118 lbs by even a pound.
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And by the way, according to a recent X-Ray, my lungs are still clear. Now how's that for a shocker?
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I forgot to ask if my estate gets any carbon credits since my weight, as in body mass, will take less fuel to burn when dead?
haha I know its off topic a
November 12, 2007 - 17:04 ET by Binxlyhaha I know its off topic a bit, but 118 lbs!? Thats extremely light! how tall are you? Be careful of Leon, he's awfully obsessed about weight and with that number you may find yourself an admirer in Leon :-P
5'7", and after two heart
January 21, 2008 - 01:48 ET by Sonny Lykos5'7", and after two heart attacks, three minor strokes, and defiblorator implant, clean lungs, I continue to shock my cardiologist each year when taking my annual stress test and ultra sounds on my heart and major arteries.
My concern is it's banning smoking first, then it's banning fat food, followed by banning trucks like my GMC pick that gets about 13.5 mpg loaded with my tools (semiretired remodeler), followed by banning gasoline, and the list goes on.
With each ban the government placed just one more hook in our bodies and lives, and with each hook, comes increased control in our lives. Before we know it socialism has replaced our republic, and we'll be told who we can marry, how many kids to have, the Internet will be censored, in other words, Cuba is here in America. We then become children dependent upon Mother and Father Goverment for our very existents.
However, the ignorant masses do not have the intellectual capacity to project an issue into the future, adding 17 + 46 is just to hard for them. They all live in a world that is within their arm's length, and todays activities only, and nothing beyond that.
As I've said before, we are all screwed.
BTW, I smoke outside, never near any one who is a non smoker, strip my butts, sticking the filter in my pocket to trash at home.