Political analysis
Ashes to Ashes: It's a Smokers Choice
- By Nancy Morgan
- October 08, 2007
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 the right to legislate what goes on behind closed doors, in your own, private home. The City of Belmont, CA won initial approval last week to ban smoking in your home, if you live in an apartment or condo. The measure could trigger fines and actual eviction. The same measure is being considered in the city of Calabasas.
In Bangor, Maine, a city councilman, oops, coulcilperson, Patricia Blanchette has submitted preliminary legislation to make Maine one of the first states to make it illegal to smoke in any vehicle when minors are present. This legislation comes with the false presumption that all smokers are so rude, low-class and lacking in manners that the force of law is necessary to protect innocents from dread second-hand smoke.
Speaking of second-hand smoke: Contrary to a deliberately fostered phony ‘consensus’ (consensus being the new rule of law according to liberals), there is no science proving second-hand smoke causes death or illness. This premise, like so many other premises fostered by the smoke nazis, is just not true.
Surgeon General Richard Carmona has said, “The debate is over. The science is clear: Second-hand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard,” Case closed. (Sound familiar?)
It turns out that the EPA report on which our august Surgeon General based his claim was thoroughly bogus. Federal Judge Richard Osteen threw out the EPA’s landmark 1993 risk assessment linking second-hand smoke to cancer, saying, “The EPA’s findings were based on insufficiently rigorous statistical tests and are therefore invalid..” Something our Surgeon General conveniently failed to note. Proving true the saying about liberals, “It’s not so much what they don’t know, but that so much of what they do know just ain’t so.”
Junk science is but one arrow in the quiver of the self-righteous nannies who have declared war on smokers. Another favorite tactic is ‘For The Children.’ This slogan was used to great effect in California when Rob Reiner (Meathead to all of you ‘All In The Family’ fans) was successful in tacking on a $1.00 tax on a pack of cigarettes. Monies were to go to stop smoking programs, educating ‘the children’, yada yada yada. Turns out most of the monies collected went to filling in potholes. (Which turned out to be a good thing, as right about then I started driving down to Tijuana to buy my cigarettes.)
Another extremely effective tactic is shame. The unwritten caveat is that ‘shame’ is to be used only against those selfish morons who still smoke. In the unwritten book of rules governing behavior in our society, it is verboten to use shame where it might actually make a difference, say, by shaming bad behavior instead of lionizing it. By shaming, say, out of wedlock births, or deviant sexual practices. No, that would be too judgmental. (Called, having an opinion, for those of us who aren’t versed in liberalspeak) Shame is used only and exclusively for the sin of smoking.
As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, all choices involve trade-offs. I fully understand that the future man of my dreams may find kissing me akin to licking an ashtray and decide to pass. His choice. My trade off. For now, it is still my choice to make. But if this current trend continues, that choice will be made for me by faceless bureaucrats and fading politicians looking to polish their moral vitaes by manufacturing phony outrage and even phonier studies in a quest for relevance, power and their fleeting 15 minutes. Scary stuff.
Nancy Morgan is a columnist and news editor for RIGHT BIAS WEBSITE
She lives in South Carolina
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Local governments from coast to coast are running amuck with power. They must be stopped!
317 days ago by Local Government Pontificator
I don’t care if you people want to smoke, just do it in your private homes that are disconnected from other homes or residences. I don’t see why it is so hard ot understand that your habit is impeding on other people who never asked to be bothered in the first place. It’s pretty simply folks
311 days ago by Michelle Andrakis