Written By : Lori Ziganto

As I was roaming about the house, muttering under my breath with outrage at yet another “How dare you question The One! Racist Crackers! ” demonization of conservatives, I couldn’t help but think, and thus become further dismayed, that I wasn’t really surprised.

It is obvious that few, including Congress, understand that America is a Constitutional Republic and not a Pure Democracy. The reason: Our founders, in their infinite wisdom, made it so that mob rule cannot reign. So that mobocracy does not occur and individuals, even a minority in number, are protected from a tyranny of the majority. This is supposed to be done by checks, such as actually following that pesky old Constitution and not legislating morality or behavior.

Seems easy, right? Makes sense? Well, apparently sense and principle and beliefs upon which our Nation was founded go right out the window if you simply don’t like something. I speak of smoking bans, which have now gone so far as to ban smoking outside. No, really. In Seattle, natch (excerpt from Reason.com:

Yesterday, overruling an advisory panel’s recommendation, Seattle Parks Superintendent Timothy Gallagher imposed a comprehensive tobacco ban on the city’s parks. Although protecting bystanders from secondhand smoke is the most common justification for such bans, Gallagher’s rationale is wider:

“The negative health effects of tobacco are well documented. As an agency that has a fundamental mission to support the health and well-being of Seattle residents, it is appropriate and beneficial to prohibit the use of tobacco products at parks and park facilities.”

In other words, Gallagher is intent on using his power as parks superintendent not only to protect park patrons from the occasional whiff of someone else’s cigarette smoke but to protect them from the ill effects of their own unhealthy habits. Hence the inclusion of smokeless tobacco, which poses no conceivable threat to passers-by (and also is much less hazardous to consumers than cigarettes).

Anyone who believes in freedom and liberty should be outraged that the rights of private citizens and business owners are being usurped, all for “your own good”.  And, if you oppose Obamacare, you should oppose smoking bans. It has nothing to do with whether or not you personally smoke. It has everything to do with freedom.

Where are the rallying cries of “My body, My choice” now? The cries of “Stay out of our bedrooms” now? The new cries are Stay out of my uterus, but come on into my lungs ? Stay out of my bedroom, but welcome to my private business, my apartment, my condo, my car and the AIR? Because it has come to that.

The city of Belmont passed a law banning smoking everywhere except for single family detached homes. Which means you can only smoke in your own home if you are posh enough to afford a single family home there (about $900,000.00). Own a condo? Too bad.

Minnesota legislators put forth a bill last year to ban smoking in your own car. Yes, your car. If they plan on making my car payment for me, then maybe. Otherwise, keep your Nanny State nose out of it, thank you very much.

Minnesota has banned smoking in workplaces, bars and restaurants. Some suburban communities have banned smoking in parks, and university campuses are taking up the fight, too.

Now, under a bill expected to be introduced today at the state Capitol, lawmakers will consider extending that prohibition to your ride.

Backed by the same groups that helped enact the statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, the new bill would prohibit smoking in cars when children are present.

It’s For The Children ™ ! And probably for The Middle Class as well, somehow. I guess I’m just a girl, thus I don’t understand science thingies, but I simply don’t fathom how we all aren’t gasping our last breaths from all the second hand smoke that we breathed in as children in the 70s!

Like everything else that is allegedly for the children, it comes down to money out of taxpayers’ pockets; it’s funny how the government relies on smoker’s money. They passed an increase in the SCHIP (children’s health insurance ) so that people making up to $63,000 a year now get “free” health insurance for their kids. They plan to pay for this by the increase of the Federal excise tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1.00 a pack. So, you want people to smoke for the revenue you receive? But then, after they’ve paid, they should just shut up and crawl back into a corner? The criminalization of smokers; outside bars you see them all huddled together like Fagin’s Gang.

And I suppose that workers out of a job due to declining bar revenues can take comfort in the fact that they weren’t exposed to smoke. While they collect their unemployment checks.

Liberals and Conservatives are united in this. Conservatives conveniently forget their belief in limited government, liberty without government intervention and the free market. A private business owner should have the choice to run his or her business the way he or she chooses. If he wishes to accommodate smokers, that is his right. He OWNS the property. You are not required to enter. Do not enter, if you do not want to be exposed to the evils of second-hand smoke and the cooties of smokers. It is truly that simple.

They are in collusion with the liberal Nanny Staters who believe it is their right, as they are so much smarter than I, to tell me how to live my life. They are both wrong. Dangerously wrong. Where are the people standing up for private rights now? Everyone has rights, except for the new second-class citizens, smokers.

Thomas Jefferson once said “If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. “

Eerily accurate, no? People want the Government to protect them from absolutely every single risk, even just the mere potential of harm? Good old TJ also said this:

“ Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. “

When we begin to censor – even criminalize – one segment of the population, including what results in the seizure of their private property, it is inevitable that it will happen again and again to curtail other liberties (that old slippery slope.) Which sort of brings me back to what outraged me originally; the next target is any speech that hurts anyone else’s feelings, isn’t showing “Unity” or that any group deems offensive.

It started with smoking, it is moving on to trans-fats and high fructose corn syrup — just wait and see what happens if Socialized Medicine in the form of Obamacare comes to pass and they really have a say in every single thing you do, with the ability to determine your personal choices in the name of protecting you from yourself.  Because, when fascism comes to America, it will come wearing a white coat, carrying a stethoscope and asking you to bend over and cough.

P.S. Prohibition never works. Ever. How’s that War on Drugs going?

(cross-posted at iowntheworld.com and David Horowitz’s NewsReal)

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