Friday, September 18, 2009
People should be able to smoke outside
The widespread contempt people have for smoking and smokers never ceases to amaze me, but I thought this story was somewhat encouraging. Maybe people will step back from the precipice and realize that banning smoking in parks goes way too far, or maybe it wont make a difference. I personally believe people should be able to smoke anywhere, if only to make it smell like the 194os, but I'm the only person I've encountered who feels that way.
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This isn't surprising coming from New York. They did ban transfat, after all.
ReplyDeleteWhere does individual freedom stop? I suppose at the little area between your nose and your neighbor's, to steal a phrase. The problem with smoking is that it wafts. But so do farts, burbs, and other foul smelling things. But those don't cause cancer. We regulate emissions from cars and factories, why not treat smoking the same? Beyond the fact that smoking is already heavily regulated, why not more? Well, just because, that's why. Smoking is cool. Smoking helps people calm down. Smoking is an accepted vice. Plus, smoking rakes in millions upon millions of tax dollars.
I support people's liberty to smoke, especially in bars, and think that smokers have been beaten up enough already. I'm not a smoker, but the smokers I know say, yeah they may be addicted, but primarily they smoke because they like to, it's like a fraternity that brings strangers together in a way, one hanging out the other bumming a ciggarette, then proceeding convesation. I don't believe its too burdomsome to require they smoke, say, 10 feet from a doorway, or not in an elevator, but banning it in a public park that isn't primarily for children is ridiculous. With insanely high taxes, this is another step to try and phase out smoking.
It's indicative of the "nanny" state mentallty mentioned in the article. Which is why I cannot get on board with Governmental run healthcare. They have enough fingers in the pie already. I don't want them to have another way of telling us what to do.
Between the far left talking about taxing sodas and snack foods because they think we shouldn't drink or eat them, taking away cigarettes, and villifying oil through the chicanery that is the our "carbon foot print" (by which I mean the "carbon credit" faux-market, not the actual carbon foot print), and the far right's push to work religion - and all that comes with it - into our SECULAR government, our liberties under attack. Too alarmist?
The only thing I don't agree with you on is smoking in movie theaters. All that smoke would haze up the air and interfere with the film.
I don't need to be told what's good for me. When I drink too much, I know it's not good for me. But it's my choice.
To end with, I'll quote our dear leader, which sums up why I cannot support Governmentally run healthcare. "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
Maybe...but I would like to choose for myself. You could say, well without healthcare (and I am one of the presently uninsured, after all), you wouldn't have a choice anyway. To that I say, so how am I any better off then? Except, now I'm being forced to pay for something, and not getting any say in the matter? Doesn't sound good to me.