VA Senator Watkins explains his NO vote on smoking ban

Smoking bans are the real threat to Democracy

The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation from
sea to sea has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat
of second-hand smoke.
The bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a cancer that has been
spreading for decades. This cancer is the only real hazard involved — the
cancer of unlimited government power.
The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom
menace. The issue is: if it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction?
Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about
the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or
should they seize the power of government and force people to make the
“right” decision?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than
attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the
tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have
actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and
offices — places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose
customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local
bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously
negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
The decision to smoke, or to avoid second-hand smoke, is a question to be
answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment
of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding
every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend
or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married
or divorced, and so on.
All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful
consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the
neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must
be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only
his own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette
smokers are a numerical minority, practising a habit considered annoying and
unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the
power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of
inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your
favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm
at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited
intrusion of government into our lives.

Thomas Laprade
ThunderBay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258

Glad to see that some politicians still have some backbone. Wish more of them here in New York had had some.
I hope Sam, Holly, and the rest of those clamoring for “clean air” don’t drive. That activity releases far more toxins into the air than tobacco smoke and is killing the planet.

Seantor Watkins’ vote was both courageous in the face of the lobbying forces on the other side, and correct in its action. His reasoning could use some buttressing though.

The ban proposal had far more wrong with it than just some twiddling about signs and too much strictness regarding outdoor smoking. Universal government-mandated smoking bans in general are bad laws based upon lies…. lies about the health effects of normal exposures to secondary smoke and lies about the economic effects of bans.

You read the other side of the story every day in paid press releases from antismoking organizations and see their ads ad nauseum on television. Take a few minutes to read an analysis of the lies at the base of these bans and you might change some of your feelings about denying smokers venues in which they can relax and enjoy themselves with their smoking and nonsmoking friends.

Visit:

http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4472

and download and print out the pdf version of the “Generic Stiletto”.

You may be surprised when you see the extent to which the truth has been manipulated in favor of social engineering goals.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
http://www.TheTruthIsaLie.com

Right on! Cancer rules! Lung cancer is awesome!! Nothing I love more then going out to eat and having cancer thrust upon me without even asking. Now that’s freedom and democracy at it’s best!

The only thing worse than antismokers is watching someone you love die of lung cancer…

Ignorace is bliss. Keep on being happy.