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Save Us From Ourselves

A Permit From The Government

Throughout our history, politicians have found it necessary to enact laws that essentially try to “save us from ourselves.” For one, fireworks are illegal in many states because they pose too much of a danger to the users. In addition, citizens of most states now have to obtain a permit from the government to engage in what used to be common activities. Recently, the new craze among politicians in state capitols across America has been to ban smoking in virtually every public place for the sake of our own health.

In late February, the Virginia State Senate passed a bill that would have banned smoking in most public places including bars and restaurants. Fortunately, the bill was killed when a House of Delegates subcommittee voted unanimously to reject it. In America, competition is what makes us the greatest country on Earth. Some bars and restaurants allow smoking, and others do not. For us as consumers, we have the choice of going to any public place where we feel comfortable. Anybody who has taken principles of economics would understand that different establishments cater to different parts of the population. Smoking might be considered evil in today’s world, but many people still smoke and consider smoking a part of their social life. Without a doubt, it would be a huge mistake economically and for the sake of our own liberties to impose a public smoking ban on all public places in the state of Virginia.

In Montgomery County, Maryland politicians have made national headlines for their intense desire to create the ultimate politically correct society. Aside from banning Santa Claus from a Christmas tree lighting and deeming high school mascots related to Native Americans as offensive, Montgomery County was one of the first jurisdictions to enact a sweeping smoking ban that made all public places, including restaurants and bars, smoke-free.

Not only has the ban infringed on the freedoms of citizens who live in the county, but many business owners have filed a lawsuit against the county government claiming that the smoking ban has severely hurt their establishments. According to the Restaurant Association of Maryland, business in the county has dropped by about 30 percent on weeknights and 50 percent on the weekends. Most of their former patrons simply go elsewhere in Maryland or to neighboring Washington, D.C. where smoking is allowed.

Most proponents of smoking bans argue that they are for the good of the entire public and not part of the government’s yearning to eat away at our rights little by little. However, the new buzz is around taking the next step to ban smoking in every place that is outdoors — including your own personal yard. If politicians have their way, smoking could become illegal in the privacy of your own home. It’s not always accurate to portray any regulatory measure as the beginning of a slippery slope, but this is a prime example of one.

More recently, the Virginia bill received national headlines because of our state’s long legacy of association with the tobacco industry. Furthermore, Virginia is home to the worldwide headquarters of Philip Morris. But Virginia has a much more important legacy — one that represents the birthplace of American freedom as we know it today. During the founding of our nation, the fathers of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution intended this country to be a place where individual freedom reigns supreme over any state or federal law that infringed on that freedom. When the House of Delegates rejected this expansive smoking ban, they rightfully maintained this historical reputation.

Make no mistake; there is nothing wrong with a private business or organization telling citizens that they should not smoke. However when our government gets involved to tell us what is best for ourselves, they are verging dangerously close to a type of tyranny that America usually stands up against.

A Gradual Path

This gradual path we are taking as a nation to full-blown mob rule style democracy is frightening. We must fear such a path. I believe that conservative British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said it best: “If you establish a [true] democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.”

There has been some recent debate over the statewide smoking ban among my fellow Republicans. I can read about it in many local blogs, newspaper articles and etc. Some in the GOP argue for the ban and some in the GOP (like myself) argue against it. I decided to counter point all ten main arguments/points for a statewide ban and show how they are wrong and a threat to conservatism.

1. Ban is a threat to private property rights-It stops private property owners from allowing a legal activity in their establishment. It takes away their free choice to pursue a market force in a free market system. Therefore, it IS an infringement on the right to trade. Private property is sacred! It is sacred by law! We must remember the U.S. Supreme Court decision Lloyd Corp v. Tanner which upheld that a place of business does not become public property just because the public is invited in.
2. The ban makes some richer at the expense of others-Casinos are exempt from the ban while regular bars and/or restaurants are not. How is it just to bar and/or restaurant owners in areas close to casinos? How is it just to use big government to drive a market force to certain, exempted establishments while taking that same market force away, thereby hurting, other establishments? If the state is truly so concerned about the health affects of secondhand smoke then why does the ban allow exemptions?
3. The science behind secondhand smoke is flimsy-The 1993 EPA ETS Secondhand smoke study was thrown out by known anti-tobacco federal judge William Osteen for biased science and manipulated statistics/research. The American Lung/Heart Association, as well as the U.S. Surgeon General in his 2006 pro-smoking ban speech, all use this thrown out study as their pretext for supporting bans today. How is this ethical? Even more studies have proven the actual risk of secondhand smoke is inconclusive. I’m not saying that it’s good for you but it isn’t as deadly as assumed. A 1999 Environmental Health Perspective survey of 17 ETS-heart disease studies found only five that were statistically significantly positive. This study is important because it brings to the debate what many refuse to talk about, statistical significance. Statistical significance refers to whether an increased or decreased risk falls outside the bounds of what could be expected by chance. A 2002 analysis by International Agency for Research on Cancer, Unit of Environmental Cancer Epidemiology, which looked at 48 studies regarding a possible ETS link to lung cancer found 10 that were significantly positive, one that was actually significantly negative, and 37 that were insignificant either way. Many may not want to hear it but the science behind how deadly secondhand smoke is still very much inconclusive regardless of the current roar of screaming propaganda.
4. No one is forced to be around smoke-No one is forced to work,  eat, or visit any establishment that allows smoking. We have the free choice to use our own intelligence to decide where to go and where to work. If you have medical problems, allergies and etc then you don’t have to go to places that allow smoking. Why should private property owners change their business policies to accommodate every single individual likes or dislikes? People who choose to go to places that allow smoking but then complain about it are like people who complain about high gas prices yet they refuse to drive less or adjust their budgets to accommodate the increases. The same can be said for those who suffer from asthma yet choose to go into places that allow smoking then complain about their condition acting up. No individual responsibility. Banning private property owners from wanting to allow a legal activity on their property just because some don’t like that activity, even though they have the right to choice to enter that establishment or not, is the ultimate in selfishness.
5. Let the free market work-The market is already making establishments go smoke-free on their own. I have heard those in the GOP in Santa Fe attacking the minimum wage increase (rightfully so), and other big government attacks on business/private property, as an attack on the free market. So, how is it that advocating for the free market is ok in the fight against the minimum wage increase, and other issues, but not in this fight? More establishments are going smoke-free on their own due to the market. If you truly believe in the free market then let in work in all cases.
6. Smoking bans are only the foot in the door-The same people/groups who have pushed smoking bans in the past were behind the trans-fat bans in NYC and are pushing unrealistic and anti-private property rights laws against trans-fat, alcohol consumption, SUV’s, gun rights and even driving while talking on cell phones (even though we already have reckless driving laws on the books.). The same council members in Philadelphia who pushed last years smoking ban there are now pushing for a trans-fat ban. Same in California, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky. These people are promoting an entire agenda to force us to their way of thinking via big government.
7. Big government only grows to consume even more-California’s statewide ban, approved in 1997, allowed exemptions but eventually has evolved to allow municipalities to ban smoking even in your own car when you are by yourself and anywhere outside. Big government only grows to consume. Over time the exemptions in the proposed New Mexico statewide ban will be gradually removed and the places smoking is banned will only grow, even in private homes, regardless of private property rights.
8. The ‘cost to healthcare’ argument fails-One can not use the ‘cost to state healthcare’ argument to push a ban on smoking on private property. They can’t because cholesterol is the number one killer and cost to healthcare, so, under this argument the state would have to regulate what we eat and drink as well.
9. Just because a majority wants it doesn’t mean they get it-We are a constitutional republic, not a mob rule democracy. The Founding Fathers, when writing the U.S. Constitution, feared that ghost from England’s previous Civil War that was the English demagogue and military dictator Oliver Cromwell. The Founding Fathers, in their realist wisdom, created an electoral college to prevent urban and population heavy states and areas from terrorizing the rural and sparsely populated states and areas. They also made the U.S. Senate an even numbered institution regardless of the population size of a state. It is interesting that at the founding of our Republic only males who owned property (Private Property Owners!) were allowed to vote. They founding fathers held private property as sacred and credited private property owners as being extra knowledgeable. There was a healthy fear of ‘the angry mob’ in the Founding Fathers thinking. The very fact that we have a representative republic and not a mob rule democracy is a testament to the Founding Fathers realist world view. If every Greek were Plato all together they would still make a mob. In our republican form of government the will of the angry mob is BALANCED against individual/private property rights. In our form of government the rights of the majority are considered but not set into stone. Just because a majority of citizens want this ban is NOT a good or constitutional reason to give it to them. It is sad when conservatives, traditional opponents of mob rule, coward before the angry mob when the ban passed the New Mexico House unanimously with not even one conservative asking why.
10. The pro-ban side are the truly dangerous-Beware do-gooders baring gifts. The most fundamental problem of modern politics is self-righteousness, not the control of wickedness. Nothing is more dangerous than people convinced of their own moral superiority because they deny their political opponents that very attribute. Why has there been no mention of compromise by the pro-smoking ban side? Because they view compromise on this issue as a threat. Those who oppose any compromise are the true threat to private property rights and freedom. Tyranny is the result of the self-righteous via their new tool in the form of big/nanny government. The anti-smoking/freedom activists want a government effort to stamp out a habit they don’t like. There was once a nation that did this. They restricted tobacco advertising, banned smoking in public, restricted and regulated tobacco farmers growing abilities, and engaged in a sophisticated anti-smoking public relations campaign. In fact, the leader of this government gave gold watches to all his ministers who quit the tobacco habit. Plus, the phrase ‘passive smoking’ (i.e. secondhand smoke) was coined by this government. You want to know of what nation I speak of? Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Makes one think.

As conservatives we must remember the wisdom handed down to us by Reagan’s mentor and the grandfather of the conservative movement: “I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.” -Barry Goldwater

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