Testing The Waters

The busybodies are at it again.
The Food and Drug Administration's Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee released a statement Friday concluding that removing menthol cigarettes from the market would benefit public health. The panel was quick to point out that it was not actually recommending the legal removal of menthol cigarettes from the market, but why else release such a statement? Did that really require a year-long study? Is there anyone who does not already know that not smoking would improve health, public or otherwise? This is nothing more than floating a trial balloon to determine what the public reaction might be to such a ban.
The FDA knows that they are on shaky ground with this. The logic is abysmal. Menthol cigarettes account for only about 30% of smokers in America and there is no evidence that the availability of menthol cigarettes increases the likelihood of youth smoking (that favorite bogeyman that is used to justify so much regulation). From a logical standpoint, there is no justification for banning only a particular type of cigarette, which accounts for such a small percentage of overall smokers. This is how it works, though. You start with the small groups who have less defenders. Once you remove their freedoms, it becomes easier to move on to the next group and, as you progress, more and more people have lost freedoms and they did not even realize they were at risk.
Full disclosure: I smoke, and it just so happens that I smoke menthol cigarettes. I know that this is a bad decision, but it is my decision to make. Your decision is whether or not you smoke.
"But I have a right to clean air!" No, you don't. If you do, explain to me those factories, automobiles, processing plants, and so many other commonplace components of modern life that each have a much greater impact on your air quality than cigarette smoke. Unless you are standing in a smoker's hip pocket, or are in an enclosed space with many smokers, cigarette smoke has no measurable impact on your air quality. If every smoker on the planet stepped outside and lit up at once, the overall air quality would not even notice. Contrary to the claims of the Whiny Police, cigarette smoke just does not have that great an impact.
"But I have to pay for your additional health care." Generally speaking, the people who make this claim are the same idiots who insist that we all have to pay for everyone else's health care in the first place. You created the problem. Live with it. Otherwise, I have to pay for your extra health care every time one of you Back to Nature panzies gets hurt on a hike because you don't actually know anything about nature, so we're going to ban wilderness hiking. I have to pay for your additional health care every time one of your "good for the environment" toy cars gets turned into modern art on the highway, so we're going to ban subcompact cars. Stop and consider how the logic can be applied before you attempt to apply it. It doesn't just ban things you don't like.
"But it's bad for you and smoking kills." So? Skydiving is not exactly the best way to improve your life expectancy, but it is still legal. Drinking alcohol leads to far more deaths every year than cigarette smoking, and we all know how well Prohibition worked out.
That, of course, is the point. Prohibition was an abject failure that turned a common past time into a criminal enterprise and created such memorable characters as Al Capone. The so called War on Drugs has done no better (though politicians of the early 20th Century were apparently better able to admit their mistakes). The outright banning of a commonly used product that has otherwise been legal forever has never had positive results, and the Powers That Be have possibly figured that out. So, instead of an outright ban, they want to sneak their way through incremental bans, get the frog used to the hot water before it boils so that the silly creature doesn't just jump out of the pot.
The idea, however, is not logically tenable. If smoking is legal, which it is, then you have no business using the government bully stick to encourage people to quit. If smoking is legal, which it is, then you have no business targeting one aspect of that industry, which is no more dangerous and no closer to illegal than any other. Logically, you have two choices: ban smoking outright (and create yet another criminal era of prohibition) or butt out and mind your own business.
You people who support such a ban, who can't seem to figure out that the same power can be used against you once one of your habits is deemed sufficiently unpopular, are definitely a big part of the problem in modern America. If we all stick together and defend all of our freedoms then we cannot be defeated. Allow this divide and conquer idea to continue, however, and you will eventually achieve the America you deserve.

Rights Hidden In Smoke

I read yesterday that legislators across the country are slowing down on or, in some cases, even considering backing off of anti-smoking legislation in so-called "public places" because they fear that, in this time of recession, such bans could put additional stress on the economy. That idea, alone, is telling coming, as it does, from people who have sworn all along that forcing business owners to go non-smoking would not have a negative impact on business, but that isn't, in my opinion, the point. The blatant hypocrisy of politicans playing god with business when "times are good" but backing off and catering to business when "times are bad" is just ... well, business as usual for politicians. It is hardly worth noting.
What is worth noting is that, once again, the average person doesn't have a clue what is actually going on or what is actually at state. I read through the comments section, as I always do when one is available, and the silliness was almost unbearable. A few people understood the real point but, for most of them, it was the usual "my right to smoke anywhere I please" versus "my right to not breathe your smoke". I'm a smoker and I'll be the first to admit that I do not have a right to smoke anywhere I please. For you non-smokers, you do not have an inherant right to not breathe my smoke.
It is really quite simple. I smoke. If you come over to my house, you will put up with my smoke. Don't like it? Don't come over. That is your only option. You have no right to dictate terms in my house because it is my house. By the same token, if I come over to your house and you do not allow smoking then I cannot smoke at your house. If that is unbearable to me then I will not come over to your house. I do not get to dictate terms in your house because it is your house. Neither of us has an absolute right in regards to smoking but we both have an absolute right in regards to our property. There can be no conflict because my right over my property has nothing to do with your right over your property or vice versa. There can also be no compromise. I do not surrender my rights to you just because you enter my property. If you enter my home and start demanding your rights, I will point you to the sidewalk and tell you where you can find your rights. Over the years, many people have learned the hard way that I am not kidding about this in the least.
If what I am doing is not otherwise criminal, you get no say in the matter so long as I am doing it on my property. I cannot murder you just because you entered my property but I cannot legally do that anywhere. Smoking is not illegal so the only person who gets to rule on that on my property is me.
Why have we forgotten this simple fact as it relates to business? The fact that I allow multiple people to enter my property for a fee does not stop it from being my property. You don't get to determine what I sell, who I hire, or what uniform my employees wear. Why should you get to be in charge of anything else?
Non-smokers claim that they have a right to go out to eat without putting up with people smoking but that is an absolutely false claim. There is no such right! You don't even have a right to go out to eat, let alone a right to go out to eat in an environment of your demanding. A right to go out to eat implies that someone is obligated to provide you with a location where you can go out to eat. Ask a person who does not live within traveling distance of any kind of eating establishment whether or not they have a right to go out to eat. They'll laugh in your face and probably tell you to get your whiney self off of their property.
If you want a right to go out to eat then you need to get to work building your restaurant because that is the only way you will have such a right. If you want a right to go out to eat without putting up with people smoking then you need to hang a "NO SMOKING" sign on the front door after you build that restaurant. If you own it then you have the right to make it smoke-free. You also have the right to allow smoking. Just because this country has forgotten what property rights mean does not mean that property rights themselves have changed. They cannot change because they are immutable. If you own it, it is yours to do with as you please, such right stopping only when it conflicts with someone else's right. Any law that says otherwise is a violation of natural rights and should be treated as such.
There is no conflict between the rights of the smokers versus the rights of the non-smokers because such rights, as they have been expressed, do not exist. You do not have a right to either smoke or to not be around smoke. What you do have is a right to own what is your and to act as though you own it. That includes your body, your house, and your business. The sooner we realize this fact the sooner we can reduce the number of useless nonsense arguments and maybe - just maybe - we can get on to arguing about stuff that actually matters.