I think smoking is one of the all-time dummest things a person can choose to do, placing third behind being a drug-smuggling mule and riding a motorcycle without a helmet...but until they outlaw stupidity, smoking is still legal. That being said, nobody should be forced to work, or engage in otherwise necessary activities in a smoke-filled environment. Restaurant and bar owners, however, should be able to allow smoking if they wish. If people stop eating in the restaurant because of the smoke, the wise owner will ban smoking. Likewise if business remains good despite the smoke, that's the free market at work. No American is forced to work, dine, or drink at any establishment. Let them decide where they want to do these things and the smoking issue will take care of itself, all without the meddling intrusion of anti-smoking busy-bodies.Bans on public smoking already exist in varying degrees of severity, in every state now (most with which I don't have a quarrel), but the government has feared to tread inside the home, or even the privately owned vehicle, to restrict a person's right to suck the cancer stick. The anti-smoking Nazi's will absolutely salivate over this study and will push to further restrict legal activity by law abiding citizens in currently recognized areas of sanctuary from government intrusion...
WASHINGTON (AP) - Breathing any amount of someone else's tobacco smoke harms nonsmokers, the surgeon general declared Tuesday - a strong condemnation of secondhand smoke that is sure to fuel nationwide efforts to ban smoking in public.
"The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard," said U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to smokers' fumes - what Carmona termed "involuntary smoking" - and tens of thousands die each year as a result, concludes the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.
Look, the question here is where does the government's right to restrict individual behavior deemed harmful to others end, and the violation of the constitutional prohibition of unlawful search, the 6th amendment, begin? While there is no constitutional right to privacy, that line has always been at the doorstep of private residences. It would appear that the rabid anti-smoking crowd (those folks who actually want to ban all smoking, as opposed to the government anti-smoking goons, who merely want to seize as large a slice of tobacco profits as possible but not ban it...that would be killing the goose that laid the golden egg) emboldened by the pronouncement by the Surgeon General, will have the ammunition it needs, and the legislative support required, to push for bans on smoking in private cars, homes, yards, beaches, state parks, after sex in movies...pretty much everywhere.
Personally, I think people who inconsiderately smoke around children are loathsome, abominably rude, and thoughtless...especially in a closed house or for heaven's sake a closed car! Having said that, I might could be persuaded at some point, that regulating smoking in the car, based on the health impact it has on others, is a legitimate legislative and thus law enforcement function. After all, we regulate drinking and cell-phone and seat-belt usage in cars, what difference should it make if the negative health impact on others is immediate, as in a car crash from drunk driving, or long-term as from smoke exposure? On the other hand, one exposure to smoke will not induce cancer, but one exposure to drunk driving could certainly induce a far more sudden death. So the jury is still out for me on whether the intrusion of the government into the private lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens extends into the car where smoking is concerned. I'll wait to see how intrusive the law is...and then I'll condemn it. The big question is when will they write a law banning what you can do in your home?
I do believe that when the Surgeon General of the U.S. calls a press conference to announce that, the debate is over, the science is clear, a critical mass of anti-smoking support in Congress will soon be reached, such that legislation could be pushed through that regulates what people do in their homes...clearly not what the framers intended to be a legislative or law enforcement function. No matter what your personal opinion of smoking is, you have to look at the bigger constitutional picture which is, should the federal government be in the business of regulating otherwise legal behavior in the privacy of homes? If Congress wants to outlaw smoking altogether and shut down the tobacco companies, that's fine with me if they have the votes, but while it remains legal, no matter how personally objectionable, can the government prohibit it's practice in the private home? To all but the most rabid, anti-smoking zealots, the answer to that question should be NO.
A comparably visceral issue is prayer in public schools. Those of us who pray are more than likely tempted to say, "It doesn't bother me to have Christianity taught in the public schools, so I don't care if it makes uncomfortable, the children of atheists, agnostics, Druids, Wiccans, or liberals, all who have demonstrated that they find the public acknowledgement of God objectionable". The bigger question is however, "do I want the federal government assuming the responsibility of indoctrinating my child in religion"? Look at what a miserable, trainwreck of a disaster it has made of education...why would I want it teaching my kid religion? If you allow Christian-based prayer, constitutionally, you must allow Muslim kids to pray to Mecca five times a day, Wiccan kids to cast spells with eyes of newts and toes of frogs, Druid kids to dress up like a Stevie Nicks video and chant praise to Gaia, and liberal kids to call the ACLU to complain about it all. The point is that non-smokers and Christians would not be bothered by in-home anti-smoking laws or Christian prayer in public schools, but is either the function of the federal government?
I would not want the government teaching my kid it's version of religion any more than I would want it telling me what I could or could not do in my home. It's better for the government to stay out of the religion business and out of the regulating legal, personal behavior business.
H.L. Mencken said, "The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it".
This big press conference on smoking was only yesterday but you can bet there's already legislation in the works. So be aware and vigilant, this time it'll be the smokers' homes, but next time, it may be your home for serving unhealthy hot-dogs to your kids. The first intrusion based on the pretense of the public good is the hard one, it'll be much easier next time.
2 comments:
While I too would condemn any act on behalf of the government that proposes to regulate what goes on in my own private abode, I would like to find the gray area that prevents smoking in the home with children and the elderly or infirmed. I work in the pediatric healthcare field and all too often children come in smelling like the stale smoke of their parents' inconsiderate nasty habit. These children are at a much higher risk for allergies and chronic asthma among other things. In addition to the impact it has on their health, there is also the impact it has on our healthcare system. Statistics show that children in low income or poverty level households are more likely to reside in a house where they are exposed to second hand smoke. These are also the children that our tax dollars are supporting with welfare and medicaid dollars. So before we blindly throw a blanket over the issue and say the government has no right to cross our threshold, we need to find an alternative for the children who are at risk.
First of all Reid, I know Cedric, Cedric is an embiclic loon, and you sir, are no Cedric.
As for the prevention of smoking (or other health-related harmful activities) in the presence of kids, I truly do not know what the answer is. I mean unless somebody equates, on a legal level, second-hand smoke exposure with reckless endangerment, parental negligence or, contributing to the delinquency of minors. I don't think that comparison is that much of a stretch.
Is recklessly, one might even say maliciously, exposing one's own children chronically to second-hand smoke any less criminal than say exposing them to verbal abuse, witnessing drug use, or Telly-tubbies?
What's next? I'll tell you what's next...exposing your children to fatty foods in the home will become criminal before long. But it won't be because the all-caring government gives a rip about your baby. It'll be because the government wants a piece of the food industry's profits in the form of a fat-tax.
Here's my cure for preventing smoking in the home: Smokers already pay more for health insurance. Should they not be forced to pay punitive premiums for their kid's insurance as well. But not by the government, the insurance companies should charge more. Verification is the larger issue, however. Of course they should charge more but how to know if somebody is a smoker or not?
And that point brings returns us full-circle to the beginning...who is going into the homes of loyal, American tax-payers to verify smoker or non-smoker?
There are logical, reasoned, and valid arguments on both sides (that's why Cedric hasn't joined in the discussion...he's illogical, unreasonable, and invalid) but what is the answer to the public health vs. home is a castle conundrum?
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