A liberal is person with a burning itch to run other people’s lives; a conservative has no desire to do so.

Emphasis mine.

I want the government to GET OUT of my life – so, while I may want or believe that people should do it my way – if I choose to enact a law, or find a willing government legislator to do so – I AM ACTING LIKE A LIBERAL!

I don’t want to be saved from myself – I want to live FREE!

smile

More words of wisdom on this from Charley Reese.

“In fact, since the traditional definitions of liberals and conservatives have been made obsolete by modernity and its muddy thinking, we can even redefine them. A liberal is person with a burning itch to run other people’s lives; a conservative has no desire to do so.

Look at our current society. People who think smoking is bad are not content to quit the habit themselves; they wish to forcibly prevent others from smoking. People who think eating trans fat is bad are not content to avoid it themselves; they want to ban it. People who think owning a gun is a bad thing want to prevent others from owning guns. People who think using certain drugs is bad want to prevent others from using them. People who dislike the Confederate battle flag wish to prevent those who like it from displaying it. And so on and so forth.

In every case, prevention is translated into a denial of choice, and what is freedom but the liberty of making one’s own choices? The more areas of our lives in which we are denied the freedom to choose, the less liberty there is. Totalitarianism is the denial of all choices. We haven’t gotten to that point yet, but we seem to be steadily marching in that direction, led, of course, by liberal reformers who wish to save us from ourselves. That’s why I say that authoritarianism, not democracy, is the direction the world is headed toward. ”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese360.html

“In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Just sayin’.

On that basis, I have to question the need for the law. If cigarette smoke were everywhere one turned and allowed in most public facilities, I might agree with the law and part ways with most here. Though I feel there are and will likely always be too many more important matters to address.

There are infinitely many things that are not only of much more danger to the public but also much harder for people to avoid (like Chinese imports). Also, as much as I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, there is no smell on the planet that has EVER made me sicker than onion rings! I believe the smell does more damage to my stomach than cigarettes do to my lungs. Of course I’m not on any campaign to ban them.

Anyway, the PYTs are long behind me and day after tomorrow is six months since the last smoke.

And, yeah, the days are pretty short, and my wife is insisting that she go with me to shovel the boat, so it doesn’t look like I get any R&R time at my favorite watering hole today.

But that means we are better off right?

“In a few years, marijuana will be legal and people will be secretly growing tobacco in their basements.”

Besides, since our own Sir Walter Raleigh (pictured above) made tobacco a cash crop over 400 years ago, it has provided politicians an east tax target. Maybe that fact will keep us free.

ut technically, yes, there is some implied right to eat at restaurants that are of sufficient size under fed law, but not in the context presented here in which the right to eat there in a smoke free environment is asserted.

Now, given state police powers, I doubt my assertion that such a reg is a taking requiring just compensation under the constitution would fly, but I came clsoe to a similar argument beinga ccepted in SC Sup Ct in the early 90s.

And I’m not sure of the Federal vs State thing, but it would seem that Federal law does create such a right.

Mind you, I’m not asking you whether you like the law. I’m pretty clear on that point.