As I was roaming about the house, muttering under my breath with outrage at yet more “Our Health Care system is broken! Broken, I tell you! We must socialize immediately, no debating; it’s far too urgent!, I couldn’t help but think, and thus become further dismayed, that I wasn’t really surprised. Nor am I surprised that some are still attempting to use Rush Limbaugh as a way to demonize people of different thought in order to shove their ideology down our throats; I’m still hearing the “Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to Fail! Racist Cracker! How dare you question The One!” meme over and over.

I shouldn’t be surprised, as it is obvious that few, including Congress, understand that America is a Constitutional Republic and not a Pure Democracy. The reason: Our founders, in their infinite wisdom, made it so that mob rule cannot reign. So that mobocracy does not occur and individuals, even a minority in number, are protected from a tyranny of the majority. This is SUPPOSED to be done by checks, such as actually following the Constitution and not legislating morality or behavior.

Seems easy, right? Makes sense? Well, apparently sense and principle and beliefs upon which our Nation was founded go right out the window if you simply don’t like something.

I speak of smoking bans. Anyone who believes in freedom and liberty should be outraged that the rights of private citizens and business owners are being usurped. It has nothing to do with whether or not you personally smoke. It has everything to do with freedom.

Where are the rallying cries of “My body, My choice” now? The cries of “Stay out of our bedrooms” now? The new cries are Stay out of my uterus, but come on into my lungs ? Stay out of my bedroom, but welcome to my private business, my apartment, my condo and my car? Because it has come to that.

The city of Belmont passed a law banning smoking everywhere except for single family detached homes. Which means you can only smoke in your own home if you are posh enough to afford a single family home there (about $900,000.00). Own a condo? Too bad.

Minnesota is set to ban smoking in your own car. Yes, your car. If they plan on making my car payment for me, then maybe. Otherwise, keep your Nanny State nose out of it, thank you very much.

Minnesota has banned smoking in workplaces, bars and restaurants. Some suburban communities have banned smoking in parks, and university campuses are taking up the fight, too.

Now, under a bill expected to be introduced today at the state Capitol, lawmakers will consider extending that prohibition to your ride.

Backed by the same groups that helped enact the statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, the new bill would prohibit smoking in cars when children are present.

And most recently and egregiously, a Homeowners Association in Eau Claire has banned smoking in your own home.

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. – Some residents have decided to outlaw smoking inside homes at a housing complex in Eau Claire.

Members of the Fairfax Parkside Homeowners Association voted last week on the ban for the 34-unit development. It also prohibits smoking in shared spaces, such as porches and garages, but does allow it in yards and patios.

Association President Dave Hanvelt proposed the regulation earlier this year because homeowners are so close and smoke from one unit could flow into the one next door.

Last year the Eau Claire City Council approved a controversial ban on smoking in indoor public places, including taverns.

It’s For The Children (TM Thingie). And probably for The Middle Class as well somehow. I guess I’m just a girl, thus I don’t understand science thingies, but I simply don’t fathom how we all aren’t gasping our last breaths from all the second hand smoke that we breathed in as children in the 70s!

Hmm, funny how the government relies on smoker’s money though. They passed an increase in the SCHIP (children’s health insurance ) so that people making up to $66K a year now get free health insurance for their kids. They are paying for this by raising the Federal excise tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1.00 a pack. So, you want people to smoke for the revenue you receive? But then, after they’ve paid, they should just shut up and crawl back into a corner?….The criminalization of smokers….. Outside bars you see them all huddled together like Fagin’s Gang. A sorry state of affairs.

And I guess workers out of a job due to declining bar revenues can take comfort in the fact that they weren’t exposed to smoke. While they collect their unemployment checks.

Liberals and Conservatives are united in this. Conservatives conveniently forget their belief in limited government, liberty without government intervention and the free market. A private business owner should have the choice to run his or her business the way he or she chooses. If he wishes to accommodate smokers, that is his right. He OWNS the property. You are not required to enter. Do not enter, if you do not want to be exposed to the evils of second-hand smoke and the cooties of smokers. It is truly that simple.

They are in collusion with the liberal Nanny Staters who believe it is their right, as they are so much smarter than I, to tell me how to live my life. They are both wrong. Dangerously wrong. Where are the people standing up for private rights now? Everyone has rights, except for the new second-class citizens, smokers.

Thomas Jefferson once said “If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. “

Eerily accurate, no? People want the Government to protect them from absolutely every single risk, even just the mere potential of harm? Good old TJ also said this:

“ Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have … The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. “

When we begin to censor one segment of the population, including what results in the seizure of their private property, it is inevitable that it will occur again to curtail other liberties. Which brings me back to what outraged me originally; the next target appears to be any speech that hurts anyone else’s feelings, isn’t showing “Unity” or that any group deems offensive. Fairness Doctrine anyone?

It started with smoking, it is moving on to trans-fats and high fructose corn syrup…just wait and see what happens if Socialized Medicine does come to pass and they really have a say in every single thing you do with the ability to determine your personal choices in the name of protecting you from yourself. Because, when fascism comes to America, it will come wearing a white coat, carrying a stethoscope and asking you to bend over and cough.

Scary, scary stuff.

And P.S. Prohibition never works. Ever. How’s that War on Drugs going?