Travlin' down the Road to Serfdom ...

ViRedd · #1 02-13-2008, 06:07 PM

They're Coming After You
By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

My February 2002 column, "They're Coming After You," warned that Americans who enthusiastically supported the anti-tobacco zealots' attack on smokers were, like decent Germans did during the 1920s and '30s, building the Trojan Horse that would one day enable a tyrant to take over. The whole issue of tobacco smoke nuisance is really a private property issue where the owner should decide how his private property shall be used, whether it's an office building, restaurant, bar or home. That's unless one group of people wishes to use the coercive powers of government, in the name of health or some other ruse, to impose their preferences upon others.

Anti-tobacco zealots don't have a monopoly on tyrannical designs. There are those who wish to control what we eat, and the successful attack on smokers has provided a template for their agenda. Chief among the food tyrants is the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). These tyrants want taxes on foods they deem as non-nutritious. They've even proposed a 5 percent tax on new television sets and video equipment and a $65 tax on each new car or an extra penny per gallon of gas. Why? They see watching television and videos, riding instead of walking, as contributing to obesity. Thus, in their view, just as tobacco companies were responsible for people smoking, television and video manufacturers are responsible for people being couch potatoes. Automobile companies are responsible for people riding instead of walking. The restaurant industry is responsible for American obesity.

Some people have told me that these tyrants would never get away with controlling what we eat. Here's the Mississippi Legislature House Bill 282, introduced this year by Rep. W.T. Mayhall, that in part reads: "An Act to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health; to direct the Department to prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese and to provide those materials to the food establishments; to direct the Department to monitor the food establishments for compliance with the provisions of this act." The bill proposes to revoke licenses of food establishments that violate the provisions of the act.

You shouldn't believe that if this measure is successful in Mississippi that it will stay in Mississippi. Moreover, it will be expanded upon because most people who are obese don't become so by eating at restaurants; mostly, it's food eaten at home. Thus, the food tyrants won't be satisfied with restaurant restrictions, just as the anti-tobacco zealots weren't satisfied with warning labels on cigarettes. They will push for legislation restricting the sale of foods at supermarkets. Since an obese person can get a svelte person to do his grocery shopping for him, legislators might propose sting operations to fine or arrest people giving an obese person high-calorie food.

The food tyrants have a compatriot in the person of Yale University's Professor Kelly D. Brownell, director of the Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. He thinks Americans eat too many hamburgers and French fries. Professor Brownell, who is fat himself, wants government to tax fatty foods and those with little nutritional content and use some of the tax proceeds to build bike and hiking trails. Suppose not enough Americans bike and hike. I bet he and his ilk would call for legislation that mandated some form of exercise.

Most evil done in the world is done in the name of promoting this or that supposed good. Americans turning away from rule of law and constitutional government are following in the footsteps of other people around the world who discovered their liberties gone and recovering them was next to impossible. But, what the heck. You might be among those Americans who don't smoke and are not obese, so why sweat it?

Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.

medicineman · #2 02-14-2008, 11:21 AM

Health consequences of secondhand smoke

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Put me in the anti-tobacco crowd. That is the nastiest habit ever created, and all you No-harm second hand smoke proponents need to check the latest updates and experiments done with second hand smoke. It's a killer!

We all know that smoking is bad for the smoker's health, right? But what about the people around them? Allowing your employees to smoke in or around your business puts your other employees' health at risk, and may even leave you legally liable. Read on for more information...
Secondhand smoke causes a wide variety of diseases:1,2

Lung cancer

Heart disease

Emphysema

Chronic coughing

Increased phlegm

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Eye irritation

Weakened sense of smell

Hearing loss

Vision problems

Increased headaches

Asthma

Pneumonia

Tonsillectomies

Bronchitis

Ear infection

Secondhand smoke facts:

Secondhand smoke is a combination both of the smoke exhaled by the smoker, and the smoke that comes from the burning end of the cigarette.1

Secondhand smoke is a proven health hazard that kills thousands of people every year.

Reports by the all of the following organizations have all determined that secondhand smoke is harmful:

Office of the U.S. Surgeon General

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Environmental Protection Agency

National Academy of Sciences

American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

U.S. Public Health Service's National Toxicology Program

National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health

World Health Organization

American Medical Association

American Lung Association

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Like asbestos and benzene, secondhand smoke has been classified as a Group A (known human) carcinogen.1,3,4

Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke are exposed to about 4,000 chemical compounds, including formaldehyde, cyanide, ammonia, nicotine, carbon monoxide, and cancer-causing agents such as benzene, asbestos, and N-nitrosamines.1,4

According to a 1992 EPA report, secondhand smoke is a human lung carcinogen, responsible for 3,000 deaths in nonsmokers every year.5

According to a 1992 EPA report, more people die each year from secondhand smoke than all other regulated occupational substances combined.5

According to the 1986 Surgeon General's report, exposure to secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer - as evidence, nonsmoking spouses of heavy smokers have nearly twice the risk of developing lung cancer.1

According to a 1997 report by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), not only is secondhand smoke responsible for 3,000 lung cancer deaths every year, but also for between 35,000 to 62,000 deaths associated with ischemic heart disease.3

That NCI report also determined that lifelong nonsmokers living with smokers have, on average, a 24% higher chance of contracting lung cancer than those living with nonsmokers, and those exposed to the heaviest smokers for the longest time have the highest risks.3

Scientific studies published in peer-reviewed journals on both animals and humans indicate that nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke have higher death rates from heart disease. More specifically, a 1997 British Medical Journal meta-analysis of 19 published studies found that exposure to secondhand smoke increases an individual's risk of ischemic heart disease by 25%.3

Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke only at work have been found to have significantly higher levels of a nicotine metabolite in their blood than nonsmokers who aren't exposed to secondhand smoke at work.1

The Surgeon General has determined that simple separation of smokers and nonsmokers within the same airspace may reduce but does not eliminate exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.1

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has stated that secondhand smoke poses an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease to people exposed at work, and has recommended that exposure be reduced to the lowest feasible level, and that employers should use all available preventive measures to minimize occupational exposure.1

A 2001 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke "substantially reduced" coronary circulation in healthy nonsmokers, providing "direct evidence" that exposure to secondhand smoke causes coronary circulatory dysfunction in nonsmokers.3

A 2001 study in The Lancet found that exposure to secondhand smoke was significantly associated with nighttime chest tightness and breathlessness after physical activity, and that workplace exposure to secondhand smoke was significantly associated with all types of respiratory symptoms and current asthma.3

"But," you may ask, "what about the studies I've seen that question the harmfulness of secondhand smoke?" a 1998 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association about why different articles on secondhand smoke reach different conclusions found that the single predicting factor of whether an article would conclude secondhand smoke was not hazardous was whether the author had received funding from the tobacco industry. Studies that dispute the harmfulness of secondhand smoke are usually found to be funded by tobacco companies!3
Adopting a smoke-free workplace will encourage employees to quit smoking, thereby not only greatly reducing their chances of suffering from a smoking-related illness in the future, but also reducing the chances their nonsmoking coworkers will suffer from illnesses related to secondhand smoke. Eliminating secondhand smoke from the workplace and decreasing smoking by employees can reduce health care costs and increase years of productive life. These two factors alone will positively affect your company's bottom line and help your employees live full and productive lives!

ViRedd · #3 02-14-2008, 05:58 PM

Ummm, Hmmm ... and you don't think that when cities outlaw smoking OUTDOORS it isn't totalitarian?

Vi

ganji2 · #4 02-14-2008, 06:03 PM

Ill still smoke pot when that happens >_>

ViRedd · #5 02-15-2008, 02:25 PM

There are some cities who are toying with the idea of outlawing tobacco smoking inside one's private home. Nothing totalitarian about that, now is there?

Vi

smokingbot · #6 02-15-2008, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ViRedd

There are some cities who are toying with the idea of outlawing tobacco smoking inside one's private home. Nothing totalitarian about that, now is there?

Vi

That is impossible.

ccodiane · #7 02-15-2008, 02:52 PM

Amazing, isn't it. As far as I'm concerned, they have already gone this far. If I own a bar, outright, I should be able to dictate if smoking is allowed, or isn't allowed, in that bar. If the majority sentiment of my customers is, "It's too smoky in here!!!!", I have a choice, as a business owner. Discontinue the smoking, losing some business, the smokers, or allow smoking and lose a majority of business, the non-smokers. Or, install a top off the line venting system, installed by workers, pay those workers for their services, and receive the benefit of the venting system, manufactured by people somewhere, who were paid for their services, and everyone is happy. Sorry for the regression into Economics 101, but some seem to need the exposure.

The punitive damage, loss of business/money, is built into capitalism already. Now, if the majority of citizens, via referendum, vote to ban smoking in public, fine. (Not fine, really, but whatever.) But to intrude on private property rights, a cornerstone of our society, in the name of the public good, is communistic. Wait until we get our "free health care". It won't happen right away, but before long the restrictions placed on certain activities will make this infringement look like seat-belt laws looked, almost inconsequential.

ccodiane · #8 02-15-2008, 02:55 PM

List of smoking bans in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unreal. Excellent list.

ccodiane · #9 02-15-2008, 02:57 PM

It's Official -- Belmont Bans Smoking In Some Homes - News Story - KNTV | San Francisco

First in the country, bans smoking in some residences.

ccodiane · #10 02-15-2008, 03:18 PM

Proposal to Ban Obese People From Restaurants,

This is the technique used by the left. Restrict the rights, or activities, of a group that is popularly frowned upon. In this case, smokers. The campaign degrading the image of smoking/smokers has been long and intense. At this point, many, when asked, will say, "I don't smoke so why should I have to breath this filth. They are just killing themselves anyway." So, it becomes easy/popular to restrict that activity. People become used to having rights chipped away, because it was a right they chose not to exercise. Whats next? Restrict the rights, or activities, of the obese. Why? Because they are popularly frowned upon. This campaign goes back even further than the anti-smoking campaign.

From banning trans-fats in restaurants, to actually banning the obese from restaurants, the chipping continues. And, the majority sentiment is always the same. "Well, I am completely healthy, so why should I have to pay for the additional health care costs of these fatsos. They are just killing themselves anyway." Now, we have the smokers and the obese, two unpopular groups, losing rights. Who's next? Whoever it is, I anticipate the smokers and the obese will support it with glee. "Now it's your turn." The list goes on and on. SUV owners, gun owners, rich people, old people, white people, males..................