So new ban in New York City: Can’t smoke in a park. Are there anyone other than those imposing these nanny state laws that like them? Like are there people who are like, “I’m moron who will eat too much transfat and salt unless the government stops me!”? I mean, this is all basically, “I think I’m smarter than everyone else, so I should be able to tell them what to do,” right?
Anyway, I think New York City should lose it’s American licensing. I don’t know if we have a policy that if you have too many laws taking away personal freedoms in a city, it can no longer use the label American, but I think we need it. It’s false advertising for a place to call itself American and then have tons of nanny state restrictions on people’s personal activities. Instead, places like New York City or San Francisco (which banned Happy Meals) should only be able to call themselves “America Contiguous” — like Canada.
I’m just saying that “American” is a brand and we have to be more careful with it. If we let just anything use that label, it will lose its value. So time to enforce some minimum standards to earn the title American. I’m not saying New York City should be kicked out of the union or anything like that, it just saying if they keep calling themselves American they should be subjected to heavy fines.
American contiguous….. what is wrong the current “Marxist craphole?”
American flags should come with removable stars plus room for new ones.
-NY and Massachusetts gone!
-Burmese Karen people added!
etc…
“…if they keep calling themselves American they should be subjected to heavy fines.”
Demand cash – don’t take a check from NYC.
The morons in new york (gag), commiefornistan, wershingtoon, nevadahhh, ahlaskahhh, and ore gone, haven’t been Americans for a long time. Nor should anyone one from there ever be mistaken for a real American.
People from these areas, democrats, and other parasites are marxist and communist infiltrators. They were foisted on us because the europeans couldn’t defeat us using monkeys or their little pea brains.
In Princeton there’s no smoking in the whole CITY. Not on the sidewalk, not in a park, not with a stoat, not with a goat – even some apartment buildings. Basically you have to own your own house and go inside and do it under the covers.
New York and the collective territories of the west coast have been striving to be ‘European’ for decades now. With their budget problems, they are going to end up being ‘Eastern European’. Soon we will be able to give new life to all of Yakov Smirnoff’s jokes.
In America, people shoot guns. In New York City, guns shoot you.
In America, if you’re a man, you can marry any woman you want. In San Francisco, if you’re a man, any man marries you.
It pains me to support smokers, but you are right. However, I also think that a ‘hey dumbass, thanks for starting a wildfire’ tax should be added to cigarettes. I firmly support a smoker’s right to kill him or herself slowly and since most of them won’t live long anyway, why not just tax the crap out of them to boot? It’s not like they’ll need the money when they’re older.
People have no respect for the past. That’s our problem. The leaders of these people just want more power, but the rest of ’em are too bogged down in their same old worldview to care about what American servicemen fought for and what the Founders really meant by their words and actions. Certainly they don’t care about what happened in other countries that fell into totalitarianism.
As for me, an ancestor of mine shed blood at Gettysburg on the third day facing tens of thousands in grey shirts. But I know now that real bravery is banning salt.
Because when the smokers are all gone or smoking is regulated and taxed into oblivion they will make up the difference by taxing you. You think they are just going to settle for collecting less tax money? Think again.
@DamnCat is exactly right. Once established, taxes never go away. Even if they are meant to be temporary, big government is immediately addicted to that money. As soon as they raise a tax, even if its meant to be punitive, they quickly find new things to spend it on. If they raise taxes on cigarettes to the point that smokers start quitting in droves (which is what the anti-smokers claim they want), and that revenue starts drying up, they will start proposing other ‘evils’ to tax. It will be new taxes or increased taxes on alchohol, gas, cars, ammunition, soda, fast food, plastic bags, you know, all that ‘evil’ stuff you like. And if that doesn’t satisfy government’s hunger, then they will propose taxes on things that everyone uses because everyone uses them.
If you want to claim to be a conservative, you had better heed the words of George H. W. Bush, “Read my lips – NO NEW TAXES!”
I know its ironic, since he did raise taxes, but he lost the re-election, which is what should happen to any politician that adds to our tax burden.
The main argument for banning smoking in public places is that the ban is meant to stop smokers from harming others with their 2nd hand smoke. What is everyone’s view on banning acts that directly impact the health of those around them? Looking for an honest conversation here, this is actually a topic that I can’t seem to make a stand one way or another.
Hyphenated-Americans should lose their citizenship when they self-identify as a Hyphenated-American. Persons that demean other Americans by calling them Hyphenated-Americans should lose their citizenship. They can re-apply for citizenship after 10 years, if they can pass the U.S. Naturalization Test.
@Adam, the problem is that these bans are getting into private property under the tarp of OSHA and the ADA, and taking property rights away from citizens. In my state, like many others, smoking has been banned in any building which is open to the public. Not just libraries and schools and government buildings, but bars and restaraunts and clubs – privately owned businesses who should have the right to cater to whomever they want(of course, the tribal casinos are exempt, since they contribute so much to the polititians). OSHA says that the bartenders inhaling secondhand smoke presents a workplace hazard. And using the ADA like the Commerce Clause, goverments can do just about anything to a business, in the name of public health.
Do you think that you’re safe from governmets heavy hand, even in your own home? NO. If they are able to ban an activity in any location based on the effect on others, then your home is now within their grasp! If I came to your home to repair something (I work for the phone co.) now your home is my workplace! I hope that there aren’t any OSHA or ADA violations in my workplace (your home) that would cause you to be fined.
As for the bartenders and servers and employees that work in smoking establishments – did you know it was a bar when you applied to work there? Yes? Then what did you expect?
Just a few days ago NY state senator Kruger introduced legislation that would fine anybody using their ipods, blackberries etc. crossing the street a $100.00 fine EVERY TIME caught.
The senator stated “When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in.”
Every day I wake up to learn of a new liberty stripped from my life by these bafoons. Nanny state indeed.
“this is all basically, “I think I’m smarter than everyone else, so I should be able to tell them what to do,” right?”
“For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.” – Karl Marx
I’m old enough to actually have smoked on an airplane, you could tell where the smoking section started thanks to the yellowish stains on the overhead bins. I remember on a half empty 747 flight to Argentina looking towards the back of the coach section and seeing a cloud of smoke hovering back there. Even if you didn’t smoke, you would still be breathing in all that smoke filled air.
I can agree with banning smoking in enclosed places, since people who don’t smoke shouldn’t be forced to inhale second hand smoke. I’m especially keen on that since I quit and became a father and grandfather.
But I think banning smoking outdoors, or trying to ban it in people’s own homes is silly beyong belief.
>Are there anyone other than those imposing these nanny state laws that like them?<
Well – tobacco smoke triggers migraines for me, so I have to confess that however I feel about them philosophically and theoretically, I rejoice with unabashed, selfish glee every time public smoking bans are enacted. You simply do not know disappointment like that suffered by a ten year old kid whose trip to Disneyland was spent in the infirmary because people were smoking on line, and the dream day out she looked forward to for more than a year turned into agonies of pain. Hell hath no fury like a kid cheated out of Disneyland – so screw you, smokers, keep your toxic waste out of my face. I can now enjoy basketball games, concerts, plane flights (well, OK, I don't enjoy them – but I no longer dread them), restaurants, and DISNEYLAND because these are now no-smoking venues. Laws requiring you to smoke in hermetically sealed bubbles with air scrubbers attached would be just fine with me. Screw principles, it's all about me.
@Carolyn: Taxes should not be used to modify behavior. At some time, government will tax you to influence your behavior. Plus, there are, surprise, serious unintended consequences of the cigarette tax. In NYC, smuggling smokes is now almost as lucrative as smuggling drugs — without the threat of hard time. The incentive is tremendous — in the neighborhood of $7-8/pack — and the incentive to control turf is increasing, along with associated violence. Also, many street corner bodegas in NYC have gone right out of business, and tensions between Native American nations and the state are at a high.
As for NYC, I’ve voiced how much disdain I have for downstate, but the nanny problem lies mostly with Bloomberg. Guiliani was a law and order guy who cleaned up the city. Bloomie is a cursed do-gooder who spent $174 per voter in the last election, and yet he won by a squeaker. He won’t run again.
When the people who make up rules say: NO, you can NOT dump snow in Boston Harbor because…IT HAS SALT IN IT,
nothing surprises me.
As a direct descendant of Samuel Silas Jordon and John Rolfe, I feel I should point out that tobacco was the first ‘money crop’ to be exported back to Jolly old England from Jamestown. Had these early settlers been unable to ‘hook’ the royal court on the evil nicotine, the experiment of the New World would probably have been an abject failure. Our founding Fathers were quite prone to raising Tobacco at Mount Vernon and Monticello. These facts, taken with the considerations of the massive amounts of taxes raised from tobacco sales, would seem to indicate that true Americans should be required to smoke.