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Offensive to whom?!
I live in the Chicago area of Illinois. Our embattled Governor has recently signed a smoking ban into law that in my opinion violates my Constitutional Civil Liberties, as well as the liberties of the many business owners that will be affected by the upcoming ban. Beginning January 8, 2008, smoking will be banned in all public businesses and buildings. I am in the process of quitting smoking so I really do not have a vested interest, outside of the reality that if the State or Local governments can ban the use of a legal product what stops them from interfering in more of our daily lives. One town in Maryland even went so far as to attempt to ban smoking in your own home. I was sitting in the outside rooftop of a bar with the co-ed kickball team that I play on and was asked what I thought of the smoking ban. I told the inquisitor that I thought it was a terrible decision on the part of the Governor and the State Legislature. My teammate’s husband said that he thought I was not looking at it rationally because second hand smoke is a health hazard and is offensive. If business owners are not going to look out for their employees and customers than the Government should legislate that they begin to. If smoking cigarettes or the smoke from them is so toxic then ban the sale. Well, ok let’s look at the health hazards of second hand smoke as documented by the World Health Organization, yes this is part of the United Nations. After the conclusion of a twenty year, global study that included third world countries the correlation between second hand smoke and cancer was less than .05%. Yes that is correct. Go and look up the study for yourself. It came out two or three years ago. When I brought this up, my friend conceded that second hand smoke does not cause cancer. There are more deaths every year because of second hand alcohol than second hand smoke. Maybe we should ban the sale and consumption of alcohol, oops we already tried that. He did say that it made him feel nauseous when he was around it. Some people get nauseous when they get on a plane or take a ride on a boat, should we ban them as health hazards as well. So, the health hazard part of his argument is gone, by his own concession. All he could fall back on was that smoking is offensive to some people and should be banned publicly because it can be seen as offensive. If smoking tobacco is banned because it is not easily contained and violates someone else’s rights, I won’t argue. But, be prepared to legislate about everything. I mean I am sure that I can come up with a list of things that I find offensive. If we are going to ban one thing that is offensive to one group of people you are now opening the door to have to legislate to remove offense from all groups of people. If the product is legal as cigarettes are, it should be left to the business owner or the landlord to decide if smoking will be allowed in any establishment. The bar that we were in had banned smoking indoors more than a year ago, while I was still smoking a pack a day, and I still enjoyed going their with friends. I have no problem if the business owner decides to make his or her establishment a non-smoking haven. I would almost be willing to bet that someone has found the self imposed ban of smoking was offensive, and decided not to visit that place of business. Banning the use of legal products because they offend some portion of the population is just the beginning of the slippery slope. What should we go after next? Pornography? Guns? Obesity? Who is to say that because I am offended by the morbidly obese we should keep them locked up in their own homes so that people like me do not have to look at them? We could tax them by the pound or percentage over their proper Body Mass Index. I would be willing to bet that we could be rid of our deficit and pay for five more wars just like Iraq with the kind of dough that would bring in, all pun intended. How about religions that offend people? Or even races that some may find offensive? They already tried that in Germany back in the late 1930’s and early 40’s. I suppose it did not go over very well here because it is not politically correct to be anti-semetic. Who is to say that it won’t become politically correct somewhere down the line? The one religion that it is in vogue to be offended by today is any form of Christianity, except for the few that are going away from their churches traditional beliefs about homosexuality. Hey, now there is a good one that could be nice and controversial. Let’s ban homosexuality. Why not? There are plenty of people in America, and the Muslim world, that are offended by even the thought of homosexuality. We can start by taxing the hell out of anyone that is gay. Make them pay exorbitant tax rates, somewhere around 60-75 percent. If you thought the marriage penalty was bad just wait until we have all of those offensive homosexuals back in the closet. So who is going to decide what is and what is not offensive. We cannot even agree as a nation on when life begins. Roe v. Wade has told us that we have the Constitutional right to kill the living offspring in our own wombs and we are still arguing today over whether or not this is a good law; or whether the Supreme Court was even justified to hear the arguments from either side of the issue. The point to all of this is very simple. We Americans have all kinds of rights. I don’t remember any part of the Constitution that mentions that any of us have the right not to be offended.
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