The original intent of the "law" is to regulate criminal behavior........not legal behavior.......further, if the intent of a law is to protect "public safety", then the test should be, does it equally effect ALL of the public, and not a small segment thereof.
I'd say the effort is to make an otherwise legal practice illegal under certain conditions. That's no different than any other government regulation that attempts to regulate behavior. Banks can do business and make money, but certain banking practices are not legal.
You're saying that you have a problem with regulating any legal behavior, save those that directly impact public safety? Are there any other exceptions to that general rule?
I think you see where I'm going with this. We want to pick and choose the regulation that suits our own set of "what's right and proper." You even put names on those who would restrict cigarette smoking in public areas - "anti-smoking nazis" -as a way to show your disdain and contempt for such people.
Fair enough - I understand your point, and while I disagree with it, I'll do so without using terms like "anarchist" and other terms along those lines.
Regarding jacking up the cigarette tax, I think that's a subject that we can absolutely agree on. I think it's folly all the way around to tax a behavior - and smoking and drinking are behaviors, more than anything else. If a person wants to smoke, the price be damned. He or she will do just that. Same with drinking.
Mrs E and I moved to Missouri in 2007, so I haven't seen any of those referenda you're talking about. I'd vote it down too and will do so if I see it surface.
By the same token, I have a problem with taking state lottery money and allocating some of it towards "education" and have those who would profit by state-sanctioned gambling tout the "education" angle as justification for opening up yet another casino. It's patently dishonest and sends the wrong message -- it's perfectly fine to gamble, even to excess, as long as some of the proceeds go to some kind of worthy cause.
Nope, I have no interest in campaigning to make tobacco use illegal. Not my job. And I've already publicly said that I have on many occasions "voted with my feet" when a business owner allows smoking inside an entire restaurant. I just can't hack that, no pun intended. I've walked out of more than one place that way. My not being there doesn't impact the business owner, that's for sure, but if other people react the same way I do, the point may get across to that business owner that ignoring the non-smoking clientele will ultimately mean fewer dollars for the business.
Here's the crux of the matter:
Therefore to answer your "yes or no" question, I can state emphatically no......I don't favor any law that regulates an otherwise legal behavior, unless it is a direct public safety issue, a good example being speed limits on municipal streets.......however, for a reasonable citizen (such as myself) I rarely have to even pay attention to them, as I govern my driving by the environment that I'm in....using common sense.
The world is full of people who think of themselves as being "reasonable citizens" and who use "common sense" when their behavior clearly illustrates something other than that. I hate to say it, but many laws are put on the books to address and regulate what "common sense" should be. "Common sense" simply isn't that common.
The glut of laws and regulations are enacted to deal with many of these specific issues -- often to absurdity. That's witnessed by some archaic law, for example, that says it's illegal to have a antenna exposed outside of your house yet you can have a 25′ satellite dish, in Columbia MO. I'd wager that the putz who put that law on the books was just as passionate about exposed antennae in Columbia as some are about allowing smoking just anywhere, under any condition. BTW, smoking is outlawed in public places in Columbia. The moonbats love it.
No doubt you and others think of anti-smoking laws as being ridiculous and absurd, just like the stupid antenna law in Columbia. But a law is a law is a law....
At the root of it, an anti-smoking nazi is fundamentally still a nazi.........and when the smokers are ultimately "dealt with", they will turn their fascism to the next issue that "offends them"......and for those readers whose glance in life's mirror find themselves "offended" by my reference, my simple response is.....tough shit!
Very revealing statement there, doc -- beneath you, I'd say. You normally find a much kinder way to tell people to pound sand!
