Virginia Smoking Ban Proposed
January 27th, 2008
Some observations:
- Don’t you love how the male news anchor shakes his finger and raises his voice? Naughty smokers! Bad, bad smokers! This dude makes me feel like I’m sixteen again and came home two hours past curfew.
- I wonder if the governor of Virginia will continue to allow Mary Kay continue with her current diet? Don’t even go there with me, either, folks. I choose to smoke, Mary Kay chooses to eat fried chicken.
- It speaks volumes when the owner of "Hot Tuna" touts his newfound market in non-smoking patrons, proving yet once again that the market works, and that government intrusion is not necessary or warranted.
- Governor Kaine uses the lame excuse that if other states had suffered economic harm, the bans would be repealed. What makes him so sure? States that have passed smoking bans have experienced major closures and financial hardship within the restaurant and tavern industry. But what makes us believe that government gives two hoots about small business? Small business doesn’t contribute as mightily to their campaigns, so why do politicians need them? Hello? They don’t.
- The Governor states - as if it were fact - that people are 50% more likely to die from cancer if they work in a smoking environment, yet he quotes no source. This is just pure and simple BS.
- He also assumes that people are forced to work in smoking environments, as if employees were enslaved in some sort of smoky, death camp prison with no chance of escape.
- He uses intellectual dishonesty by bringing up hair restraint and hand-washing laws to supposedly prove that government regulates other health-related issues in restaurants and taverns, so they should be able to ban smoking on private property. The intellectual dishonesty comes in when you consider the fact that people don’t have a choice of whether or not their food will be prepared with or without a hairnet, or if their burger will be handled by someone who doesn’t wash their hands. People have a choice in whether or not to enter a smoking establishment. If I walked up to a restaurant, and there was big sign on the door that said, "WARNING! Our cooks DO NOT wash their hands! They also have really long hair and it sometimes gets in your food. Eat here at your own risk!" I would choose not to eat there. However, some people may think that it’s worth the risk, and eat there, anyway. Similarly, if a person is warned that the private property they are about to enter allows smoking, they assume the risk and can be adults and decide what they want to do with that information.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
You realize it’s government’s job to protect that overweight reporterette from herself too. Tim Kaine and The Huckster have that in common as well.
As for the wagging finger of the blow-dried anchor, that’s what nannies and nags do.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:15 am
I don’t want government to protect Mary Kay from herself. She has the right to eat, I have the right to smoke. For now.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
You know, I am really glad you decided to do a post on me because otherwise I would have never been exposed to your fantastically insightful website. Welcome to the illustrious land of my bookmarks (where you’ll join amazon.com and a website about how awesome ninjas are). Congrats.
Anyways, as you clearly already know, all the propaganda (sorry folks, there’s nothing else to call it besides propaganda) surrounding the “dangers” of second hand smoke are outright lies. Besides that, smoking rules and it totally makes you look cool!
Kid’s don’t smoke because of cartoon camels (and if they do, mom and dad are failures as parents), adults don’t smoke without knowing the risks (and if they do… I don’t know, I really can’t even fathom that as a possibility) , and I just have one thing to say to militant anti smokers: I have just as much right to breath delicious carbon monoxide as you do to breath boring old oxygen. Beat it losers!
January 28th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Dan, you rock! We could really use more guys like you on our side.
And you’re 100% right. Smoking looks bad ass
Is there anything more awe-inspiring than a big guy with a fat cigar in his jaw?
January 28th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Mr. Experience, the pleasure is all mine. Any freedom-loving citizen who wants the government out of his business - and everyone else’s - is cool with me.
Please keep coming back, because people like you keep me sane and let me believe that America has hope.
You also have a very quirky, dark sense of humor. It’s good to see that still exists in these hyper-sensitive times.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Hate doing self-promotion but the ninny-nannies will have a field day here with gummint-run health care, as they are now over in Jolly Old England.
Click here.
What they forget is none of us is going to live forever. We’re all destined to take the Eternal Dirt Nap. As that noted American philospher Jim Morrison once famously said: “No one gets out of here alive.”
I’m betting they want to keep all of us alive longer so they can squeeze more taxes out of us. Five extra years of life is a lot of taxes.
January 28th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Peter, you can do all the self-promotion here that you’d like. I respect you and respect your opinion, so please, feel free. I don’t know about the rest of the people who read this blog, but I’m here to learn things, not just spout off. (As much as it would appear the latter to be true.)
I read your article and will comment over there…
January 31st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
So realistically, what is going to take from us, the people, the patrons, the bar owners, to destroy these bans once and for all in VA? Business in Georgetown bars is down 30% on average, and we here in Arlington have seen a significant boost as a result!! I think it would be very stupid to pass this ban…
January 31st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Hey, Richard. Thanks for stopping by.
Well, you could do what my friend, Ryan, and I are doing. We’ve started a grassroots effort to stop the ban here in Wisconsin, beginning with a website:
http://www.banthebanwisconsin.com
We’re also working on bumper stickers, posters, and flyers to hand out at taverns about the junk science behind secondhand smoke and the assault on private property rights that a statewide ban would bring.
Stop by our site if you’re looking for something to get you started, and feel free to use our links to your heart’s content! Good luck, and if you need help, just ask.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:26 am
The problem is that I have a right not to smell like an ashtray when I leave a restaurant or bar. When what you are doing leaves its stench on me, it needs to be banned!!! If you never bath and come in and establishment, which is about the way you smokers smell, then you should be thrown out.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
The problem is that you don’t know what a ‘right’ is. I don’t have a ‘right’ to smoke, and you don’t have a ‘right’ not to smell like smoke. The only right in this argument is the right of a property owner to allow a legal act on their privately-owned property.
I suggest you spend a little more time educating yourself about what our country was founded upon, and a little less time dreaming up insults.