Posted on 02/03/2011 5:27:59 AM PST by mattstat
The party that ever has “Rights!” on its lips, the party with the mania about diversity, the party that is most anxious that religious fundamentalists will take over and impose their puritanical wills on the rest of us, the party whose members remind us constantly of the dangers of the government meddling in our personal lives has, in a fit holy self righteousness, taken away yet another right, decreased diversity, imposed its puritanical will on the rest of us, and has used the law to meddle in our personal lives once more.
New York City Council Democrats have voted to ban smoking in city parks, beaches, pools, boardwalks, and, if it can be believed, marinas. Mayor Bloomberg, a man with much money and therefore with a near infinite belief in his infallibility, has said he will sign the new restrictions, and will do so with a smile on his face. One imagines it will resemble that of the Grinch’s.
Why did they take away the right to smoke in public? According to Speaker Christine C. Quinn, a Democrat, “The statistics don’t lie: second hand smoke kills. With this bill, all New Yorkers can now breathe easier and breathe cleaner air.” My dear lady, as a statistician I can tell you that if this is what the statistics are saying, then they are lying. A nasty habit, but one not unfamiliar to most statistics.
No council member mentioned that residents will still breath air polluted from tens of thousands of cars of which, even just one vehicle, in a single sight-seeing trip across our narrow isle, will pump out more “carcinogens” than an inveterate smoker can do in a week. Perhaps we should keep quiet about this, lest the government get ideas.
Another council member, Democrat Gale Brewer, said of her part in restricting her constituents’ behavior, that her vote “will help New Yorkers become healthier.” Ah, health. The modern be all and end all. This strange and recent worship of body is present perhaps because of the feminization of politics, or perhaps it is because of the increase of mothers and mamma’s boys (Bloomberg?) elected to office, or perhaps it is because of increasing secularization which teaches this is it!: miss your chance to be healthy now, and you miss out for all eternity.
Less freedom and less money for the guy who goes to work everyday at a non government job is the solution to every problem.
Second hand smoke does not cause cancer. Its questionable if first hand smoke does. This is just Dems being Stalinists.
This is ALL about the city reaping the $50 from the fines they write up. Being in a park while someone is smoking has nothing on standing on the corner of 42nd street inhaling the fumes of buses, etc.
What a load of crap!
The Democrat Crime Syndicate: control, rape, pillage, kill.
You might be right, Puppage. But the coffers will also take a hit when the coughers smoke less. The city takes in a huge amount on its penurious cigarette tax.
Well, they do have a point. Remember, the Fuehrer opposed smoking and for the exact same reasons!
The liberals need to join with their muslim brothers and just make smoking a stoning offense!
They will have to change the name to Utopia City. Utopia through Life Management By Liberal Tyrants.
Yeah, well guess what.........not just NYC. I live in Raleigh, NC; the heart of Tobacco Road...and our idiotic city council just passed the exact same law. Can’t smoke in parks.
Morons. Let me see ‘em enforce it in this neck of the woods.
And, that's the other side of the issue. If they REALLY wanted to "save" us all, they could just ban smoking entirely.
However, they don't want to "save" us badly enough to lose the gazillions in taxes.
New Yorkers did it to themselves. They think they are tough and scrappy but yet they let their freedoms be leeched from them without a whimper by leftists.
Smoking is not a right.
Nor is driving. But, let the city ban THAT activity, and watch the storm that will certainly brew from that. Smoking, however, is an easy target because it has been labeled as “evil”.
Just makes me want to go find a good cigar, ya know.
“Second hand smoke does not cause cancer. Its questionable if first hand smoke does.”
I grew up in a house where both parents were heavy smokers. I was diagnosed with tongue cancer as an adult. 97% of people with tongue cancer are either smokers or heavy drinkers. I was neither. And by the way, my father died of lung cancer. So take your delusions somewhere else.
Three examples:
** My husband and I were visiting the Hagley Museum ( A DuPont estate) just outside Wilmington, Delaware. It is famous for its magnificent and pristine gardens. We were walking down a perfectly lovely and manicured garden path and a smoker just in front of us dropped her cigarette, ground the butt into the walk, and just left it there.
** By August, the beach at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is thick with cigarette butts. The beach cleaning tractors can't sift through them. It was disgusting to bring my pre-schoolers to that beach. We usually went to Dewy or Cape Henlopen state parks. For some reason these state park beaches don't seem to attract as many piggy smokers.
** One day I was sitting in my car waiting for my husband who was making a purchase in in the local carry-out. A smoker just flips his butt on the ground and leaves it there. Isn't he aware that the store owner must **pay** people to clean that up, or that he must do it himself?
So...Smokers. I don't care if you smoke, just don't be a pig about it!
I will be writing an article on this.
I am a non-smoker, but I believe that smokers should be able to smoke in any business that permits them (same as with guns), that they should be able to carry or smoke in the public areas that they pay for with their taxes.
I grew up in a house that had a 3 pack a day smoker and have no lung problems so take your story elsewhere. There are plenty of people who have lung cancer and never smoked. There is no proof of second hand smoke causing cancer let alone outside. Pure Stalinism.
GingisK, Smoking is too a right.
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