Serfdom by a Thousand Cuts

If it is indeed true, as George Bernard Shaw commented, that democracy ensures we get the government we deserve, then I have little sympathy for my neighbors who whine about the smoking ban as they puff their Camel filters in the parking lot outside the bowling alley in the freezing February rain.

Besides -- I like to point out -- we voted for the shysters and party hacks who passed the ban. Or -- more likely -- we failed to vote at all. I then call attention to the fact that right next door in Missouri, where the Republican Party still has a detectible pulse, there are no such bans. And none planned. "Well hell, let's go to Missouri and smoke!" the smokers roar, piling into their pickups, as the rain falls on an empty parking lot.

And yet the smokers are not without hope. Less than a year after Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the smoking ban, and gushed, "This law will save lives. The realities are that smoking kills people...My only regret is that this took so long," the news out of Springfield is that the owners of taverns, casinos and strip clubs may soon be able to buy a "special license" that will allow their patrons to smoke inside.

So all of that talk about saving lives from second-hand smoke was all just a bunch of...second-hand smoke. Or was it just another Chicago-style scam so the state could sell expensive smoking licenses to bowling alley operators?

"...Or was it just another Chicago-style scam so the state could sell expensive smoking licenses to bowling alley operators...?"

I called it a permit (not a license) when I suggested a "smoking permit" as a joke last December:

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/showpost.php?p=59999&postcount=137

It all started with flouridated water

Obligitory pic;

General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Mandrake: Hmm.
Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Mandrake: Hmm.
Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Mandrake: No.
Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

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