Cash Has ‘Clunked’ Us

I am somewhat behind on the states and their new laws governing smoking. But here is one that you need to read.

Maine has outlawed smoking outdoors! As of Sept. 12, 2009, smoking is prohibited “in an outdoor eating arena where food and drink is served to the public for consumption on the premises, 24 hours per day, 365 days a year.

You can read the Maine law here

The law includes “patios, decks, or other property that is partially enclosed or open to the sky.”

Imagine that? I wonder how long it will be before some politician wooing votes comes up with the idea to stop one from smoking on one’s own outdoor “deck, patio, that is partially enclosed or open to the sky?”

Check out the Maine law, and then write your Congressman to inform them that you are a pipesmoker whose rights are being trampled upon.

We are being taxed without representation in Congress. We are being punished by revenue-hungry politicians, who are pandering to the wingnuts of society, who are furthering their own causes on the backs of tobacco users.

This is a fight that all tobacco users must, must, take up!

Unless we combine our efforts to support our choices of smoking tobacco when we want, we are going to be pushed out of existence.

I fear the day is coming in which it will be against federal law to smoke in one’s home, or patio, or deck.

I for one am opposed to all federal legislation that takes away any of my rights established by the U.S. Constitution, as amended. Unless the Constitution is amended to prevent my ability to choose my own lifestyle, then I oppose any such legislation passed by pandering lawmakers, state or federal.

Ron Paul, who ran as a Libertarian in 1998 and as a Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential contest, was quoted in the Sept. 28, edition of Time Magazine on the loss of our rights.

Here is what this topnotch thinker, physician, and Congressman from Texas said: He was asked why he supports the legalization of marijuana: “Why support the criminalization of marijuana is the better question. First, I defend it because a free society allows people to make free choices, even dumb choices. And the problems we have with the war on drugs are a thousand times worse than the problems we have with drug over usage.”

Question: Why do you oppose the income tax?

Ron Paul: “Because I have a right to the fruits of my labor, and government does not. I f you concede the principle of the income tax, you concede the principle that the government owns all your income and permits you to keep a certain percentage of it. God-given rights to our life and our liberty don’t come from government.”

Friends and neighbors, these are basic rights provided to every citizen of America through that wonderful document, the U.S. Constitution. You have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Unfettered by any governing body.

My argument is that no governing body has authority over your rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We elect politicians to do our work, for which they are handsomely rewarded. For me, all of them should be term-limited. The philosophy of “seniority,” has long-since passed into oblivion. Now, lobbyists handing out bags of money to politicians handle America’s business through legislation. The only thing to do with seniority is the longer you have been in Congress, the more lobbying money you can get. Money is governing your rights today, not your welfare.

You can check out the politicos who took wads of cash from the health-care industry, the health insurance industry, the anti-tobacco industry in the fight over tobacco use. It is outrageous. And many of those politicos who are defeated for re-election, turn to those same lobbying firms for employment and big-time paychecks to help those industries guide legislation through Congress to benefit Big-Medicine, Big Insurance and Big-Pharma, Big Anti.

You have to go back to the Robber Barons of the 19^th century, the captains of industry and the railroads, who amassed personal fortunes through questionable business practices. It was a sorry time in America history, just as it is today when we hand out money to bail out Wall Street and the bankers, who got us into the Great Recession in the first place.

For their next act, our current run of politicians in Washington insulted the American public by a “cash for clunkers” scam to plug the Swiss cheese economic holes in the automobile industry, an industry that has been greedy, blind to public desires and blaming everyone but their shortsighteness.

Those big cash rebates were nothing more than a gimmick to get the unsuspecting in to the show rooms, and turn over the keys to a new car, a new car note, and taxes on the rebate. They giveth on one hand and taketh away on the other. Same old game.

If we don’t wake up, not only will tobacco be lost to those of us who enjoy our pipes and cigars and other forms of tobacco use. You might find that it is illegal to, say, enjoy a glass of wine or a mixed drink because that can lead to alcoholism, which can lead to more automobile wrecks, which can lead to death, which impacts the nation’s economy.

See where this can go?

My hope is that enough people will eventually awaken and take control of their lives, instead of leaving that up to local, state and federal governments.

I do not speak of revolution, but I fear we are headed in that direction unless Congress and other political elites awaken to the fact the very fabric of American life is being threatened.