Rights and reason up in smoke, part 1…

As you may know, I've written quite a bit about cigarette smoking in the past. And as you also surely know, unlike other so-called "scientists" whose nanny-ish voices are so loud nowadays, I concern myself with the facts behind the smoking debate - like the FACT that the evidence damning cigarettes is hardly conclusive…

But this doesn't stop both private companies and the government from persecuting those who smoke anyway. In America, of all places - home of the Marlboro Man!

A couple of recent "cases in point" from the national news should make us hang our collective national heads in shame over our treatment of smokers - even if it WERE true that smoking were the root of all health evils, like the mainstream says. I'll tell you about the first of these today…

First, a little background: It wouldn't completely surprise me if the smoke-Nazis took over in a place like Massachusetts or Maryland or California - they've already all but outlawed lighting up in these and other places. But in hearty, all-American, corn-husking Nebraska?

Yet that's exactly what has happened in Omaha, now home to the toughest anti-smoking policy in the nation, according to a recent World Net Daily online article. Their recently passed ordinance has outlawed smoking in almost all public places - under penalty of heavy fines: $100 for first offense, $200 the second time around, and a whopping $500 for the third strike.

Here's the kicker in all this legalized extortion: Both the Omaha Police and some of the city's elected officials are encouraging residents who see their neighbors lighting up in any of the forbidden zones (97% of the city's businesses have now been forced smoke-free) to CALL 911…

That's right - if you see someone smoking a cigarette most anywhere in Omaha, you're supposed to treat it the same way as if you were witnessing a murder.

Thankfully, Nebraskans have not seemed to take this recommendation seriously. According to the World Net piece, there have not been ANY calls to 911 dispatch about illegal puffing. Instead, they've apparently chosen to respect their neighbors' basic American rights to self-determination. Either that, or every smoker in the Cornhusker State has quit smoking or turned into a mind-numbed slave to unjust laws overnight.

I, for one, hope that isn't the case.

I know this is borderline anarchy to say, but I'd rather see Americans ignore an unjust law than kowtow to an unjust government by becoming forced informants on friends and neighbors who are only pursuing their own happiness…

Didn't that used to be perfectly legal? Isn't it in the Declaration of Independence? Isn't this kind of the WHOLE POINT of our nation - that it isn't up to the government to protect us from ourselves (especially when we aren't doing anything harmful)?

And another thing: How responsible to the welfare of a city is it for a legislature to…

A) Take who knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars out of bar and restaurant owners' pockets - folks who are already in a tough business that in some way depends on the freedom of patrons to smoke, and…

B) To recommend that folks jam up emergency phone lines and suck up police manpower with petty smoking complaints - while real criminals may be getting away with serious crimes because the cops and 911 operators are too busy processing complaints about CIGARETTE SMOKING?

But governments aren't the only tyrants in the modern American war on smoking.