Smoking bans and bans on "trans fats" keep making the news. Call the proponents "nannies" or "health nazis" or your epithet of choice. What makes the joy-vampires think they have the authority to control your life? These bans are ridiculous. Smoking is bad for your health. Too much fat is also bad. Nobody denies that. Counterfeit laws, however, are even worse for your health and for the health of America. If you wish to prohibit unhealthy behaviors, then why not ban a person's choice to not own or know how to use a gun? That is a very unhealthy decision. Ban anything that shortens life. Pet owners live longer, heathier lives. Should we ban the choice to not own a pet? Married people live longer. Ban bachelorhood? Stress shortens life, so should everyone be drugged into bliss?
I do not smoke. I do not have a "right" to never breathe smoke. If I don't like to eat at a restaurant where the owner allows smoking, I have the right to go elsewhere. I do not have the authority (and neither does any government, anywhere) to tell the restaurant owner what he can or cannot allow in his business. (Yes, I realize that opens other issues as well. And it should) A much wiser man than me has suggested that non-smokers carry a pipe with them to display at any state-mandated smoke-free venue where a smoker is being harrassed to show support. You don't have to smoke it or even have tobacco, just let the anti-liberty trolls see it. I suppose that you could also carry a donut into the no-fat zones.
