There’s been a recent ruling in the New Orleans courts that now bans smoking in bars and casinos. There are lot of people that support this measure but these are the people who have no principals and disregard the rights of private business owners who should be able to set their own rules within the confines of the law. These smoking ban laws have been metastasizing throughout the country and only serves to grant the government more power into our personal lives. If we have a smoking band now you can bet that a decibel cap on live music is next.
I recently discussed this on my private Facebook account but I want to reiterate my thoughts here because this news event has been bothering more and more. I haven’t quite been able to excise my anger over this.
Every day I find new reasons to become fed up with the world: the people in it and the people running it.
I’m sure a lot of you out there think this news story reflects a great idea and a positive step forward. That’s because most people don’t have principals.
What this story says is that the government can determine what private business owners do with their privately owned establishments.
It’s one thing to ban smoking in government buildings or buildings on government leased land; it’s another thing for the government to now have the power to tell a private business owner what they can and can’t do in their own establishment. Mind you, that I’m talking about things that are already legal. Smoking is still legal. But the government now says it can babysit private businesses and force them to adhere to their way of thinking.
This is simple folks: if you don’t want to go to a bar that has smokers then go to another bar; if you don’t want to work at a place that has smoking in it, then go get a job somewhere else. You, as a prospective employee, do not have the right to tell an employer how they can run their own business. You didn’t put up the capital to get it off the ground; you didn’t put the time and sacrifice into making it a profitable success. Just like you, as a citizen, don’t have the right to tell someone they can or can’t smoke in their own house.
This is one step closer to the government being able to tell you what you can and can’t do in your own home. This is no slippery-slope argument because we’re seeing the further advancement of government in our personal lives today. Case in point, for years in Louisiana there was an anti-sodomy law which prohibited adults in consensual acts of sodomy–let’s be clear here, by legal definition “sodomy” also incorporates acts of oral sex. This law was just a way for the government to try and curb homosexuality. The law has since been revised as of 2003.
If you think it’s morally correct for the government to be able to force private business owners into banning certain legal activities in their own establishment then you don’t have principals.
Some weak-minded people out there will try to say, “Oh, so I guess you think that any private business should be able to do whatever the hell they want.”
No, private citizens and private business owners still have to operate under the confines of the law. Certain laws are put into place to protect people from each other, i.e. something is not a “Right” if it imposes upon another person’s Right. You have the right to drink alcohol; you don’t have the right to drink alcohol and then get behind the wheel of a car and endanger other people’s lives. This is important: private business owners don’t have the right to start peddling sex slaves and serving up krokodil rave parties.
Currently, smoking is still legal–as it should be. And if a bar owner–who pays his taxes, pays his bills, is paying the bank loan back, and pays to buy the goods that people have agreed to exchange money for–decides that he/she wants to have a business that allows people to smoke cigarettes then they should be able to do that without the government sticking their nose into it..
You have the decision, as an adult, to make up your mind whether or not you want to frequent an establishment that houses smokers. You, as an adult, have the rightful mind that can decide on whether or not you want to go to a smoke-free zone or a smoking zone.
People, you vote for a business just like you vote for a politician. If you want a business to succeed then you vote for their success by giving them your business. If you want to vote for a musician to succeed then you vote for their success by buying their albums and seeing them on tour. If you’re sick of politicians gaining more and more power to control what we do in our personal lives then get off your lazy ass and vote them out of office.
If you don’t want a business to succeed then don’t go there.
If you’re offended by a TV show, don’t watch it.
There are people that say that once bars ban smoking they actually increase in profits. That’s great, but that should be up to the bar owner and not the government to decide. It should behoove the bar owner to want to go smoke-free to increase their profits; however, if they want to own a dive bar that has smokers then that should be left up to them, not the government.
I’m a non-smoker, too. I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my entire life or done a drug (besides the occasional drink). But private business owners should still be left to operate their businesses by the legal standards. Their argument is that “well, the person working there doesn’t have a say.”
Yes they do. They can go find a different job at a place that doesn’t have smoking in the building. Especially in New Orleans where there is a bar every 2 feet.
You know what’s next? A ban on loud music for bands. Wait and see, the government will eventually sat a decibel cap on bars that have live music. I’ve played in venues that enacted their own decibel cap of 90db. One day, just you want and see, the government will say that loud music causes permanent hearing loss and the employees and patrons shouldn’t be subject to that on a nightly basis.
Wait, you mean people can buy ear plugs? Doesn’t matter, the government is your babysitter and you’ve given it the power to tell you how loud you can enjoy live music.
The government is saying this: you CAN’T think for yourself, act for yourself, get your own health insurance, determine what is obscene and palatable to watch, you CAN’T be trusted to drive a car not wearing a seatbelt, you and another adult can’t mutually agree to have sex for money….HOWEVER, you CAN be trusted to vote them into office (without supplying any proof whatsoever that you’re mentally competent and have weighed all the issues pertaining to the election).
Thanks for looking out for me, Uncle Sam. I don’t know how we’d get along without.
