Fighting The Danger Of Fifth-Hand Smoke

From The American Thinker:

October 08, 2010


Fighting the Danger of Fifth Hand Smoke

Peter Wilson

Moonbat Cambridge (Massachusetts) City Councilor Marjorie Decker has once again managed to distinguish herself from the rest of the moonbat City Council. The Cambridge Chronicle reports that Decker "has proposed a ban on smoking in the city's public spaces, including parks."

The Policy Order cites Nanny Mayor Bloomberg's efforts in New York City:



WHEREAS, It has come to the attention of this City Council that there has been an effort in New York to ban smoking in public parks and beaches and other public places; now therefore be it



ORDERED That the City Manager be and hereby is requested to confer with the Public Health Department and ask for a report back on the feasibility of Cambridge following suit.



Banning smoking in restaurants, however the dubious the claim about second hand smoke may be, benefits non-smokers in that they don't have to add dry cleaning to their restaurant bill. (In a multicultural society, shouldn't we have tolerance for the smoking culture?) But in a park? How could a person indulging in a legal product harm anyone else in the vicinity?





I don't smoke, and I hope that my children will never be tempted by cigarettes, but a ban on public smoking is like having your girlfriend's annoying mother telling you to put out that disgusting cigarette when you're twenty-one and of legal age to do whatever you bloody feel like. When I was a rebellious teenager I used to come down from conservative New Hampshire to taste the freedom of Harvard Square. I never imagined that Cambridge would turn into the vanguard of state control. I used to think, as a wannabe hippie in 1968, that I was on the side of freedom, allied with the Left, fighting the Man who wanted to crush individual freedom. Now it's the political left that wants to dictate in intimate ways how individuals should conduct their lives.



And even worse: Cambridge taxpayers pay Ms. Decker $70,000 a year plus generous benefits to nag us with these nanny-state campaigns. Go away and leave us alone, you control freak.









Posted at 08:58 AM