Tobacco, Liberty and Government Regulation

I'm not a smoker. I really don't care for the look, taste or smell of cigarettes. I know they cause serious health problems if used consistently over a long period of time. It's my decision not to smoke them. I do admit to occasionally enjoying a cigar on the golf course, however. In an act of full disclosure, I also must admit to being from a long line of tobacco farmers. The Pritchetts harvested tobacco in NC all the way back to before the Revolutionary War. I even spent two college summers working in a cigarette factory, along side of all the unionized laborers (that's for another article), learning why I needed to pursue education and business. My company's name is Tobacco Road Capitalists, which is both a nod to the agrarian and manufacturing heritage of the Old North State and a play on our national reputation for being the home to the best college basketball in the country. However, this article is not about tobacco, cigarettes, farming or manufacturing; it's about free markets, personal responsibility, minority rights and government regulation.

Twenty years after a California municipality passed a smoking ban, the politically correct/nanny state movement has made its way all the way to Tobacco Road. A bill is pending approval in Raleigh that would ban smoking in private establishments. That's correct - this is not a ban on smoking in public places or thoroughfares. This is a ban on smoking in private establishments. So much for the free market. To heck with the liberties of tax-paying citizens or of tax-paying, business owners. The government has deemed the risk to be so great to your health from second-degree smoke that it can't allow the market to decide. Apparently, the government believes you can't choose which restaurants/bars to frequent based on your personal views and they don't think proprietors would respond to the vote from the market as expressed by their pocketbooks and wallets? All of this in the name of keeping the public safe and reducing health care expenses? If the health concerns are so great, how about a ban on all sales of smoking products? That would truly be "putting your money where your mouth is." Call me a skeptic, but I really doubt the government's conviction on the health risk is great enough to forgo the tax revenues.

I believe this is simply another case of political pandering to a majority constituency at the expense of a minority group. It's a popular, politically correct piece of legislation. It's also more of a dangerous trend. The government is incrementally encroaching on our liberties. At the expense of sounding like a nutty, right-wing conspiracist, we do have to ask the question, "where does it end?" Are we to be trusted about the consumption of alcohol? Can we operate our vehicles safely? Should we really own guns? If second-hand smoke is dangerous, what about influenza and other illnesses that can be acutely transmitted in schools, Churches and grocery stores? I know I'm demonstrating absurdity with absurdity here - but you get the picture. The more power we give to bureaucrats in the name of protecting us from ourselves, the more personal liberties we cede. The more individual responsibilities we trade in for government guarantees, the greater the cost of government to "administer" the programs. Over the past 50 years, the growth of government spending has been dramatic - but only if you look at it over the long span. Government spending (federal, state and local) has grown, as a percentage of GDP, from about 20 percent to nearly 35 percent. It's like kudzu. You can't see it growing, but if you ignore it for a while and come back and look at it...you are amazed by how much it has spread and what is has taken over.