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Theater Smoking Ban Violates Free Expression

by | 12:05 am, January 25, 2010 | 3 Comments

The January 10 Denver Post published my letter under the title, "Why smoking ban shouldn’t apply on stage." The letter replied to a January 4 editorial.

The Post argues that, because actors can use fake cigarettes on stage, the state smoking ban should apply. But just because The Post is capable of publishing fake news and commentary doesn't mean it should be forbidden from publishing the real thing. The owners should decide policy, and patrons should decide which plays to see. It is a matter of property rights as well as free expression. By inviting politicians to set policy in the playhouse, The Post invites them to do the same in the newsroom.


Free association is also a critical right under assault by the smoking ban, in the theater as well as other private establishments. Actors too have a right to reach mutually agreeable terms for working. A play properly involves the mutual consent of theater owners, actors, and patrons. Politicians violate the rights of all those parties by interfering.

The Post is schizophrenic regarding the First Amendment (which is odd given that free expression is what enables newspapers to do business). Thankfully on January 22 the Post stood with free speech by declaring that individuals retain their rights when they join an association to promote ideas with their financial resources.
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Comments

  1.   CTBC Director
      January 25th, 2010 @ 1:14 am

    Additional commentary on the smoking ban – which explores the Colorado Supreme Court upholding the ban on rather nebulous “promotion of [state interest in] public health” grounds, may be found on (where else?) Clear The Bench Colorado:
    http://www.clearthebenchcolorado.org/2010/01/03/time-to-clear-the-bench-a-smoking-gun-colorado-blogger-rossputin-blasts-colorado-supreme-court-violating-free-speech/

  2.   Ken Hill
      January 26th, 2010 @ 3:03 pm

    Government Will Make Smokers, Children, Families, Sick

    Government’s that foster anti-smoking policies lead the real health epidemic, government interference. They are not using science as their competent guide into the future. Instead they use the deep festering envy of politicized environmentalists (those unable to compete on a level playing field) to revisit remnants of the dark ages. The profound statement of philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand echoes the truth that smothers us, “Today, we live in the age of envy.”

    I am a life-long non-smoker, who has lost the four most precious people in my life. Cancer was the effect, a consequence, but not the cause. Yet, I will not help to propagandize health into dictatorial policy through anti-smoking. I do not wish to repeat the 1930′s, 1940′s. Do you?

    Exactly how can our government “create a healthier society for all” when they betray the smoker’s sense of trust, demoralize their self-confidence, disrupt their employer-employee relationships, upheave their family life, and undermind their efficacy by alienating them from their own human nature?

    This destructive mind/body dichotomy will subject smoker’s to long-term emotional and mental disorders, thus leading to serious physical ailments. In reality, our government is making them sick.

    A particularily foreboding feature of the mind/body dichotomy is the government’s suffocating negative influence while aggressively restricting young people from making their own decisions. Government aggression will severely jeopardize each young person’s struggle to form a necessary sense of self-confidence. This fragile process is usually a traumatic experience, especially when that negative influence is hidden under the misconception of government benevolence.

    In reality, our government lacks the knowledge of the trigger mechanism that sets off most cancers or most other major diseases to then become a critical danger for human beings. It is not smoking, nor second-hand smoke. Then why does government pathetically use smoker’s as their scapegoat, perhaps they require an example in order to intimidate other industries?

    Chicken Littleism is no longer a silly joke. It is now a snarling threat. Stamp out politicized environmentalism, not smokers.

  3.   Ken Hill
      January 26th, 2010 @ 3:07 pm

    This letter, from a non-smoker refers to all anti-smoking legislation.

    *An open letter that was emailed to all (103) Ontario, Canada political MPP’s in early May, 2008. No replies! This non-response reflects government without a sense of responsibility or a foundation for their actions!

    Betrayal, Anti-Smoking Message is Like Fascism that Preys Upon Our Children

    We must not look within ourselves. We may discover what we are becoming!

    Moral judgement is the mirror, mirror, on the wall image, always lurking in our mind, like an alter-conscience, prepared to reveal the frightening truth, in our soul, such as the undeserved vengefulness, at any cost, wielded against smokers. Even betrayal, of the next generation, becomes palatable within self-betrayal.

    This remorseless mental/emotional preying upon, our precious children, recklessly poisons their mind and spirit, under the government’s pernicious slogan “health and safety.”

    By supporting anti-smoking, we endorse and promote Fascism, an historically proven scurvy upon humanity!

    The inevitable shame, of our past actions, can still be averted, by rescinding this government agenda!

    The most”dangerous smoke” comes not from cigarettes, instead from the government smoke screen to obscure from view, that the real issue is Capitalism and science versus Fascism and politicized environmentalism, not ‘health and safety.’

    Science and politicized environmentalism are colliding worlds, science being the height of pursuing truth, politicized environmentalism the depth of distorting truth. Anti-smoking is part of politicized environmentalism and the attempted foundation of Fascism!

    Do we therefore side with Capitalism, science, Second World War troops and our allies– honour; or do we side with Fascism, politicized environmentalism, our enemies of the Second World War– disgrace? Thus far we blindly follow our enemies and disgrace!

    From the mouth of Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace, “It doesn’t matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true…..You are what the media define you to be. Greenpeace became a myth and a myth-generating machine.” We deserve truth, not half-truths and propaganda!

    For any high ranking government official that lack this critical knowledge, they are in their office under false pretenses. They are unprepared to govern. Their present course of anti-smoking legislations is the proof of that statement.

    In the words of Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, “I was acutely conscious of the pressure to ‘adapt’ and to absorb the values of the ‘tribe’—family, community and culture. It seemed to me that what was asked was the surrender of my judgement and also my conviction that my life and what I made of it was of the highest possible value. I saw my contemporaries surrendering and losing their fire. Why was growing up equated with giving up?”

    Philosopher/Novelist Ayn Rand wrote, “If some demagogue were to offer us, as a guiding creed, the following tenets: that statistics should be substituted for truth, vote-counting for principles, numbers for rights, and public polls for morality–that pragmatic, range-of-the-moment expediency should be the criterion of a country’s interests, and that the number of its adherents should be the criterion of an idea’s truth or falsehood–that any desire of any nature whatsoever should be accepted as a valid claim, provided it is held by a sufficient number of people–that a majority may do anything it pleases to a minority–in short, gang rule and mob rule–if a demagogue were to offer it, he would not get very far. Yet all of it is contained in–and camouflaged by–the notion of ‘Government by Consensus.”

    ‘Rule by Consensus,’ (Rule by health care pressure group) is todays’ anti-ideology in government. Appeasement of these power-lusting, health care pressure groups is of higher priority than our children and all other tax payers, voters, and citizens. The permeating emotion from ‘Rule by Consensus’ is demoralizing, debilitating fear instead of an optimistic view of the future.

    Note this recent example, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he wouldn’t entertain a ban (smoking in cars with children) because it amounts to “too much intrusion into people’s private lives.” The logical interpretation of this statement is that the entire anti-smoking movement eliminates smoker’s individual rights, and has always been an intrusion into a smoker’s family dynamic. Now, the Ontario government is prepared, in predictable flip-flop fashion, to enact such a ban.

    In ignobility, many people have misaligned themself with politicized environmentalism, despite the fact that 1930′s, 1940′s, Germany used “politicized ecology and public health” to base its rationalizations. Are we predisposed to mistakenly mirror the historic footsteps of self-loathing mass destruction? No! Everyone has an individual mind and conscience, above party politics. Be true to them, follow your courage (truth) and dethrone your fear (fallacy). Rescind this government’s shameful anti-smoking agenda.

    References:

    Paul Watson – Environmental Overkill, (Whatever happened to common sense) – book
    Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – book
    Ayn Rand – Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal – book

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