On Good Smelling Clothes and Neo-fascist Nanny States
Starting tomorrow, mercifully, I will be able to go out to clubs and restaurants without waking up in the morning wondering why my house smells like an ashtray. Rhode Island becomes the seventh so-called smoke free state at the stroke of midnight on March 1st. The "so-called"s there because you can actually still smoke in our non-casino casinos, which business owners and citizens are rightly outraged at. After all, if you're going to push everyone off a bridge, you really should push everyone.
I've got lots of stuff to link, including Providence resident Zoe Pierson's embarrassing display of a lack of reading comprehension skills here (regarding an article in the ProJo here). This link I saved from earlier this month about smoking bans in New York City and California, where some critics of anti-smoking laws are singing a new tune. Luckily, here in RI, our restaurant and bar owners are refreshingly positive about the ban, except for the unfair exemptions for some businesses/charitable organizations/money pits. And I support them. Conversely, I'd be for declaring Lincoln Park and Newport Grand red light districts and letting smoke filled rooms be the least objectionable thing to go on there. That would be cool.
As for the local bloggy scene, only Jim seems to be weighing in, and he's at his overzealous best calling the restraint of releasing carcinogenic materials into enclosed public spaces "a huge infringement on personal liberties." Yowza. Personally, I can't believe the GOVERNMENT won't let me pee on the floor at Denny's. I've got rights, you know.
But Jim gets it right calling out Gregory Rich, who was quoted in the ProJo article as saying "it was shoved down our throat. This is still the United States of America, and the people have a voice and a vote. And the people did not have a voice or vote in this." Ah, seventh grade civics class… Open your book, Mr. Rich, to page 243, "representative democracy."
Speaking of representation, Jim also wants to know who voted for the new law. The General Assembly website is not exactly forthcoming with vote tallies, but I did the hard work of mucking through the pdf-laden quagmire that is the web home of our legislature, for the good of everyone, of course. So who voted for it? Every single state representative and senator, that's who. Not one nay. If anyone is really interested in reading up on the bill search for "8392″ here (pdf) and here (pdf), and maybe look here. But remember, there's two things in life you never want to see made: laws and sausage.
March 1st, 2005 at 12:52 am
I noticed the Pierson letter too, and my question is, why does the ProJo print such ill-informed letters? They often mention how of course they cannot run every letter sent to them, but the ones they do choose are often worse than wastes of space. They also run letters by the same few people very often, whereas my understanding is that most newspapers won’t print your letter if you’ve recently had another one printed. Such is life in a print media near-monopoly, I suppose….
March 1st, 2005 at 12:56 am
There was one today that I would like to post about but I seem to have developed an inability to post more than once every 2 days. It was some inanity about global warming. OK, I’ll post it.
Tomorrow.
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:31 am
More On Nanny-Statism
Bil has some thoughts on the RI smoking ban. A Cry for Help: On Good Smelling Clothes and Neo-fascist Nanny States ..he’s at his overzealous best calling the restraint of releasing carcinogenic materials into enclosed public spaces “a huge infringement…