March 2, 2007 - 3:21pm | celtic_diva_ak

Right to Regulate

Alcohol is legal.
Guns are legal.
Hunting is legal.
Driving is legal.
Parking is legal.
Dumping garbage is legal.

However, business owners must adhere to regulations involving these activities/substances even on privately-owned property.

You just did a really good job of nuking the argument that tobacco should not be regulated in a private business, even if it's for the public good, because it's a legal substance. Clearly the law disagrees.

  March 2, 2007 - 3:05pm | jcwitmer

Give the health nazis an inch, and they'll take a mile.

Very true. A great argument for not 'giving them an inch' (much less a single vote in the next election), by showing up at the Denny's Restaurant conference room at DeBarr and Bragaw every wednesday evening at 6pm until this ban is defeated, and Coffey and the others are all looking for new jobs. We need people to walk districts, put up yard signs, and just 'vote no' to creeping socialism (by voting "YES" to Prop 1! on April 03)!

If you don't help now, don't cry about it later. The Alaska Libertarian Party and 'Stomp the Ban' made it possible to vote for economic freedom that was otherwise going to be taken away without a vote. If the word isn't out and the pro-freedom voters stay home on election day, we lose. We already know that the socialist slime is campaigning hard to be able to take your rights away:
http://www.acscan.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ActionCenter_AK&JServSessionIdr001=lo3ku2sf71.app5a

Notice how, in this link (as of 03/02/2007) they say:
"We are working to strengthen the state's
tobacco prevention and cessation program and fighting bills that would
weaken our ability to protect kids from tobacco."

The old "We have to take away the rights of adults because of the poor suffering cryin' children!" argument. Please. How many of these kids are spending their free time hanging out in bars?

The funny thing? The anti-smoking nutjobs ('celtic dayjob') on this board tried this argument at first, then backed away from it, and said (when we pointed out their logical phallacy) "That's a red herring argument, you're just trying to confuse the issue!"

Well, yes, it is a red herring argument, and I wish these whimpering professional victims would quit using it. But then again, it just shows how desperate they are.

  March 2, 2007 - 2:49pm | jcwitmer

Argument by Analogy 101

SAP1 wrote: "I like to think that it is like owning a gun in the sense that tobacco is a legal substance, but you do not have the right to point it at me and shoot."

It appears basic analogy is beyond this silly sap.

Just like you can't walk into a shooting range, and run in front of the firing guns and claim to be a 'victim', you cannot go into a privately owned bar, smell smoke, and claim to be a 'victim'.

In that case, the only thing you're a 'victim' of is your own subnormal intellect. And the Constitution has nothing to say about that. (Maybe you should buy a shine box and try to 'work your way up'.)

Everything this SAP1 fool says is carefully designed to mislead the frail-minded. Picture "squealer" from George Orwell's "Animal Farm" saying "Of course, comrade! but some animals are MORE equal than others..." as he sways from side to side.

If anyone falls prey to this tortured logic, they deserve the economic enslavement they're voting for.

I personally expect to be shown that Alaska is indeed "the Last Frontier" on election day. If not, The producers (bar owners) can always fail to comply with these government parasites, and see how long they last without a host. Of course, that would mean ignoring a few "ordinances" (along with any synonyms for "ordinances", such as "bans", "laws", "regulations", "edicts", "commands", "government notices", "dictates", "fiats", "prohibitions" etc...).

If the ban is passed (in spite of the effort for liberty), that's when it gets interesting. Any bar owners here willing to openly flaunt an Anchorage "ordinance", while rigidly following the letter of the law contained within both the Alaska and US Constitutions? If there are, look me up after April 03.

By the way, I'm glad silly SAP1 mentioned gun rights. I don't smoke, but I do carry a gun wherever I go. If bar owners allow me to carry one on THEIR private property that day, maybe I'll carry one into one of their former bars and break 2 "ordinances" at once, ...that is, if they'll also allow me to violate my normal high standard of personal health, and carry a cigarette as well.

If they vote to take away our rights as Americans and Alaskans, they have to find police officers unpatriotic enough to enforce their idiotic ban. While there may be a few such bad apples on the APD, thus far, the APD has been a relative force in favor of property rights. (I've never heard the police chief clamoring to take guns out of the hands of law-abiding Anchorage citizens, like what's going on in most other major cities, and this inane anti-smoking law is certainly something I wouldn't wish on any rank and file peace officer.)

Only time will tell if Alaska is willing to cower under the jackboot like the lower 49. I, for one, am not.

-Jake

  March 2, 2007 - 1:46pm | jcwitmer

Individual rights exist with or without the US Constitution

People like SAP1 once tried to confuse the issue of slavery by stating that the Constitution supported slavery too. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now. Moreover, even if they were right (that the Constitution supported slavery), it wouldn't matter -it would still be a morally wrong violation of individual rights, just like the smoking ban is (albeit on a smaller level).

There's no Constitutional right to smoke... unless you count the 9th and 10th amendments. They read:

Ninth Amendment –
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

-I won't bother to translate this, as any simpleton can understand it. (Which puts the pro-BAN people well below the level of the common drooling moron, or "baboso" as they say in Mexico)

Tenth Amendment –
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Now, this is clear as day to anyone who ever thought critically about anything, and didn't just blindly conform to whatever orthodoxy was handed to them in gradeschool. However, it begs to be said: Even if the US Constitution DIDN'T protect individual rights, we'd still posess them.

I don't have to read another man's words (no matter how beautiful they are) to know I'm a man. ...There is an individual right to do anything you want to do, so long as it doesn't violate anyone else's equal rights (so long as it does not initiate force or fraud against the innocent).

It's a simple concept, and the one our country was founded on. Of course, those whining for for a share of the tax money that is stolen from you every year don't see it that way. These are the tax-financed shills for big government coercion -ie: The Alaska Lung Association, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, The Alaska Cancer Society, the AARP, etc...

These folks are all "mobbed up" with the extortionists who are trying to sell you the nanny state. If I were you, I'd vote "YES" on Prop 1 on April 3, in spite of what the radio tells you to do, and throw 'em all out on the street to look for new jobs.

Wisdom from Walter Williams-
http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/070302-williams-democracy.php

If you want to live in a tyranny of the majority, vote for anyone but the Libertarians (and the occasional rare libertarian Republican). If you want your freedom, you'd better start voting Libertarian.

If you want to repeal the smoking BAN, vote for Jason Dowell and Alex Crawford. They're the only two who are against letting the Anchorage Ass-embly into your car when you go for a drive, into your bar when you smoke, and into your wallet whenever you vote.

If you want to stand up and be counted (in the direction of freedom), show up at the Denny's at DeBarr and Bragaw on wednesday evening at 6pm, and go to the conference room. It's where you can talk to other people who want individual freedom.

-Jake

  March 2, 2007 - 12:18pm | sdp151

SHS is 532 - 25,000 times safer then OSHA Regulations

In regards to all these claims of "second hand smoke is dangerous" and "second hand smoke kills" - you should check what the American Cancer Society found out!

"the American Cancer Society has proven in conducting air quality testing of secondhand smoke is that secondhand smoke absolutely does not constitute a health hazard justifying a government mandated smoking ban."

http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/
2004/04/american-cancer-society-test-results.html

A smoking ban, or ordinance, does not protect anyone if there is nothing to protect them from. LOOK AT FACTS, stop making decisions based on what you hear, or what you feel the truth is.

Want another dose of the truth? SHS DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER - there is NOTHING anywhere known to cause cancer of any sort.

Get the facts before you give another persons freedom up on what society is causing you to believe.

http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.
php?name=News&file=article&sid=518

*sorry the websites have an enter - this board will cut the ends of them off if it's not done this way*

  March 2, 2007 - 3:14pm | jcwitmer

There are still people who defend capitalism and freedom

They're called Libertarians. In Anchorage, they meet at the Denny's at DeBarr and Bragaw every wednesday evening at 6pm. They take campaign contributions. They put pro-freedom initiatives on the ballot with their own time, effort, and money.

  March 2, 2007 - 3:18pm | jcwitmer

Take your ball and go home --we don't want any!

I agree with wnoel (below). Anchorage has enough snake-oil selling socialists in its Assembly. Here's a quote from Sam Adams about those who sell out to authority, for good measure:

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

  March 1, 2007 - 7:27am | wnoel

Leave us please

Obviously you don't like it here. Seems to me you should leave and stop trying to make yourself feel better by talking down about those of us who live here. See Ya never want to be Ya !!!!!!!

  February 28, 2007 - 12:17pm | sdp151

Welcome to Alaska

You are no longer living in the lower 48. You moved here, there is no need to change anything! If you liked the people/laws where you came from better then our people/laws, maybe you should go back instead of turning Anchorage into that place!
And yes, (being you're new I'll help you out) - people up here ARE smoking something - and they are allowed to by a former court case- Ravin vs. State.

Which brings up a sad point - We're allowed to smoke weed, but we want to ban smoking cigarettes? Come on people!!! Get with the program!

Leave business owners to decide how to run their business, just like a homeowner decides how to run his home!

  February 28, 2007 - 1:24am | alaskapat528

No kidding

Ah, the word "and" is spelled "and" and NOT nad, so who are you calling slow?? Maybe you'd be better off going back where you came from. Don't know what trashy stores you are shopping at but where I shop. I don't have problems but then I am not a dimwit either. Please, go home, we don't need your kind up here. By the way, they are not allowed to smoke where child care is provided...DAH....now go get yourself a beer and calm down.

  February 28, 2007 - 6:13pm | jcwitmer

I'd love to see that.

To alaskapat528: Hopefully, you're packing a pistol, so you wouldn't even have to get out of the car. Although I would love to see one of these self-described "clean air" nubjobs get a dose of the medicine they're prescribing for the rest of us.

It'd be fun to watch you stomp his little authoritarian ass, after he tried to impose his asinine views on you.

...And I'm not even a smoker.

But guess what, enviro-fascists? Man is a part of nature, as are factories, strip mines, and cigarettes. Nature is cruel to those who are not smart enough to compete on a level playing field(like the self-proclaimed diva).

But give me cruel nature over cruel and domineering "public masters" any day. By the way, when governments have tried it the way of centrally-planned collectivism, it hasn't worked out so well:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills

The socialist governments of the world have murdered over 200,000,000 of their own innocent citizens during peacetime in the last 100 years.

If America abandons individual property rights, it'll happen here too.

The only thing standing in the way of that are strong individuals (gun owners). You can bet that if the smoking ban passes, within 10 years, there will be a gun ban, just like Chicago currently has (they did it the other way around).

And to all you gun owners out there: get serious, right now, and help Jason Dowell beat Dan Coffee for that city council seat.

Or kiss your property rights goodbye.

It's time to break rank and vote "Libertarian" or even "libertarian" (small-L, denotes the philosophy, not the party, but in Dowell's case it's both). Coffee calls himself a Republican, and we can see where voting for him got us. If people like Coffee are preserving our Constitutional Republic, then we're really screwed.

Vote Jason Dowell on April 3rd. Vote Alex Crawford on April 3rd. Vote for Proposition 1 (to repeal the smoking ban) on April 3rd.

Don't take it sitting down, like Chicago did.

-Jake