Submitted by Aunty Lynn, Jan 4, 2008 15:49

Thank you Mr. McIlheran! Smoking Bans ARE a bald-faced attempt to make the lives of smokers "joyless" - and thus, are nothing more than an attempt to arm-twist us into "politically correct" submission! This is a ploy that will NOT work with most of the 20-25% of adult Americans who still CHOOSE to use tobacco. We are, after all, free-thinkers, risk-takers, and "rebels" by nature! Moreover, smokers are living proof that, for a targeted segment of Americans, the settled laws pertaining to "consenting adults" "privacy" "unfair taxation" and "Freedom of Assembly" simply no longer "apply" in 21st Century America! We are told that discrimination is a thing of the past, but smokers know that "Jim Crow" is alive and well in the Ban States. Were it not for the 1999 Master Settlement Agreement, (struck between tobacco companies, their liability insurers and money-hungry state legislators), the pervasive propaganda monster that villifies smoking Americans and frightens non-smokers beyond all sense of reason, simply would not exist. (And if you like the human dissection ads placed by groups like NYQUITS, you can thank a smoker for the exhorbitant 'sin' taxes we pay, which fund the "clean air" monster.) This issue is about MONEY - not Health! But since Big Cig is now barred from advocating for its own products (under the MSA), lie upon lie about the "dangers" of second hand smoke are heaped upon an unwitting, (and most likely overweight), American public - without challenge. Should ANY of our Presidential contenders start advocating for restoring the Constitutional rights of citizen smokers (and their hospitality purveyors), he or she might awaken to a landslide victory. We STILL EXIST - in election-tipping numbers - but we have been effectively banished from your "polite" company. (The FACTS of modern ventilation systems notwithstanding!) If any reader thinks this is not a civil rights issue - I suggest that the "fatties" among you take heed ... the insurers and pharmas who spawned tobacco control, have already placed YOUR lifestyle "choices" on their next "hit" list! Member: www.smokersclubinc.com, and www.forces.org

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