North Carolina City Outlaws Smoking .. Outside

Driving home today, I heard on the radio something I had feared for some time – the Raleigh city council voted to ban smoking in “public parks and green ways”.  I don’t smoke so my concern is not about my ability to smoke in outside.  My concern is that another governing body has found a way to strip another freedom from citizens.

Sure, smoking is bad for you, it smells, blah blah blah.  Drinking is bad for you  Eating steak is bad for you. Fried chicken is bad for you. Heck, at the rate the government changes its dietary guidelines, eating anything might be bad for you.

The slope is getting slippery. Today, a city council bans smoking outside, but remember when smokers could smoke in an airplane, a restaurant, a smoking section, 25ft from an entrance .. IN A PARK??

If progressives want to ban smoking, push that law. This underhanded attack on someone’s personal choices is alarming. The left-wing extremist argument is that we have to curtail smoking because smokers cost everyone due to health care costs.  Why? Because those morons passed socialized medical programs like Medicare and Medicaid and didn’t ask smokers to pay larger premiums. In fact, Obamacare prevents high-risk groups from paying too much more than low-risk groups.

I say this because perhaps my enjoyment of single malt Scotch, competitive shooting, hunting or even eating steak might be next.  If you do not protect every individual liberty for every American, how long before they come after one you enjoy only to find that no one is there to protect yours?