Less than an hour left to smoke in restaurants in North Carolina

Our "enlightened" Governor Bev Perdue and state legislators in Raleigh have decreed that as of midnight tonight, smoking will be banned in all restaurants and other places of dining in North Carolina.

This new "law" sucks donkeys balls to no end.

(Longtime readers will recognize that as my personal "worst possible epithet" for something.)

I'm not a smoker. It's one of the nastiest, filthiest things that a person can do to himself or herself. And believe you me, I've seen firsthand the damage that cigarette smoking can do to someone.

Hell, I've worked on computers before that were owned by smokers. More than a few had corrosion on the motherboard and other components, from where the tar and nicotine had eaten away at the material. If stuff like circuit boards can have holes melted through them by cigarette smoking, think about what that same crap will do to a person.

But as much as I'm against smoking, I'm even more against government trying to micromanage our lives more and more.

The owners of bars and restaurants in this state should be free to choose for themselves whether their establishments are smoke-free or not. It's very simple: if a restaurant allows smoking, and you don't like smoking, then you can decide for yourself whether you want to eat there.

If I owned a restaurant, I'd bloody well defy this law. Hell, I'd put a sign outside my place of business proclaiming that "SMOKING ALLOWED HERE!" And then just sit back and watch the money roll in. It would be capitalism in fine form.

We all know what this really is. Perdue and her ilk are only doing this because they are too intoxicated with the thrill of the power. Like too damned many other politicians in this country. They don't give a flying rat's butt about serving their constituents, but they'll do everything they can get away with to lord their supposed "authority" over us.

They neglect to remember that their authority comes from we the people, not from government for its own sake.

I hope that enough of the citizenry will remember that when Perdue and her cronies come up for re-election.

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Bev Perdue - AKA "WORST NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR EVER" - signs smoking ban into law

It's a scene I've watched on television damn too many times: a chief executive like a president or governor sitting behind a desk and smugly signing away another right or liberty, with a backdrop made up of the sorry-a$$ed legislative bastitches, also grinning like they've just made some legitimate contribution to the betterment of mankind, who passed the effin' law to begin with.

In today's case it was Bev Perdue - who I have already declared to be the worst Governor that North Carolina has ever had with just four months into her term - signing the state-wide smoking ban into law.

That dumb blond and the twits who stood next to her today are now patting themselves on the back for their show of force over the common people of this state. Because, let us be candid folks: the legislators in the General Assembly who passed this, by and large (and even that might be too kind) do not give representing their constituents the greatest of priorities.

Here's what one person observed in my last post about this...

The story the newspapers aren't telling you is this . . . .

A private, non-profit foundation that receives funding from such people as Ted Turner, Barbara Streisand, Bill Gates, The Times Company, Time-Warner, Media General, and the Heinz estate is hiring lobbyists in every state legislature for the purpose of doing whatever is necessary to ensure that public bans on smoking are passed.

Tactics include taking legislators out for meals, buying them vacation trips, bringing movie productions to targeted states and (when all else fails) outright bribery to gain votes for this legislation.

The end goal is to provide unchallenged legal precedent that can one day be used to outlaw the use of tobacco products, or beyond that, any product or behavior that this foundation disapproves of.

This is definitely anti-populist behavior, because this foundation seeks to "educate" legislators on the dangers of smoking (something we all know about) and the advantages of defying the ill-formed public opinion that no real harm comes from smoking.

They have a word for this . . . . it's called Oligarchy. Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls.

That commenter is most correct.

And like I said in that post last week: I do not smoke. I wouldn't encourage anyone to take up smoking. Believe you me, I have seen the deleterious effects it can have on one's health. But I would never stoop so low as to attempt to use the force of government to either compel someone to not smoke or to obligate a private business owner into prohibiting smoking on his or her premises against his or her will!

That's all that this is about, my friends. It has nothing to do with "public health" or "it's for the children" or whatever other mealy-mouthed bullcrap the politicians are claiming. It's all about flexing the might of the collective against the individual.

Just one more incremental loss of liberty, that is damned hard to get back once it's gone.

So... what to do about it?

Personally, I think that every restaurant and bar owner in the state of North Carolina that wishes to do so, should outright damn ignore Governor Dumb Blond and her contingent of Nicotine Nazis.

According to the story above...

The law, which takes effect in January, authorizes fines of up to 50 dollars for people who smoke after being asked to stop, and up to 200 dollars for managers of establishments who have twice been warned to enforce the law.

Or what? Is Guvner Bev gonna close down a business just 'cuz its owners ignore this silly law? WHERE is the power to enforce this nonsense?

This is something that the free market, not the government, should determine. It's very very simple, friends and neighbors: if a restaurant owner wants to have smoking in his establishment, he should be free to do that. Just as much as nobody has to eat in that restaurant if they don't want to on account of the smoking. If enough customers ask nicely for it to be a tobacco-free place, the owner can make that determination on his own and also be free to end smoking in his joint.

Nobody needs or even really asked for Bev Perdue and her legislative lackeys to make that determination for them.

What do I think needs to happen in this state?

A hella lotta rebellion against the General Assembly and Governor Bev Perdue.

They passed this law and she signed it. Now let's see them enforce it.

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No jokin' about no smokin': North Carolina to ban lighting up in public

For the record: I don't smoke. I don't recommend anyone taking up smoking. It's a nasty habit and I've seen what it can do to one's health. It's not something I'd wish on anybody.

But I'm also of the mind that it's left to the individual whether or not he or she chooses to smoke. And that means that it should be up to business owners to decide whether or not they allow smoking in places they own like restaurants and bars.

And I also have come to believe that in the few short months since she was sworn in, that Bev Perdue has already become the worst Governor that I have ever seen North Carolina have in my lifetime. She's already "effed"-up our educational budget bigtime. Now this...

"An important and historic day for North Carolina." That's what Perdue declared today as she announced she would immediately sign a bill just passed by the state's General Assembly that will BAN smoking in ALL public places.

In all honesty, I never thought I would live to see the day that smoking in public was outlawed in, of all places, North Carolina: the biggest tobacco-producing region in the world.

And as I said before: I don't smoke, and wouldn't want anyone to take it up either. But as an infringement on individual liberty, what Governor Perdue and the General Assembly are doing is wrong.

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Warner Bros. made Zack Snyder cut out smoking in WATCHMEN

Alan Horn, head of the movie studio at Warner Brothers, demanded that the smoking be cut out of the film adaptation of Watchmen to such an extent that Laurie won't be enjoying that weird but neat-looking pipe of hers. According to director Zack Snyder, it was either remove the smoking or "the movie wouldn't have been made, literally." Although the Comedian will still be puffing his cigars because he was deemed "evil" enough.

So let me get this straight: Watchmen is a story that includes a hero who is racist and anti-black (Captain Metropolis), another who speaks favorably of Hitler (Hooded Justice), features a brutal rape scene, shows a little girl murdered then cut to pieces and fed to dogs, has a main character who is struggling with sexual dysfunction, and maybe a dozen other very bad images and concepts...

...and yet showing a grown woman smoking is supposed to be worse than all of these things?

I can't figure that one out at all. Especially since Laurie's smoking, I thought so anyway, is foreshadowing for a certain big reveal about her character later on in the book (and presumably the movie).

This kind of "political correctness" all too often goes way too far. Studio execs like Horn really should take a more hands-off approach with stuff like this, and trust the directors and producers and script writers with how they want to bring their vision to life. I'm not saying forgo all accountability, but this situation really is micro-management to the extreme.

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