On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Mike Jensvold wrote: > I am not a property rights extremist, but I believe that a comprehensive > smoking ban is an unreasonable infringement on private property rights for > a marginal public health benefit. Comprehensive bans are also elitist, as > a greater percentage of lower income people smoke.
This sort of argument is the standard, hackneyed, worn-out line used by the ruling class and their pirate corporations to squash every progressive or beneficial movement. They find or allege that some lower class people will be inconvenienced, then try to lay a huge guilt trip on "liberals" - that they are arrogant, snotty, inconsiderate, narrow, biassed, self-righteous, blah blah blah - hoping that they will shut up and go away, so the corporations can go on making money off human misery. I hear: we have to have Wal-marts, and lots of them, everywhere, so poor people can go there a buy cheap toilet paper. (I am not making this up - I've heard the "toilet paper" line several times.) Or we're supposed to give Pohlad millions, because poor people love baseball. Or more freeways, because poor people love cars. Or anything else that can by any stretch of imagination be hung around the neck of the poor. And we are supposed to change all our laws and customs so poor people can patronize corporation X or Y or Z. On the other hand, not one word for higher: pay, benefits, public services, welfare, education etc addressed to poor people. No, we take all that away, so they can swim in the lovely corporate cess pool. So corp X and Y and Z can squeeze them for their cash or their cheap labor. Time to wake up to the game of the corps - demoralize liberals and progressives by making them fear "elitism". The REAL elitists are the ruling-class bozos running the corporations, corporations out to stripmine the public and democracy. So, I don't buy this hackneyed defense of smoking. I am a progressive standing up and saying, Ban it, without guilt. May the guilt-trippers find another life to live. --David Shove Roseville REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
