No More Smoking, No More Trans-Fats, No More Liberty

It’s so disheartening how people today have forgotten the fundamentals of liberty and our responsibilities in preserving it.

I was reminded of this once again this week with the news story about New York City considering banning the use of trans-fats. Of course I saw this coming once the smoking ban movement started taking hold. That’s what people keep forgetting—once you start by taking away one freedom, it will eventually spread to many other areas. Smoking one month, trans-fats another, and eventually anything slightly harmful will be prohibited.

At this rate, it won’t be long before alcohol is prohibited in bars and restaurants. Or for that matter, televisions! Imagine when the government realizes that there’s no productive value in watching sports and decides to ban watching sports in bars! It’s not so far-fetched.

Government making such bans is unconstitutional because it potentially devalues the business owner’s property without compensating him. If you tell me I can’t have smoking in my restaurant, I may lose customers, and could even lose my business if enough customers stay away. Business owners should have the right to decide whether to allow smoking in their establishments. Then, customers themselves can decide whether to patronize smoking or non-smoking bars & restaurants. Having a choice is always better.

In my view, smoking bans are legitimate only under one set of conditions: bans that are imposed by state or local governments for public property. By public property, I mean public-owned property, in order words, government buildings and areas. The federal government has no constitutional authority to establish such bans at all. State and local governments may, but only in cases where it won’t devalue private property (including businesses).

But even under these guidelines, such bans should be made very carefully. What you support banning today may tomorrow lead to a ban on something you cherish doing. And beware of propaganda from proponents attempting to make you feel guilty if you don’t support a ban because of all the harmful effects of the activity being banned. The campaign against second-hand smoke has been very effective at this, using flawed research time and again, never providing any clear-cut evidence that second-hand smoke is truly a public health risk.

And for the record, no, I’m not a smoker, but I do value the freedom to become one someday.