The Governor of The People's

The Governor of The People's Republic of Minnesota---a supposed free enterprise Republican---has just lost my vote for reelection in 2006.

Changes in the makeup of the Minnesota Legislature after
last week's election may create more of a taste for statewide
legislation banning smoking, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Wednesday that
he would sign any smoking ban that came to his desk.
Pawlenty had said earlier that he did not think such legislation would
pass, but he acknowledged that the DFL's gain of 13 seats in the
Minnesota House might alter the equation.
"We'll have to wait and see how the Legislature addresses that, but if
a bill does reach my desk I will sign it," he said.
The Republican governor's comments came after a meeting in Willmar with
DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson over issues looming in the
legislative session. Johnson said the smoking ban is likely to be on
the legislative agenda but could not tell how much support there might
be for a ban -- either statewide or regionally -- in the Senate. He
added, though, that he believed if such a ban were enacted, businesses
and the hospitality industry would support a ban statewide as a "level
playing field."

This has been a hot-potato issue lately here in the Cities. This
summer, a city council member in St. Paul---a smoker---in a fit of
magnimanity decided that he shouldn't be oppressing non-smokers in bars
with his smoke. Supposedly, this was the slice through the Gordian Knot
everyone had been waiting for, because the anti-smoking Nazis had been
of the opinion that until one big city went for a ban, it wasn't worth
their time to seriously push their agenda. Bloomington, where the Mall of Gomorrah
resides, was the next to fall, then Minneapolis itself, where the city
council decided to---ahem---pass their ban in a closed session, without
allowing any business owners to speak against the ban. As you might
imagine, the hospitality industry was up in arms about these bans,
mainly because the respective city councils were sneaky and passed the
bans quickly, with little to no dissent allowed. Minneapolis and St.
Paul bar owners are up in arms because it's up to them to enforce the
ban. You try getting a drunk not to fire up when they're in their cups,
and you'll figure out that it's not an easy thing to do. But more
importantly they're worried that they'll lose the money of smokers
because they'll go to smoke-friendly suburbs to drink and eat. Yet,
Pawlenty thinks that if the entire state goes smoke free, the
hospitality industry will embrace such legislation because it will
level the playing field. Now, if you hadn't already guessed I'm a
smoker. It's a disgusting habit, I know. I'm not in denial about how
unhealthy these things are for me. I also know they smell bad, which is
why I don't fire up in other people's houses unless they give me leave
to do so, which never happens. If I'm in a situation where I don't know
if someone objects to the smoke, even in my own home, I will ask if
they do mind and if they do, well, I won't smoke. I understand people's
concerns about secondhand smoke, even if I don't necessarily agree with
the research done on the issue to date. Yet I strive to be a
considerate smoker. So do my friends who smoke. Some of them don't even
smoke in their own houses because they want their non-smoker friends to
feel comfortable there. However, I have noticed that nowadays the
reason most people want a ban on smoking isn't because of the
second-hand smoke considerations, which they really don't need to worry
about anymore. There are plenty of smoke-free bars and restaurants
around. They also don't need to worry about secondhand smoke because
smoking, indeed, has been banned in most places in Minnesota and has been since 1975. It's called the Clean Indoor Air Act and
it prohibits smokers from firing up indoors in public---and
private---places of business. It also regulates how much seating must
be available in restaurants for non-smoking sections, in bars and the
like. And it works. Take it from me: if you want a smoke, unless you're
in place with a bar you have to go outside to fire up. So, this isn't
about smokers potentially giving people cancer via secondhand smoke, as
that's already been taken care of. This is about the smell of
cigarettes, pipes and cigars. But they'll use the cover of secondhand
smoke to keep their noses from the faintest whiff of tobacco. Pawlenty
has been an interesting governor, to be sure. When he was in the
legislature, he was constantly fighting off the DFL's attempts at
socialism. He had a rep, in other words and he used that rep when he
decided to run for governor. I got the impression he was more of a
libertarian Republican, someone who was tough on terrorism, yet was
also a free-enterprise Republican, someone who believed regulation was
strangling the economy of the state. But now it seems that's not really
true. While I applauded his efforts during the bus driver's strike
earlier this year, I wasn't really crazy about the education
commissioner he appointed, who tried to overhaul all of the social
studies and history textbooks in the state school system to books that
pretty much didn't focus on anything but America, in essence, swinging
the pendulum to the other end of the spectrum. Pawlenty has proven over
time that he's got an agenda, and it's more about social conservatism
and telling me how to live than it is about less regulation. His
support of a state-wide smoking ban just proves the point.
This move isn't about anything more than playing politics: he's got an
agenda he wants passed through the legislature in the upcoming session
and he's got more DFL'ers to deal with this time around: he's throwing
them a bone to get them to cooperate on his agenda. Well, I for one,
won't stand for it. I've had it with having my rights as a smoker
consistently being thrown up for sacrifice because I'm an easy target.
After all, this is the Uber-healthy state of Minnesota: we don't do
things that are bad for ourselves so we'll tax the hell out of everyone
that does something we consider to be bad. This is also why we don't
allow anyone to sell liquor after eight o'clock on a weeknight, or at
all on Sundays, because booze is bad for them. This is why we don't
allow grocery stores to sell wine or beer, because someone
might---gasp!---get crazy over the dinner table if they don't have to
go to an actual liquor store, during the legally alloted time period,
to purchase the stuff! Well, fuck that. I may live in Minnesota, but
first and foremost I'm an American.
If I want to kill myself with booze or cigarettes I'm allowed to do so.
You can't save me from myself, assholes: it's not your right to
interfere with my personal choices, especially when I go out of my way
to make sure my behavior doesn't bother anyone else. I regulate myself.
But it's not like that matters, right? You want me to quit. You've made
that abundantly clear with your regulation: you're trying to change my
behavior by baby-stepping your rules, thinking that if you introduce
change slowly, I won't notice. Well, I've noticed and the buck stops
here, bub. I've had it with being considerate. It's turned me into
nothing but a doormat because anti-smoking Nazis assume that, since I'm
considerate, I won't mind one more tax or one more regulation on my
"bad" behavior. They think I'll just adapt my behavior to their whims,
because I'm in the minority.
Screw it. No more Mrs. Nice. If you, the State of Minnesota, want me to
adhere to your socialist regime by quitting, you'd better actually
behave as if you want me to do just that by ending your reliance on the
taxes I pay whenever I buy a pack. Would that be hard to do? Nope. I
don't think so. But we all know government has an issue with ending a
stream of income that they've come to love, so it's not like that's
gonna happen anytime in the near future. If you, the State of
Minnesota, want me to quit smoking my coffin nails, but still want me
to go to bars and restaurants because it's good for the economy, well,
you can go and take a leap off a cliff. I'll stay at home. After all,
staying home is good for my
economy. I can cook a five star meal---why do I need to go out and have
one served to me? I make a damn good martini---why do I need to go out
and pay eight bucks for a drink that costs less when I make it? I can
entertain friends with style and panache, thank you ever so much, so
why shouldn't I have more parties at home than meeting up with friends
at a bar or a restaurant? I won't buy my ciggies from your state. I'll
go to Wisconsin or Iowa and start buying them there in bulk. Or I can
buy them over the internet, and at much cheaper prices, too. If you
think I'll voluntarily send in my tax payment, like I'm supposed to do
with the sales tax on catalog purchases, you're nuts. Yet if all this
fails to convince you that my money is just as good as a non-smoker's,
I could move to a state where they don't believe in socialism, like
Texas, and take my income---and all the taxes that are derived from
it---elsewhere.
That's freedom. Freedom of choice. And Pawlenty, someone whom I
thought was all about free choice, is playing politics and has aligned
himself with people who think I shouldn't have any because I'm a bad, bad smoker!
Well, I guess he doesn't need my vote then when it comes time for him
to run for reelection in two years.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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