Why in God’s name would you want to co-sponsor legislation with Teddy Kennedy that will increase the size and scope of the federal government and its regulatory powers?
John Cornyn, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins have done so. They have lent their names to legislation sponsored by Teddy Kennedy to give the FDA regulatory oversight of tobacco.
I have no problem with taxing tobacco out of existence — as long as that’s what is being done and not just using that excuse like Charlie Crist recently did when it was clear the taxes were actually to balance a budget.
I do have a problem with expanding the FDA’s jurisdiction into agriculture more than it is. I do have a problem expanding their regulatory powers into areas that have never been within their scope. We have, after all, as a nation, done pretty damn well without the FDA being involved in every aspect of our lives.
Just this morning, I was on the radio saying I favored increasing insurance premiums for city employees here in Macon, GA who smoke after giving them 6 months to stop.
But why do you want, as a Republican, to sponsor this legislation with Ted Kennedy, the chief sponsor. Why do you want to lend your support, as a Republican, to expanding the federal regulatory regime?
Even more troubling, Thad Cochran, Bob Corker, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Mel Martinez are rumors to be on the fence about this and wavering. They should not. They should vote no.
The matter will get a vote in the Senate today on whether or not to proceed with it. Republicans should vote no. It’s just that simple.
Erick, did you just say you have no problem with regulating personal behavior through taxation?
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 11:54AM EDT (link)“I have no problem with taxing tobacco out of existence — as long as that’s what is being done and not just using that excuse like Charlie Crist recently did when it was clear the taxes were actually to balance a budget.”
If we’re going to go ahead and start the precedent that Government can find creative ways to destroy behaviors they don’t like, why NOT just expand FDA authority?
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5
aesthete Tuesday, June 2nd at 1:10PM EDT (link)nt
Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
-Ayn Rand
“I am a freeman in a free state!”
-Last words of Dumnorix, chieftan of the Aedui, 54 BC
Agreed.....NT
USNJIMRET Tuesday, June 2nd at 1:58PM EDT (link)Maybe because...
asleep06 Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:55PM EDT (link)conservative != libertarian
If local governments want to regulate personal behavior, that’s 1) constitutional and 2) fine by conservatives who understand the (related) concepts of federalism, subsidiarity and/or sphere sovereignty. The problem is when the unaccountable, giant, soulless machine of the federal government unconstitutionally usurps authority from state and local governments. That’s why state and local smoking regulations, speeding laws, and the like are not intrinsically disordered and so are determined by the will of the people and practical considerations.
Please read more Burke and Kirk, and less Rand (though I do have a soft spot, literarily speaking, for The Fountainhead). Libertarianism is, in my view, simplistic and rests on a reductive anthropology and faulty philosophy, its correct position on the idiocy of a growing federal government notwithstanding.
Small is beautiful.
Federalism doesn't bury the sins of individual states.
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 3:04PM EDT (link)Denying freedom on a state-by-state basis is still denying freedom.
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Not all denials of freedom are sinful.
asleep06 Tuesday, June 2nd at 3:11PM EDT (link)Why would they be?
Small is beautiful.
Didn't say they would be.
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 4:39PM EDT (link)This is the second time you’ve made assumptions about my entire political philosophy based on a very small amount of information from me.
I never said I was in favor of zero regulation. What I AM saying is that regulation of personal activity should NOT be the business of government.
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Just let me know
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:16PM EDT (link)if you’d rather converse just with asleep about this, but what counts as solely a “personal activity”?
For instance, are marriage and divorce solely personal activities?
What about viewing pornography?
How about taking PCP?
and let me add another question
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:32PM EDT (link)because the ones i chose at first are so cliche (marriage, pornography, drugs):
- parental power to decide how - and whether - to educate their children, is that a personal activity, or is government allowed to compel education and also to set standards for it?
(on this one, i’m with the libertarians, actually)
Well, it's not really the point of the OP (which is solely about smoking), but okay...
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:53PM EDT (link)Basically, so long as your freedom doesn’t interfere with somebody else’s life, liberty or property, I don’t think it’s anyone’s business but your own.
Now, marriage is an interesting quandry, and I admit, I actually think both sides of the debate have interesting points. In general, I think government should be out of the marriage business entirely, but I also realize how impractical that would be. In itself, marriage, because it HAS become a State institution, actually DOES effect others, because of the governmentally-imposed benefits and responsibilities of it.
Drugs: I tend to think they should be regulated a lot less than they are (I’m for legalizing pot, for example), but because of the danger posed by those under the influence, laws ought to be very low-tolerence for ANYTHING that could endanger somebody else (I’m also for strengthening the hell out of DWI laws).
Viewing pornography: this, to me, is about consent. As long as the “performers” have consented (and were not in any way tricked or coerced) and are of age TO consent, I don’t think there’s any legal standing to prohibit it.
I’m all about parent’s rights on education. Like you, I’m with the libertarians.
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i'd say we're closer to the heart of the matter
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:07PM EDT (link)the point of my questions was to indicate that it is very far from clear when one man’s liberty interferes with another’s.
even viewing pornography at home is not an isolated activity, free from ill consequences for the rest of society. for example, and this is just one example, pornography encourages licentiousness, which disfavors fidelity and self-sacrifice and concern for the common good. if enough people in society indulge in pornography, they are going to be that much less inclined to get married, to stay married, to serve the greater good, to strive for more than his own physical and immediate satisfaction. viewing pornography might not alone make a good man vicious, but it will nonetheless inflame his vices, and, when taken in conjunction with other influences, yield ill consequences for the rest of us.
i’m sure i don’t have to tell you how devastating divorce is to children above all and to society generally.
there were good reasons why pornography was banned for much of the history of this country.
All of that may be (and I agree that it is) true... BUT
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:18PM EDT (link)Then you’re getting into government deciding what sorts of ATTITUDES are good to have.
Government should concentrate on specific harmful actions, not thoughts and attitudes. It’s too subjective. What you’re talking about above is a VERY short walk to hate crime legislation (which is also VERY harmful).
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All of that may be (and I agree that it is) true... BUT
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:18PM EDT (link)Then you’re getting into government deciding what sorts of ATTITUDES are good to have.
Government should concentrate on specific harmful actions, not thoughts and attitudes. It’s too subjective. What you’re talking about above is a VERY short walk to hate crime legislation (which is also VERY harmful).
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banning pornography is not banning an attitude
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:39PM EDT (link)it’s banning an action, to wit, looking at pornography.
even now, in our very immodest times, we still constrain the viewing of pornography in many ways without banning it outright. why is that?
and when pornography was banned, was america a more free or less free country?
and, jumping one big step further, when extra-marital relations were the subject of prosecutions (in the 18th and 19th centuries), was america a more free or less free country?
i would argue in both cases that we were actually more free, because engaging in the viewing of pornography or in extra-marital relations compromises other freedoms and other crucial social institutions (in particular, marriage).
i agree with you that the government should, in general, favor personal liberty and be modest and careful in its policy aims. but we may disagree about what constitutes modest and careful.
I always get annoyed when I have to actually defend the morally indefensible... but here goes.
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:47PM EDT (link)I’m not going to get into the deeper philosophies here. But here’s the problem:
What you’re talking about IS banning an action, but that’s based on the idea that is the tertiary cause of another undesireable action (an action, divorce, which is also NOT illegal).
So you’re talking banning porn because it CREATES an attitude or mentality which COULD LEAD to the perfeclty legal action of divorce.
In short, banning it because it is bad for you.
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more precisely, banning it because it is bad for all of us
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 7:32PM EDT (link)not for the viewer of pornography alone, but for him and for all the rest of us.
i’m not trying to save the soul of the viewer. i am trying to prevent the numerous and concrete bad consequences that will befall the rest of us.
we already do this in many, many ways (e.g., heavily regulating peep shows and adult book stores, which regulation can often be an effective ban).
and pornography is just a striking example. there are myriad others. another example is public decency laws (we have to cover ourselves in public - minimally, anyway - and avoid repeatedly using foul language in the presence of others). most localities also keep obscenity out of public buildings.
a deeper example is the (now mostly defunct) state laws making divorce difficult (i.e., being consenting adults was not enough).
i’m sure we could all think of numerous other instances.
Public decency laws and pornography are different.
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 8:22PM EDT (link)“Public” indecency, by its definition, effects others. Same with public obscenity (though personally, I would probably undo most obscenity laws).
Overall, I think we agree that the main thing is for Government to have a damned good reason to regulate. I don’t think pornography, or most other PERSONAL restrictions, meet that burden.
I understand your argument, but it doesn’t matter. I think government restrictions on what you’re allowed to do on your own time, in your own home, are dangerous, and not something we should EVER advocate, even if we agree with their premis.
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Kowalski: just so we don't start going in circles...
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 8:25PM EDT (link)when I say “effects others,” I mean DIRECTLY.
Legilsation based on subjective and indirect effects on “society” are dangerous and wrong, I believe.
We can go out and tell people about the problems with these things. We can advocate — strongly — for doing the right thing, even from a position of authority. But we have to stop at force.
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right - i see what you're saying, and it is a
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 8:49PM EDT (link)common objection to my point of view.
i would say that the effects i am discussing are pretty darn direct - e.g., easy divorce laws promote divorce which hurts children and the parents (in most cases).
or allowing the pornographic market to grow almost unchecked promotes quick physical satisfaction at the expense of fidelity and sacrifice for others (again undermining the family).
there is a reason why divorce skyrocketed after so many legal impediments to bad behavior were overthrown in the 60’s and 70’s.
you hesitate to bring back those impediments, but it’s not clear that marriage can survive very well without them (or, if it can survive, it can’t regain its health).
but you see my points, as you have said, and so i will leave it there without going on garrulously.
not so much
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:49PM EDT (link)you ask: and when pornography was banned, was america a more free or less free country?”
When? in the 1950’s? Well no, we were not really such a free country back then, there were restrictive laws everywhere, blue laws, laws against various businesses, laws against certain races. Written and unwritten rules against unpopular political beliefs. And in general a pervasive attitude of government control of people and especially of business.
No, we were not really a very free nation then. And I doubt that many conservatives would really like to go back to the kind of nation we had from the end of WW2 to about 1968.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
are you really waving the bloody flag of segregation at me?
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 7:34PM EDT (link)you sound a lot like a leftist, and i know you’re not a leftist. are you really trying to argue that because we had segregation in the 50’s, my argument about totally unrelated social regulations is wrong?
nonsense.
you didn't read all that I wrote
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 9:22PM EDT (link)segregation was only one part of it. There were thousands of laws and as I said many more “unwritten laws” controlling people in that time period.
In my home town you could not cut woman’s hair in a barber shop or cut men’s hair in a hair salon. You could drink beer on Sunday, but you couldn’t drink whiskey. And several movies were banned, such as Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. because it was about swingers.
Funny thing was, there were actual swinger groups in the town.
You saw only one part of what I wrote and jumped on that, but segregation was only part and parcel with the whole mindset of that era, Conformity.
Perhaps I sound like a leftist to you because you are kind of living in the past. What I mean by that is that some of the openness and freedoms we have now were indeed championed first by people of the left many years ago. Of course, being leftists, they never knew when to stop, so cultural freedom became vulgarity, free speech became hate speech, and equal rights became quotas.
That does NOT invalidate the freedoms they originally fought for.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Non sequitur upon non sequitur
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 9:50PM EDT (link)Take it easy, Kyle.
Denying freedoms is a necessity to protect
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 4:02PM EDT (link)other freedoms.
If you cannot deny any freedom, government is not possible at all, at which point our most fundamental freedom would not be protected - the right to life.
agreed. And nobody suggested eliminating government. nt.
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 4:34PM EDT (link)nt.
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5. Exactly, asleep06, well put.
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 3:58PM EDT (link)n/t
thanks, icbm :)
asleep06 Tuesday, June 2nd at 4:26PM EDT (link)(nt)
Small is beautiful.
it's always a pleasure to see someone
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:17PM EDT (link)summarize so well the conservative political and philosophical objections to libertarianism.
another thing...
randy streu Tuesday, June 2nd at 4:45PM EDT (link)Don’t make assumptions about my political philosophies. I said very little, to which you assumed that I was a full-bore liberarian and (more annoyingly) that I ripped those philosophies from the pages of a book. Our conversations in the future will go much smoother if you realize you know not a single thing about me and don’t pretend that you do.
To the question at hand: the Tenth Amendment is not carte blanche for the state to impose authority. The State DOES Have some rights the federal government does not. But, “Constitutional” or not, regulation over personal activity is not among them.
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Here is something so simplistic even you might be able to catch on to...
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 4:52PM EDT (link)You are no better than the liberals if you think it is all right to control the purely personal behaviors of the public.
Like the woman who complains that the ten dollar hooker is selling it too cheap, the only difference is one of degree not substance.
The Left is the Left, but one of the biggest obstacles to freedom are all the moderates and conservatives who really don’t trust their neighbors to live their own lives.
Maybe you should read some Thomas Paine and Milton Friedman.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Thomas Paine - the fellow who liked the French Revolution?
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:11PM EDT (link)And Milton Friedman wasn’t a conservative, by his own emphatic admission.
So if you’re saying that conservatives are dissimilar from Milton Friedman in certain ways, you would be correct. It does not say anything about whether conservatism itself is correct, however. Friedman was, like many libertarians, too much blinded by economic thinking when it came to other issues, such as marriage.
Blinded ?
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:48PM EDT (link)“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him”. Tocqueville
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
-Milton Friedman
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
more -Lord Acton
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
-John Adams
Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
-John Adams
Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.
-Dante Alighieri
The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition is so powerful that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations. -Adam Smith
Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth -Ronald Reagan
Man is not free unless government is limited…. As government expands, liberty contracts. -Ronald Reagan
All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores. -William F. Buckley, Jr.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
all good quotes, but not sure what your point is
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:57PM EDT (link)reagan was no libertarian, neither was buckley (although he was closer than reagan). and de tocqueveille and john adams were not even close.
and just because i criticize libertarians for being blinded to certain realities doesn’t mean i have “contempt” for them (i assume that was your suggestion with the tocqueville quote).
Your arguments are all so old to me
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:24PM EDT (link)I have heard it all before. Libertarianism is the real conservatism. it is as Reagan said, the core of conservatism. It is only the people who feel the need to control others who want to call conservatism something else.
The longer I live, and the more I see, the more I am convinced that only by giving up our desire to control others can we have true freedom. Big government, powerful government, it is a temptation to be used for your own ideology. The Bush administration is a good morality tale there.
Only by denouncing unnecessary government at all levels, and holding fast to just the few legitimate concerns of government can we offer a true alternative to the madness that has become the twenty first century.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
so you're a confirmed libertarian
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:31PM EDT (link)and i’m a confirmed conservative
good for both of us
anyway, i don’t want to replace big-government liberalism with big-government conservatism. i’m one of those old-fashioned guys who actually believes in limited national government and federalism. coolidge is one of my favorite presidents, and i still think that reagan gets too much of a free pass for not actually making the national government shrink instead of just grow more slowly.
so there’s a lot of road we can travel together before you and i have to part ways.
agreed
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:37PM EDT (link)But where I will part ways is when anyone, even in a local context wants to try to shut down businesses they don’t like, or legislate away activities which were perfectly legal before, or just in general trying to be a Big Brother, Archdeacon, or Nanny State.
As for labels, I suppose I call myself a conservative libertarian or a libertarian conservative. I cannot go the route of the kooks in the Libertarian party because they are really little better than anarchists, and have a totally unrealistic view of the need for foreign defense.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
well, again, generally, you and i will agree
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:42PM EDT (link)i am against quite a large number of regulations of businesses, local as well as national. as friedman pointed out, we are (over)regulated in almost every sphere of economic life (e.g., we have to get a license to open a business, etc.).
i will have to support regulation, however, if a fellow decides to open a peep show on main street in my town.
there ya go
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:53PM EDT (link)I suppose I have to reluctantly agree with the idea of “regulation” of the peep show. In the sense that there are zoning laws, and a city has every right to ban lewd forms of advertisement.
But if by regulation you mean just flat out denying the right to open such a business, even if it is discreet and never allows minors in. Then I would strongly disagree.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
"Purely personal" that's the rub
civil_truth Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:27PM EDT (link)This is along the line of “your freedom to swing you arms ends where your hand meets my nose”.
For those acting in good faith, the question of when behavior ceases being purely personal and affects other people is a central dispute in political philosophies.
In my years of reading these debates, I find that libertarians tend to define the boundaries of “purely personal” too expansively and ignore consequent social effects. icbm’s comments about pornography are one example as to societal consequences of pornography that are usually ignored or so heavily discounted that they get dismissed without serious consideration.
Libertarians also tend to discount the societal effects when large numbers of people engage in a particular behavior that may be relatively innocuous when only a few engage in that behavior, looking only at one individual case. Sort of like the tragedy of the commons.
Collectivists, on the other hand, don’t recognize any boundary between public and private and thus claim public control over all personal behaviors (which translates to those with the power to control get to do the controlling). We see the consequence - totalitarian states.
Conservatives, then, are in the uncomfortable middle of trying to resolve the conflicts between these two set of boundary lines, trying to determine at what point society can step in to restrict individual behavior because of the effects of that behavior injure society - or more controversially, when mulitple people engaging in that behavior have delerious effects that small numbers do not - while preserving individual rights and freedoms.
And Rightly So!
unfortunatly Civil Truth...
kyle8 Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:43PM EDT (link)In my observation, whenever conservatives, with all the wisdom of Solomon, and armed with all the canon of great conservative thought, try to discern that exact point where they can restrict personal behavior while preserving rights, They nearly always step into a big steaming pile.
How about just trying freedom? If you don’t like pornography, or gambling, or drinking, or smoking, or anything else, Then preach against it, abjure against it, do not partake, but don’t think that it is your right to keep other adults from it.
I would think that there would be ample evidence by now of the counter productiveness of such prohibitions.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Were it so simple as "freedom"
civil_truth Tuesday, June 2nd at 8:08PM EDT (link)The problem is that you can’t escape consequences.
Now my propensity is that the burden of proof is on government to exercise its power of coercion, which is why I am a conservative rather than a collectivist.
However, to simply let everyone do their own thing without dealing with the conflicts that arise between individuals - and groups of individuals is simply using “freedom” as an amulet just as much as collectivists use “justice” or “equality”.
Our individual actions do have consequences on others more often than we might admit. Whether that means that government needs to intervene depends on the extent of the conflict and the ability of those involved to resolve their differences outside of governmental structures.
And when the government does intervene, I further take the position that it should be at the lowest level as possible, where the government is closest to the players and structually most flexible in its approach.
And the other issue is that of scale. One family pioneering into the Amazon rain forest is not a governmental issue. Send tens of thousands of families into that same area, and the sum of the individual actions will start having major effects on others outside the area, even though individually each family is not doing much to harm others.
A family pig farm can generally coexist with its neighbors without much disruptioin. Turn that into an industrial hog farm, and now the neighbors are seriously impacted.
When the government should step in is a matter for analysis and discussion. But to close one’s eyes and say freedom means no government doesn’t prevent infringements.
So yes, things can get messy, and we often face slippery slopes. And more often than not, given how people like to exercise power over others, there are plenty of steaming piles to step in.
But the antidote is humility - and a willingness to emply the collective wisdom of groups (such as market mechanims) rather than arrogant legislators and bureaucrats and interventionist theorists - since unintended consequences are ever lurking.
So in practice, I will tend towards limiting governmental coercion - but not by closing my eye to pretend that individual actions do not infringe on other individual’s boundaries through too-superficial analysis of consequences.
And Rightly So!
again, well said, civil truth
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 9:51PM EDT (link)but i don’t think you’ve got an interlocutor who is interested in thinking outside of his own opinions, unfortunately.
just so, civil truth, just so
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 7:40PM EDT (link)i would add that, in the larger picture, conservatives are not even trying to push for much regulation at all (nothing like the way most societies, even western societies prior to about fifty years ago, regulated their social relations).
rather, a free society, whose political system is based mainly on securing individual rights, has very limited tools at its disposal for lending support to its most essential social institutions. it is for this reason all the more important that such small steps be taken to give such support, especially because the failure of our social institutions would be catastrophic (including for our individual rights). and, indeed, we have already gone a good distance down the road toward the failure of these institutions.
555
tcgeol Tuesday, June 2nd at 6:05PM EDT (link)Exactly right.
Just your typical bitter gun- and God-clinger
Ok, so like was Cornyn's file one of the 900 purloined
eburke Tuesday, June 2nd at 11:54AM EDT (link)FBI files that Livingstone procured for Hillary?
I mean, I’m only half-kidding here. John has gone from conservative spokesperson extraordinaire to a ‘inside the beltway squish’ in what’s got to be record time. Is he trying to emulate the lead of the man who berated him and F-bombed him in a meeting over illegal immigration?
Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?
“All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
“Dead fish go with the flow” ~ izoneguy
“We have a Statue of Liberty not a Statue of Necessity” ~ ColdWarrior
yeah, I'm wondering that as well (nt)
asleep06 Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:58PM EDT (link)nt
Small is beautiful.
this may be offtopic, but...
dave_in_atl Tuesday, June 2nd at 11:55AM EDT (link)If the FDA can legally regulate Marijuana I cannot for the life of me come up with a justification on why they _cant_ regulate Tobacco. In fact I am kinda wondering why any legislation is necessary at all to treat Tobacco like less dangerous plants.
That previous paragraph is not to say I support said regulation.
I don't think they have the Constitutional authority to regulate marijuana, personally
Finrod Tuesday, June 2nd at 1:19PM EDT (link)After all, it required the 18th Amendment to prohibit alcohol. It should take no less to regulate/prohibit marijuana and/or tobacco.
—
Finrod’s First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.
I shouldn't have to ask myself
TxCon Tuesday, June 2nd at 11:56AM EDT (link)everyday, why I continue to vote for GOP candidates. But I do.
I detest being around a smoky room
olsmithie Tuesday, June 2nd at 12:47PM EDT (link)when I find my self in such a situation, I remove my self from it.
As much as I dislike smoking, I despise the nanny state more.
Don’t forget to tax the trans-fats , ammo and SUV’s, while you’re at it.
E squared, I hope that was a mis-speak.
Regards
Next time I call John Cornyn a Moby and a Troll I won't retract it.
mbecker908 Tuesday, June 2nd at 12:49PM EDT (link)Like now.
Oh, and did anybody from his office EVER respond to any of the well presented comments in his diary or did anyone from his office respond to Jeff’s extremely well written and detailed take down? Yeah, I thought not.
Cornyn’s been in the Senate too damn long.
For the past 20 years
Joe_Cor Tuesday, June 2nd at 1:28PM EDT (link)Republicans have made all other considerations secondary to earning their Bipartisanship Merit Badges from the MSM. They’ll stop at nothing to earn that gold star on their report cards. I think that’s why they’d side with Ted and Co on this and a host of other issues.
Squish,squish, squishy/nt
larryp Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:17PM EDT (link)But remember..
Neil Stevens Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:18PM EDT (link)Cornyn’s #1 job is to build up the Republican majority… by helping Democrats…
Want to run for conservatives? Give.
There Is No Crisis
only as long as
Darin_H Tuesday, June 2nd at 3:27PM EDT (link)he doesn’t have to spend the time, money of effort on it as well.
___________________________________
Gov't employee health benefits are an atrociously tricky way to make your point
alexg Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:34PM EDT (link)Gov’t employee benefits aggrevate the hell out of me - we pay taxes on those benefits, so it hurts my brain how that is not technically a private-business’ decision. Somehow it’s a public domain issue, even though it’s my freaking money supporting stupid gov’t employees. Let’s privatize their benefits - have them pay benefits the same way the rest of us do, and the same goes for their DBP - change them to 401k’s, and make them choose to contribute, taking a chunk out of their pay. If a private ensurer wants to increase premiums for smokers, that’s their own prerogative.
But on to the point here, about the FDA. It boggles my mind how they have so many regulatory bodies that constrict tobacco. And the special interests of pharma collect big revenues from smoking cessation - since people are hemorrhaging financially from a product they chose to use. Why is nicotine gum the only option for smoking cessation? Aren’t there ways to reduce the negative effects of smoking (e.g- smokeless tobacco?) that might not go directly into pharma’s pockets, and be a more pleasurable delivery method that smokers would happily switch to?
What exactly is 'bad behavior' and who decides to curb it?
fisk2521 Tuesday, June 2nd at 2:35PM EDT (link)Why don’t politicians have the guts to make cigarettes and tobacco illegal? Using taxes as a weapon and social control sounds slightly unconstitutional to me an leads me to believe we have cowards and manipulators as representatives.
Ted Kennedy has a lot of nerve trying to ‘curb bad behavior”…… think about it.
LDavis
Apparently mccain was too busy to co-sponsor...<nt>
johnCV Tuesday, June 2nd at 3:03PM EDT (link)this is a cya situation
redloft Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:00PM EDT (link)Tobacco is such a difficult issue to have to defend back at home, that supporting the FDA bill gives these Senators cover.
The Democrats have done a great job framing this as a healthcare issue, that many Republicans have no compelling reason to oppose the bill. If conservatives were going to try and take advantage of this issue, we should have made this about jobs a long time ago. In reality, the only thing this bill will do will kill the family farmer and small tobacco companies. Just check out what tobacco company supports this bill.
federal regs benefit the big at the expense of the small
icbm Tuesday, June 2nd at 5:34PM EDT (link)as usual
democrats (and certain republicans) need to realize that bigger government policies generally hurt the little businessman rather than helping him
good point, redloft