Originally published by Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com where you may access all links not provided that are referenced in this article.

With their latest in the tank for a liberal Democrat mission accomplished, our local dead-tree Drive-By media (Charlotte Observer) announced a post-Inauguration “triple play” war on tobacco, which, if successful, would kill many jobs that President Obama promised to save (link at Examiner link above).

If the same strategy were applied on baseball diamonds, where real peril exists for catchers, the Charlotte Observer would have to call for a statewide (or local option) ban on America’s National Pastime, rather than allow them to wear masks (see Yogi Berra pictured above).

Here are the disturbing details of the Observer’s war on individual liberty and private property rights, but I repeat myself:

The 2009 N.C. General Assembly should enact a statewide smoking ban in public places, including restaurants and bars (or at the very least free local elected officials to take that step on their own).
The legislature also should raise the cigarette tax by at least 50 cents a pack and bring North Carolina’s tax to the national average.

Congress should give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco.

Grand slams beat triple plays all day long, so here goes.

Let’s start with “out” three: For decades now, every cigarette pack (and all containers of tobacco products) has been emblazoned with dire warnings of death from a General. Regulation by the FDA would mean an outright ban.

Now, for the bait-and-switch of “out” two: They want to ban a product while they promise tax revenues from the use of it. Most legislative proposals also earmark the revenues for health care, which always leads to later tax increases from more stable sources of income.

Finally, as to “out” one, before my “second-hand” home run (be patient, the metaphors will be worth it very soon), I find it quite telling that the most prominent argument used by proponents of smoking bans is that they must “protect workers”, primarily those working as cooks, bartenders, waitresses in restaurants and bars.

Yet, they don’t seek to ban textile plants. In fact, this same newspaper regularly bemoans the loss of textile jobs to countries overseas. Many years ago, the Charlotte Observer won a Pulitzer prize for a long series of articles investigating the causes of brown lung disease in textile workers. One of the results of that series was the increased wearing of masks by workers in plants where one would regularly breathe in cotton dust.

Why the difference in the case of food service workers? Do they care less about their jobs?

The reason is obvious: the issue is not about health. If it were, the problem could be solved by the wearing of a mask by the worker. The issue, rather is a tyranny of a majority mob bent on asserting its will against private property owners that saved the fruits of their labor to build a business. No matter that the free market has provided that 65% of the restaurant market is non-smoking already.

This is about ascethics as well. They don’t want to be served by someone wearing a mask, even though masks could be dressed up for anal retentive liberals (see picture above) who deem it their right to eat anywhere they want and control the air within.

And what do the Disturbing anti-Liberty newspaper and their allies offer as the need for the police power to prevent Winstons and Salems from being lighted inside bars in Winston-Salem?

Second-hand smoke.

And just in case one of us common sense holders questions them, well, they have “experts.’ And we know that science has never been politicized, don’t we? Al Gore said that half of North Carolina was “in the balance” with the rest of the Earth in his book twenty years ago with doom scheduled for 1998. Raleigh remains dry, unlike 10,000 years ago before Chevy SUVs roamed the planet, but I digress.

Expert witness number one is the Surgeon General, whose declaration they conveniently fail to date. With good reason too, since its over 15 years old. The Surgeon General also warned us a heterosexual AIDS epidemic that never came.

“Expert” number two? Sit down for this one:

Smokefree NC, a health advocacy group, estimates that workers in a smoke-filled room for one eight-hour shift are smoking the equivalent of one to two packs a day.

Yes, if you roll the stuff up in a cylindrical piece of paper and suck the smoke of twenty down your throat everyday, you might die from it in 60+ years. But if you disperse the smoke in parts per septillion and breathe it in, you are at the same risk? Liberals think we are all fools.

I have my experts too, with this 2008 report from Dr. Jerome Arnett Jr. (jerry.arnett@gmail.com) is a pulmonologist who lives in Helvetia, West Virginia.:

A 1986 surgeon general’s report concluded involuntary smoking caused lung cancer, but it offered only weak epidemiological evidence to support the claim. In 1989 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with further evaluating the evidence for health effects of SHS.

The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places.

In 1992 EPA published its report … claiming [secondhand smoke] is a serious public health problem … [But] the report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge.

A longer version of this essay with footnotes is available here.

By the way, ever notice how rare it is for a dead-tree drive-by media outlet to provide such easy access to their sources? I think I’ll put Dr. Arnett up against a “health advocacy group” with the Charlotte Observer’s fax machine number any day.

Back to baseball: I wonder who gets hit in the face more by the ball, catchers or Left fielders?

Care about workers?

Let them wear masks!

Before they come for your food, like they have in New York (link at Examiner links above and below).

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

For more info: ABC Health and Consumer Affairs reporter John Stossel on the myths of the dangers of second-hand smoke. (links at Examiner.com)

Property rights trump second-hand smoke