The Battle Over Stoagies
Written by Mark Harris on February 15th, 2007Well folks newly elected Rep. Ellison, the first muslim elected to congress, called the cops on Rep. Tom Tancredo for… smoking a cigar in his office, which apparently is legal by house rules. Now here’s one thing I don’t understand: did congress exempt itself out of the no smoking in the workplace rules that exist here in the People’s Republic of DC? If so, I am outraged. They should have to live by the same anti-freedom policies that they allow the rest of us who work in the District to live under.
Ugh.
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This is a perfect example of a good Tanc story. Not that he should be running for president though.
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Speaker Pelosi rescinded the exemption in the House once the Dems took over.
As for exempting themselves; they are already exempted from Social security, why not smoking?
On a related note, Senator Obama is quitting smoking.
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Of course they did! They are important people afterall.
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Alex is right
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Yeah it looks like they have payed in since 1984, my bad.
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Surely you’re not saying that people should be allowed to smoke in public buildings, Mark? Smoking is bad. It makes you sick. Shouldn’t the government be allowed to look out for it’s citizen’s health? Particularly when many non-smoking citizens don’t want to be around smokers.
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“Surely you’re not saying that people should be allowed to smoke in public buildings, Mark?”
Do you have any empirical evidence that “second-hand smoke” in a relatively open space (such as a federal building atrium) is harmful?
Of course you don’t because no one does.
“Shouldn’t the government be allowed to look out for it’s citizen’s health?”
Where in the Constitutionally enumerated powers of the federal government do you see that power/responsibility listed? There is a reason it is absent, primarily because it has the potential to lead to abuses.
Maybe oneday the government might ban smoking in private homes (wait too late, see California), or ban certain foods it doesn’t like (wait too late, see foi gras in Chicago), or even ban entire types of foods (wait too late hydrogenated soybean oil in New York). You see where this is going? Why no ban alcohol too? Why not ban candy? Why not bend over and let the government stick a giant anal probe into us so they can monitor the proper functioning of our colons?
Either you believe in freedom and the constitution or you don’t. It’s fine if you don’t, just don’t deny the rest of us our freedom from tyranny.
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Sorry, I should have made it WAY more clear that I was being sarcastic. That’s one problem of discussion boards instead of live conversation.
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My bad, that makes my response look pretty funny. You can almost picture me typing away furiously while I mutter to myself, lol.