Anti-Smoking Activists try to stop Parents

Smoking foes try to stop parents from lighting up
By Tarron Lively
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 16, 2005


Anti-smoking activists who are driving cigarettes from public places across the country are now targeting private homes -- especially those with children.
Their efforts so far have contributed to regulations in three states -- Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont -- forbidding foster parents from smoking around children. Parental smoking also has become a critical point in some child-custody cases, including ones in Virginia and Maryland.

washingtontimes.com...

Apparently, anti-smoking activists are now trying to stop parents from smoking cigarettes in the privacy of their own home. I could have sworn that the government had no say in what people do in the privacy of their home especially if it isn't against the law.

Smoking around children is unhealthy and teaches them bad habits, but what about those people who go outside to smoke instead of smoking in the house. Are those people going to get in trouble?

In a highly publicized Virginia case, a judge barred Caroline County resident Tamara Silvius from smoking around her children as a condition for child visitation.

The court should not have had anything to do with this case. Most children who are old enough to know it, know not to be around people when they do smoke.

This is just more of the governments ways to get inside of a persons home and then take away the rest of our so called "rights".

This is just the left-wing version of the "government oppression" that they raise such a hue and cry about when it's done by the right-wing.

There are entirely too many people in the world who are firmly convinced that the government should step in and force people to do or not do this or that or the other thing that really shouldn't be any of the government's business. I once found it to be ironic that so many of those people could then turn around and complain bitterly about the government stepping in and forcing them to do or not do this or that or the other thing, but all the sense of irony has long since worn away, and all that's left is a deep sadness that people can be so shortsighted.

It's hard for a government to convince people to give up their own rights, but it's disturbingly easy for them to convince people to give up each other's rights, which, in the end, amounts to the same thing.

I wonder how many of the anti smoking brigade regularly feed thier kids crap, therefore assisting them towards becoming obese which is all toio common in kids nowadays? Maybe we should target these people and dictate to them what they can and cannnot feed thier children?

I'm not a smoker by the way, never have been and never will be, but when someone starts telling people what they can and can't do in thier own home!

CX.

Well, what I got from the article is that it is dealing mostly in the area of foster parents and divorce and separation rulings. and well, the foster kids are wards of the state, I suspose the state and regulate their care however they like really....all in the interest of the health and well being of the kids of course...(sarcasm..a great deal of it....intended) and when it comes to custody of the kids after a breakup, well, what's one more goofy policy thrown into that mess. the health and well being of the kids doesn't seem to be the primary interest in either thing....so whatever. in the end of the day, I got a feeling, the primary incentive to the whole thing, is just how can they, the government, get the most money out of it...

which means it will all probably lead up to the state having alot more kids in the foster care system, because mom or dad smoke, or there will be alot of broken marriages, more than likely because dad smoked, mom didn't since well, we wouldn't want dad to be the primary caregiver since more than likely they'll need his check to sap funds for to support their welfare system, which of course mom will be on!!

Funny these are probably the same people preaching that we need to be more tolerant and understanding of people that are different then us...

Jello Biafra referred to them as "zen fascists." I've always liked that one.

That's another of those ironies that used to entertain me, but now just saddens me. Those who most avidly preach "tolerance" are themselves, all too often, flatly intolerant of any views that don't coincide with their own. It seems that, to them, "tolerance" serves the same purpose as "patriotism" does for others-- it's a quality that they focus on most when they perceive it to be lacking in others. Ultimately, it's just a word with which to beat other people over the head.

As Inigo said in The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You can't control anyone's parents, eventually they'll think of some excuse to smoke so why force it on them? Just tell them not to 2nd hand smoke around ya' and put the corperations in their place with the factories, etc.

As long as they promise to ban Hostess, Little Debbie, Mac and Cheese, and trips to McDonalds in any home with kids.

last time I checked Obesity was public health hazard #1

Obesity is certainly the greatest threat to the health of children, but smoking remains the official cause du jour of the invasively minded, even, or maybe especially, for the obese among them.


Your avatar still makes me laugh every time I see it.