Ya gotta love that wacky Big Brother
Never underestimate the power or the ability of a bureaucrat to make a bad law even worse.
Saturday is the day the People's Republic of New Jersey has decreed that smokers may not exercise their habit in "public" places - "public" pretty much defined as anywhere outside the smoker's home. And now the micromanagers responsible for writing the rules that enforce the law have made a tyrannical law even worse.
"With just days remaining until New Jersey becomes the 11th state to ban smoking in all indoor public places and workplaces, restaurant and bar owners who oppose the action find they are facing an unexpected restriction - no smoking within 25 feet of a building," reports the Newark Star-Ledger.
Armando Frallicciardi Jr., co-owner of Lorenzo’s Cafe in Trenton and a strong opponent of the ban, called the unexpected regulation absurd. He said a number of restaurant and bar owners, including himself, have been considering building a deck or a patio for outdoor smoking.
“This means if we build a 30-foot deck...we would have five feet where people can smoke. That is totally absurd," he said.
They're taking the issue to court this afternoon, but when have the courts been any protection against bad law lately?
The statement is made that there's nothing people can do about the law. Well, there is something (and I confess as a nonsmoker this will come across as "Let's you do something") - just light up and let someone arrest you. At some point, when enough smokers have clogged the jails, the nannies will come to their senses.
What's that, you say? Decades of clogging the jails with "drug fiends" hasn't knocked any sense into the lawbringers? Oh, this will be different, because ... because ...
Hell. May as well face it, they're addicted to power. The totalitarians who believe 1984 has a happy ending won't stop until they've Stepfordized America and we're all good little citizens lined up in a row. It's enough to make me learn how to hold tobacco in my lungs, just so I can go to Trenton and blow smoke in the face of alleged government servants who live to snuff out the beacon of liberty.
Saturday is the day the People's Republic of New Jersey has decreed that smokers may not exercise their habit in "public" places - "public" pretty much defined as anywhere outside the smoker's home. And now the micromanagers responsible for writing the rules that enforce the law have made a tyrannical law even worse.
"With just days remaining until New Jersey becomes the 11th state to ban smoking in all indoor public places and workplaces, restaurant and bar owners who oppose the action find they are facing an unexpected restriction - no smoking within 25 feet of a building," reports the Newark Star-Ledger.
Armando Frallicciardi Jr., co-owner of Lorenzo’s Cafe in Trenton and a strong opponent of the ban, called the unexpected regulation absurd. He said a number of restaurant and bar owners, including himself, have been considering building a deck or a patio for outdoor smoking.
“This means if we build a 30-foot deck...we would have five feet where people can smoke. That is totally absurd," he said.
They're taking the issue to court this afternoon, but when have the courts been any protection against bad law lately?
The statement is made that there's nothing people can do about the law. Well, there is something (and I confess as a nonsmoker this will come across as "Let's you do something") - just light up and let someone arrest you. At some point, when enough smokers have clogged the jails, the nannies will come to their senses.
What's that, you say? Decades of clogging the jails with "drug fiends" hasn't knocked any sense into the lawbringers? Oh, this will be different, because ... because ...
Hell. May as well face it, they're addicted to power. The totalitarians who believe 1984 has a happy ending won't stop until they've Stepfordized America and we're all good little citizens lined up in a row. It's enough to make me learn how to hold tobacco in my lungs, just so I can go to Trenton and blow smoke in the face of alleged government servants who live to snuff out the beacon of liberty.
posted by B.W. Richardson at
8:32 AM
1 Comments:
Sounds like it's time for a little civil disobedience in NJ.
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