Answering Thomas Kern’s Criticisms
by
Kerry Thomas
April
23, 2008
The lack of understanding of the rights and responsibilities, of fundamental liberties enjoyed by a free citizenry in a Republic, so proudly displayed by so many of our fellow citizens, never ceases to amaze me.
In the April 23, 2008 edition of the Vilas
County News Review, Thomas Kern of
Three Lakes takes exception to my views that individuals, not their
employers or government bureaucrats, bear the responsibility for seeking
employment in places where smoking is not permitted.
The entire message of my Brother Jim editorial,
that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle personifies the classic image of a Big
Brother government bureaucrat, seems to have gone right over Thomas Kern’s
head.
There really isn’t much of a challenge engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. So for Thomas Kern’s benefit, I’ll go through his feeble criticisms, slowly.
No one is forced to enter a business where
smoking is permitted.
A business owner knows better than a Madison
bureaucrat how best to serve his customers, and should have the right to run
his business as he sees fit. If tobacco
smoke drives customers away, that business owner might just decide on his own,
without Big Brother’s coercion, to prohibit smoking in his business.
There is not one single person who has been
forced “to be subjected to secondhand smoke” as a prerequisite for
employment. If tobacco smoke bothers
you, don’t seek employment in a business where smoking is permitted. Don’t do business with a business that
permits smoking.
You have that liberty. Have the courtesy to extend that liberty to the owners of a
business.
The Northwoods, like any locale, is full of
economic opportunities, if you’re willing to seek them out. New business opportunities appear every
week. And in the Information Age, there
is a global market for information-based products and services, a market that
can be served from any location on Earth, even the Northwoods.
Thomas Kern questions the existence of a study I
mentioned (The Effect
of Smoking Bans on Bars and Restaurants: An Analysis of Changes in Employment), which was widely publicized during the first week in
April, and published in 2007 in the Journal
of Public Economics.
Thomas Kern thinks
smokers should “just stay at home and do their smoking and
drinking.”
Authors Scott Adams,
of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Economics Department, and Chad Cotti,
of the University of South Carolina, found "The increased miles driven by
drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from
smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased
alcohol-related accidents."
Results show an
increase in accidents in areas after smoking bans were enacted and near the
jurisdiction lines.
The 2-year study
looked at highway fatality data involving a driver with blood alcohol content over
0.08 in cities and counties with bans and compared it to incidences in
surrounding areas without bans. The study was not funded by outside
organizations, the authors said.
Now, I will question
Thomas Kern’s “studies.”
The reason I don’t mention
"the studies that have been done that clearly show that secondhand smoke is
deadly” is that no such legitemate study has ever come to that definitive conclusion.
Yes, secondhand
tobacco smoke contains carcinogens and other chemical pollutants. But cite for me one study or report where just
one person’s primary cause of death was listed as exposure to secondhand
tobacco smoke.
Correlation does not equate to causality. I could say that 100% of every person who
has ever or who will ever eat carrots will die. That’s a fact, but the correlation doesn’t prove that eating
carrots causes people to die.
The fact remains that there has never been a
death proven to have been directly caused by exposure to secondhand tobacco
smoke. It may not be healthy, but
that’s a far cry from being a primary cause of death.
I was really quite offended by Thomas Kern’s false
assertions that I somehow portray seniors as “mumbling, drooling people sitting
in a wheelchair, barely able to stay awake.”
The exact words I used while describing fire-safe cigarettes were “these
cigarettes won’t cause fires if dropped on the carpet by our elderly
smokers.” Thomas Kern’s
characterization of my words borders on slander.
Obviously Thomas Kern doesn’t read this column. His final advice to me, “don’t go too far to
the right, you may fall off” seems indicative of someone who follows a
flat-earth philosophy.
I will close with some advice of my own for
Thomas Kern.
Be mindful to extend the liberties you enjoy today
to your fellow citizens. Don’t be so
eager to meekly surrender those liberties to your government. The powers you surrender so willingly to
your government in order to persecute and enslave your neighbors will most
certainly one day be used to persecute and enslave you.
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “[Anyone]
who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve
neither and lose both.”