The Lone Libertarian

I took a short drive to my favorite watering hole this past Friday and learned something I wasn’t aware of from this past legislative session, that I would be willing to bet many others don’t know. I pulled up a chair at the bar and noticed a sign that stated they would become a smoke-free establishment today, Monday July 16^th 2007. I pondered this decision out loud around several disgruntled smokers. It seemed like a rash and almost ignorant business decision for the proprietor of a microbrewery to disallow smoking, even on the patio outside. They quickly pointed out that the proprietors had decided to do so in the wake of legislation that will all but snuff out smoking in restaurants in Tennessee.

Enter TN House Bill 1851 / Senate Bill 1325 passed on May 31st, 2007 (To be effective October 1, 2007).
See how your TN House Rep. voted.
See how your TN Senator voted.

The bill virtually snuffs out all smoking in the state of Tennessee with the following exceptions.

- “Age-restricted venues,” like bars only allowing 21 and up.
- Any business enclosed by garage doors — if at least one door is open.
- Businesses with up to three employees that have a separate smoking area.
- Open air patios, porches or decks.
- Private clubs.
- Private homes and vehicles, unless they are used for day care.
- Retail tobacco stores.
- Tobacco manufacturing or processing plants.
- Up to 25 percent of rooms in a hotel or motel

I personally do not smoke, however I respect the right of a business owner to allow or disallow smoking on their property. The way I see it is that it is economically viable for most bar and restaurant owners to allow smoking in a designated section, otherwise bars and restaurants would already be smoke free.

Thus this action will probably cause some smokers to seek alternatives, whether they be staying at home and having a 6-pack, or traveling to Mississippi or Arkansas to have a drink and a smoke.

Obviously the night scene will be impacted pretty hard too. Switching Memphis’ heritage of 18 and older clubs to 21 and older clubs may not go down well either. Night spots that have live music and dancing will either have to cut out smoking and take a chance, or forgo revenues from the 18-20 year old college crowd. Can anyone in Memphis honestly see the New Daisy Theater being smoke free? Then again, a large chunk of their revenue probably comes from those whom are under the age of 21. Decisions, decisions.

I take great issue with the state virtually telling business owners what they can and cannot allow on their properties. So I guess I will shed a tear for Tennessee restaurant and bar operators on October 1, 2007 as their freedoms erode just a little more.

The International Association of Fire Fighters released a video concerning Rudolph Giuliani’s leadership before and during the 9/11 attacks, that most probably caused New York firefighters to lose their lives.

Although I typically shy away from union propaganda and highly emotional arguments, I think this video has some merit to it. Proceed with a discriminating eye/ear.

My question is, why are we just now hearing about this?

US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has a gut feeling that he had to air out yesterday. His gut tells him that we could be attacked by terrorists in the near future.

“We don’t have any specific information about an imminent or near-term attack on the homeland. We’re looking at the strategic picture over the next six months to a year. We’re evaluating where that is.”

Coming high off the heels of the incidents in London and Glasgow, Chertoff said the following.

“Summertime seems to be appealing to them”

Summertime you say? I find summertime quite appealing myself. Swimming, barbecuing, enjoying the sun. Who doesn’t find the summertime appealing?

A White House correspondent said

“Over the past six years, we have prevented attacks from al Qaeda by taking the fight to them, but they are an enemy that adapts.“

US Intelligence states that al-Qaida has rebuilt and regrouped to a degree that they could be back to their September 10^th strength. Of course, I guess we all know now to take US Intelligence with a grain of salt.

Al-Qaida is as strong as it was on September 10, 2001? How is this possible? How many billions of dollars of our taxes have gone to fight this enemy?

Maybe the moral of this story is that the office of Homeland Security is inept and and impotent. It should also be said that this so called “War on Terrorism” just like the “War on Drugs” is not working.

So why is it the threat level wasn’t upgraded from “elevated” to “high” yesterday? What sectors of the public does Chertoff’s gut feel will be affected?

Was this really a news story at all? Or was it a “remember me and why you need us” press conference?

“Please tell your legislators to keep sending us checks.”

For those of you whom live in and around Memphis, TN you undoubtedly saw the “Ron Paul Revolution” signs that were put up around TN-385 and I-240 during the 4th of July holiday.

I did a little web-crawling and found the group affiliated with the signs. They have a meetup group that can be found here.

Although many of the signs have been removed, I believe the sign at the TN-385 / I-240 East split is still present. I’ll post a picture of it if I can get down there with my digital camera before someone tears it down.

Every once in a while I stumble across a situation or an account of a situation where I hearken back to the roots of the libertarian philosophy. These roots are firmly planted in the concept of property ownership. A basic principle is that you may do whatever you will with your property until it impacts another individual’s property or rights. I’ll come back to this concept after this brief story from Utah.

Here’s a story of a 70 year old woman, Betty Perry, who lives in Orem, Utah. Betty claims she has never been in trouble with the law, until last week, when the police came knocking.

Betty wasn’t pedaling drugs, molesting neighborhood kids, killing local residents, or stealing horses. You see, Betty was doing something MUCH WORSE. Betty had not been watering her yard, an Orem city ordinance. After refusing to give the officer her name, when she realized she was being charged with something, Betty had cuffs slapped on her after “tripping” and cutting her face on her front steps.

She was thrown in a jail cell for an hour, before the powers that be realized what a ridiculous mistake they had made.

The lesson Betty learned?

“Don’t ever say no when the police tell you do to something. You better do what they tell you no matter what, even if you don’t have anybody to help you. You’ve got to do what they tell you or they will hurt you.”

Lovely story, don’t you think?

Back to my line of reasoning I started previously. How can a local government create jailed criminals out of those whom don’t have enough money to water their yard? Do you really own your property/land anymore, or are you just the steward for local governments, paying for upkeep?

I know I will get replies that will relate to property values. That’s all well and good, but your property value is not a right, just the same as the value of your stock portfolio is not a right. It is subject to market forces, inflation, nature, and other things that are difficult, if not impossible to control.

In a nutshell I don’t think I should have to do anything at all to my yard if I don’t want to. However, being neighborly and/or trying to increase or hold my property value would naturally compel me to take action or ask for assistance. I shouldn’t be mandated by men with guns to do anything with property that I supposedly own, as long as I am not violating the rights of others.

Is this land my land really?

I had the opportunity to watch a free screening of Michael Moore’s Sicko a week ago and have been pondering the impact of its message ever since. Many of my friends (late 20’s early 30’s) seem to agree with the message that the nanny state needs to take care of everyone. I wont say our system is perfect, but the last thing I want is to do exercises in front of the telescreen every morning. Better yet, I don’t want the government to control my personal choices due to their possible burden on the social system (IE: banning smoking, drinking, body modification, “risky” behavior, sexual promiscuity, etc).

Several questions, that I think would be responsible to ask, that were not addressed in Sicko were:

I think this 45 million metric is not a valid reasoning for mandating socialized healthcare. Just think if the unemployment rate included those not seeking work, or those whom cannot work due to disability.

Moore poorly demonstrates this by showing what I consider to be a wealthy French family that has a nice car and an expensive apartment. Oh yeah, and a nice sand collection to boot.

You know that this is necessary in a system where the government is in control of the number of patients a doctor can see or operate upon in a month/year. Medicare/Walter Reed anyone?

Moore takes liberties in demonstrating how cheap some medicines are in Cuba. In the film I believe an inhaler a woman uses costs 5 cents as opposed to some larger fee in the US. My question is, will we really be given that much of a break? Is the Cuban price due to humanitarian aid, or because of their economy?

With no co-pays and free health care for all, how jammed up will the system be when instituted? How long will it take for me to get an appointment? How much fraud and abuse can we expect? How many illegals can we expect to serve?

Also, an observation was made apparent to me by a friend concerning free market healthcare. Health insurance and the cost of care seems to go up yearly for Americans for most health services. However, with Medicare/Medicaid and the insurance companies dominating the entire industry, the system isn’t subject to market forces. However, you can see that those elective procedures that are not covered by insurance are going down in price for the consumer year over year. You can see this phenomenon with lasik surgery, plastic surgery, breast augmentation, and many others. This segment of the medical industry actually has to compete for consumer dollars and it is working to the customer’s advantage, as opposed to insurance and government that places caps on prices and services rendered, thus eliminating competition.

I imagine that socialized health care would continue to keep costs up, or cause fewer doctors to enter the workforce.

Searching for a response to the message that Sicko conveyed, I found Stuart Browning’s site, Free Market Cure. Browning has several short videos on his site, some of which answer the questions I list above. Browning’s approach is somewhat conservative, and somewhat libertarian. However it is much more refreshing than the socialist message in Moore’s movies.

This one is one of my favorites: