Monday, June 04, 2012

Proposition 29 in California, Punitive Cigarette Tax

By Douglas V. Gibbs

When the idea of an additional one dollar cigarette tax was floated early on in this election season, voters overwhelmingly supported the idea. Then, as the opposition, funded by the cigarette companies, began their advertisements revealing the weaknesses of the proposition, including the fact that the revenue did not have to remain in California, the opinion of the proposed tax began to change direction.

Here in California we have some of the toughest smoking laws in the nation. Even before I quit smoking seven years ago the laws were becoming tough on smokers. Indoor smoking at business establishments is out of the question, and in some places you can't even smoke in your own apartment. The harsh laws, however, have changed the behavior of the citizens, as planned. The reformers and authoritarians have done all they can to stamp out smoking from the State. As a result, California has the second lowest per capita smoking rate in the country.

It has also been fourteen years since the last rise in the cigarette tax.

In one of the ads supporting Proposition 29 the actors use absurdity to get across their point about how they think "big tobacco" is evil. One of the actors portrays a farmer standing in a field, saying, "I love big tobacco because they killed my wife, and that's one less mouth to feed."

The premise is the same as with all other liberal agendas. Someone else is to blame. This big bad corporation, or that big bad group, is to blame. Never mind individual choice. Never mind that the man's wife decided to smoke voluntarily, and her death was the result over her own, personal choices.

As for the dangers of smoking, they are well documented. I think some of it is exaggerated, especially the second-hand smoke rhetoric. For some, it is a matter of genetic predisposition. My grandfather began smoking when he was fourteen, smoked a couple packs of non-filter cigarettes a day, and lived well into his eighties. I smoked for 21 years, and during that time doctors thought I was a non-smoker.  My lungs remained as clear and crisp as when I was a long-distance runner in my pre-smoking years. In fact, I continued to run, play basketball, and participate in other similar activities while I was a smoker. My stamina never waned.

When I quit, it was cold turkey, and simply because of a stomach surgery I was going to undergo, and after talking to the anesthesiologist, I felt it was in my best interest to quit. The thought of dying on the operating table while I was asleep was a greater convincing factor than the possibility of a slow, painful, emphysema ridden death later in life.

The thing is, all of the arguments miss the whole point. When it comes down to the nuts and bolts of it all, Proposition 29 will create a huge bureaucracy established for the specific reason of using punitive taxation to alter people's behavior. Regardless of all of the arguments, the very fact that the goal is to force people to change their individual behavior to something acceptable to a bunch of people who have decided that not smoking is acceptable behavior is reason enough to vote against it.  If you don't like cigarette smoke, then don't go to places that smokers gather.

It brings to mind something I've heard before about the difference between liberals and conservatives. If a conservative dislikes guns, they don't buy one. If liberals don't like guns, they want to make sure nobody owns one.

I don't smoke anymore, and when I am around a person who does smoke, I am not real fond of the smell. But that is their decision. As long as they are decent about it, and they aren't doing something messed up like blowing smoke in my face, what do I care if they smoke?

The argument used is usually the burden smokers put on the health care system. Perhaps. Obesity puts a burden, they claim, on the health care system, too. For the sake of the good of the community, society, and the tax payers, they claim, people need to behave as they dictate. For some, that may seem like a noble thing, but when choice is taken away by a meddling group of people, it is anything but liberty.

Proposition 29 ranks right up there with Mayor Bloomberg's decision to ban soft drinks over eight ounces, and the mandate in Obamacare requiring people to buy insurance. At this rate, we might as well change the name of this country to the Soviet States of America.

I plan to vote "no" on Proposition 29.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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