Nanny State rides again!
Ah yes, in the same place where activists were so incensed with present Government, they threw product into the Boston Tea Party instead of going along. They were mad and they were not going to take it more. This was a blow for freedom - and not kowtowing to an overbearing governing class (the King).
Hmmm, full circle, this. In the birthplace of freedom in America, the present Government is doing what started a revolution - taking away from its citizenry. However, the earlier revolution was over the taking of tax money - now, it is freedom. Slate has the sad story (emphasis mine):
The health police have crossed another line. Four months ago, they banned new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile area of Los Angeles. In that case, they crossed the line from restricting food for kids to restricting it for adults. They also extended the practice of health zoning from liquor to food.
Now they've breach another line between paternalism for children and paternalism for adults. The Boston Public Health Commission has just banned the sale of all tobacco products at colleges. Not high schools. Colleges.
The Nanny State has just redefined adulthood to childhood. With a regulation (not even a law passed!). The High Lords of the Keeper of Our Well Being decided that, like all intrusive governments are wont to do when left unchecked and unwatched, adults are not adults. They have deemed that they, simple bureaucrats cannot allow legal adults to purchase a legal product.
Anti-smoking activists are ecstatic. "Boston has taken another step that puts it in the forefront in the United States in protecting people against secondhand smoke," says the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. But the Boston regulations don't just restrict smoking.
Sorry, but I have never bought this canard of logic gone bad.
And these Smoking Nazis, true to form, believe that saving everyone from themselves is yet another incremental loss of freedom of choice. Trust me - smoking? Horrible habit - my Dad had throat cancer and had to have a laryngectomy.
BUT IT IS NOT MY JOB TO DECIDE THAT FOR ANYONE ELSE. DITTO GOVERNMENT!
In a press release, the executive director of the Boston commission says the new regulations "will help reduce young people's exposure to tobacco products." Young people? That phrase used to mean minors. Now, apparently, it includes the targets of the new rule: students at "any public or private college, normal school, professional school, scientific or technical institution, university or other institution furnishing a program of higher education."
On what grounds do college students—not to mention students at professional schools—deserve the kind of paternalism previously reserved for minors? The commission offers two reasons. First, "educational institutions in the City of Boston also sell tobacco products to the younger population, which is particularly at risk for becoming smokers." Second, "the sale of tobacco products is also incompatible with the mission of educational institutions which educate the younger population about social, environmental and health risks and harms."
The article ends on this note:
My addition - not who but what? The Rubicon of the Nanny State was crossed - now they are on the march to further restrict adult freedoms. Remember: "...first they came for the Jews..."And if that kind of paternalism can be extended so easily from minors to 25-year-olds, who's next?
