Originally Posted by: Kevin TaylorWell..I have to disagree with you on the smoking ban.
I got hooked on nicotine by the time I was 5 years old because my mother would smoke around me all day long. Today, that would be considered child abuse.

When I think back..I used to smoke a pack a day about 20 years ago, but even then I couldn't handle the amount of smoke that was drifting around in public places.
You'd go into a store and the clerks would be smoking at the counter..in college, students smoked in class...even in doctors offices you had to sit in a haze of smoke.
When I was working retail, we used to have customers who'd smoke stinky cigars at the counter and butt them out on the floor of the store. When I was out of work and had to go to UIC, you could hardly see the other side of the room because every second person was smoking. And you had no choice but to go there if you wanted unemployment insurance. I used to think how horrible it must have been for pregnant women or people with health problems to be forced to sit in that haze of smoke for 3 hours.

I'm glad a smoking ban has been instituted now. The only thing that bothers me now is how disguntingly dirty and inconsiderate smokers still insist on being...throwing their used butts outside the doors of all the establishments and blowing smoke in peoples faces as they walk by them at the front doors.

Oh, I understand what you are saying and I'm not saying it's not better for everyone, but don't you think it should be up to the owners of these establishments to decide how they want to run their businesses? If they allow smoking or smoking in certain areas, don't you think if smoking bothers anyone, they can decide for themselves whether or not to partonize that establishment. I agree inside government buildings and public buildings smoking should be banned. I do not agree that privately owned businesses should be banned. It's just another example of a minority controlling the majority and something else for the government to waste our money and police. With every law preventing something also requires another department to police and enforce it. The government continues to grow and our rights slowly disappear. It's ridiculous.

Here the smoking ban was passed only because of trickery. If you were for the ban you had to vote "No". If you were against the ban, you voted "Yes". People thought they were voting against the ban were actually voting for it. This is fact!

I quit smoking many years ago so the ban did not effect me, but it bothers me knowing the government is taking away more freedom of it's people. Small, yes, but still we lost a little bit of our freedom. How much freedom are you willing to give up to breath a little easier or to feel a little bit safer? What the next freedom are you willing to give up in the name of pleasing the minority? Eating fatty foods? Driving SUVs? Were leather? Hunting & fishing? What?