More regulation coming

Imagine, if you will, the U.S. government voted to regulate gelato (replace with your favorite unhealthy food or habit).

Would that not stoke your fire?

Yet, most Americans either did not care about, or even applauded, Wednesday's vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to permit the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.

Additionally, the bill bans flavored cigarettes such as candy-, fruit- and spice-flavored cigarettes as well as clove cigarettes. However, menthol cigarettes, which make up about 28 percent of the $70 billion cigarette industry in America, mysteriously escaped the ban.

The implication is that black lives are not as important as white lives because 75 percent of black smokers choose menthol-flavored cigarettes. The Congressional Black Caucus was going to withdraw its support of the bill because menthol was not included in the ban. A last-minute compromise requires a scientific advisory committee to issue recommendations on menthol in cigarettes within one year.

The bill has many supporters in the Senate, which is likely to pass it this fall. The White House is opposed to the bill and has hinted that a veto is possible. It is not clear if there are enough supporters in the Senate to override a presidential veto. One estimate has the Senate three votes shy of being able to override a veto.

The bill, if approved, would greatly expand the power, and the size, of the FDA, which is already a behemoth that costs more lives than it saves.

There is no arguing that cigarettes are unhealthy and that people should not smoke. Or, as U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-Hamilton, himself a smoker, said on the House floor after calling it a "boneheaded idea": "How much is enough? How much government do we need? There's not a smoker in America that doesn't understand that smoking isn't good for you."

What Boehner alluded to, and what I am going to pound over your head, is that in a free country, people have the right to choose to do unhealthy things. You don't like smoking? Then don't smoke. However, no one in this country has the right to tell another adult that he or she cannot smoke if he or she chooses to do so.

Unfortunately, liberals in this country don't give a flying hoot about liberty and freedom and other such antiquated ideas. Oh, they will offer lip service to such ideals at election time. However, when it comes time to vote on legislation, they jump at every opportunity to increase governmental control over our daily lives.

Meanwhile, Americans sit idly by and allow this incremental theft of liberty. They rationalize it away by convincing themselves it won't go any further. Yet, when the next step arrives, they continue with their irrational rationalizations.

That is the way liberty disappears. That is the path to totalitarianism. It does not arrive in one big sweep. It shows up one step at a time. First, the government regulates cigarettes. Later, an outright ban. Each step might even seem reasonable in light of past steps.

Then it seeps over into other aspects of our lives. Fast-food perhaps. In fact, a section of Los Angeles has barred new fast-food restaurants because fast-food is unhealthy.

There will be no end.

After Boehner asked his question, Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who sponsored this anti-American bill, responded, "The minority leader said, ‘When is enough, enough?' Well cigarettes, one of the most dangerous products on sale today, are not regulated at all."

See how liberals work? First, they make you fear something, then they regulate it, then they ban it. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

They have spent the last 40 years painting cigarette companies as the Antichrist and making the dubious claim that nicotine is the most addictive chemical used by man. Of course, the fact that millions of Americans quit smoking cold turkey tells a different story.

However, all that is irrelevant.

It is simply wrong for government to regulate every aspect of our lives just because some bleeding-heart liberals believe we are incapable of making good decisions. What they forget is that liberty means having the freedom to make bad decisions. After all, even a tyrant allows his subjects and slaves to make good decisions.

 You can comment on this column and other issues on Lucente's blog at www.lucente.org. You can also listen to Lucente on "Talk with Ron Williams" at 3:10 p.m. Thursdays on WZOQ (940 AM) or streaming live at www.espnlima.com.