Recently, I got a call from Clean Air Kansas and agreed to answer a few questions, starting with, "Do you think that employees in bars should be protected from cigarette smoke and smoking in bars should be banned?"

I am assuming they were primarily looking for donations as they abruptly hung up after the first question when I answered, "No, that barkeeps  aren't in need of protection as they certainly knew  smoking was allowed  when they took the job and they won't have  that job when the bar closes down after a ban forces customers  to drink  while smoking at home. Customers can choose to  support  non-smoking bars as well, and I'm certain non-smoking bars hire employees also."

It's been years since I have been in a smoking bar, but I'll guess the activities are about the same. Beer drinking, cigarette smoking  and complaining to anyone coherently or not, about, well, interlopers like Clean Air Kansas.    

According to Clean Air Kansas, "there isn't a constitutional right to smoke," so I guess there isn't a specific right to drink or complain about meddlers either but if you were to take away any one of those pastimes  there isn't an incentive  to spend  money at a bar. There isn't a constitutional right to telemarket or require a bar to be smoke-free -- but that's beside the point.  

It seems meddlers could spend their time and the un-pocketed donations on a needed regulation but for the life of me I can't think of anything else that isn't already regulated or planned to be regulated. Every thing conceivable already has a rule, law or regulation. There are so many regulations it's tough not to break any on a typical day, some are simply ignored like those signs in public bathrooms telling you to wash your hands  or enforcing illegal immigration. Others seem to be too confusing, even though they write them, many politicians and their buddies can't seem to follow  the tax laws. Others require a lot of diligence as teenage thugs are having a tougher time making a living beating  and robbing people as they have to  distinguish the  less protected  targets from  minorities and gays.

Maybe when these interlopers get done regulating the air we exhale, CO2, we'll finally have all the laws imaginable finally subjected on us, but I doubt it. We certainly don't need any more ridiculous  and  dubious  regulations and the politicians that support them. I'll bet the  founding fathers of this country would agree, and as they were smoking away  while writing the constitution they never dreamt that we would wind up with a stack of regulations that would reach the moon. If they knew, they would turn over in their graves, if the cemetery  didn't have that new green regulation:  "No  Rolling Over, it  disturbs  the earthworms."

Flint Campbell

Ransom