“When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned.
When Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. When Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions or an industrialist and so I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.” — Martin Niemoller, Congressional Record, October 14, 1968, page 31636

To this today, we might add the experience of those who enjoy the consumption of the tobacco leaf in all its forms – cigarettes, cigars, and pipes.

A common denominator of the Socialists (Hitler was a Socialist) and other statistists in all their forms including the modern-day Liberal and Progressive, is that they believe with almost religious fervency in the “perfectability” of man, through the mechanism of legislation, regulation, and omnipotent government control.

A characteristic of the Progressives and Prohibitionists of the 1930’s and the purveyors of the “New Prohibition” of today (tobacco) is that like Obama, they are natural-born-and-bred community organizers.

The tragic flaw among those who enjoy tobacco, is that by and large they are individualists who really want little more than to be left alone.

They are overwhelmingly salt-of-the-earth type folks, working hard to support themselves and their families, often active in their churches and sometimes in their communities – as firemen and police officers and volunteer EMT’s and construction workers and factory workers.

Because of this individualistic bent and overwhelming desire to be left alone to live their lives in peace, most are perhaps are characteristicly un-suited to the kind of organizing and interferance in the lives of others that the Progressives and their anti-tobacco brethren exult in.

Those who enjoy tobacco in one or more of its forms are often un-suited to the kind of organizing necessary to confront the kind of creeping encroachment we have seen in the area of smoking and tobacco use over the past several decades.

And organized the anti-tobacco Nazi’s are. They hold regular seminars in hotels and conference centers across the country, training in the refined methods and media tactics of pressure-group politics – and are often well-funded by individuals and other groups who’s underlying goal is not simply the eradication of tobacco in society, but the eradication of our freedoms and constitutionally limited system of republican government.

Even if tobacco-lovers were as inclined to organize and push back on the level of magnitude as is now required, the situation has deteriorated to the point where direct success by supporters of personal liberty and the freedom to enjoy tobacco to turn back the tide may no longer be possible.

As the creator and editor of a website dedicated to liberty studies (OnLibertySchool.com), I have been interested that the single most searched-for topic bringing people to the site has been on the issue of property rights.

This fact suggests both an opportunity and a method that holds promise for the long-beleagered and vilified cigar, pipe, and cigarette smoker.

We are a cause largely isolated from our philosophical brothers by our limited focus. It is time to broaden the fight.

Republicans and conservatives (and that includes many Democrats) are isolated by their often narrow focus on the latest outrage perpetrated by the statist liberals and Progressives. Libertarians are isolated by their seemingly myopic obsession with the de-criminalization of marijuana.

Imagine the power if all of these diparate groups joined forces on an issue with broad potential appeal that affects most of us — the restoration of a general understanding and respect for individual liberty and property rights.

Eminent Domain abuse is a serious problem in most jurisdictions, as politicians seek and courts uphold the taking of private property and the encroachment of private property rights.

We see this trend clearly illustrated with the sweeping prevalence of public smoking bans, which increasingly prevent and criminalize private businesses from choosing to provide a smoking-friendly environment for their patrons who smoke – restaurants, bars, taverns, and even smoke shops!

To be sure, there is also a serious issue with politicians using decades of vilification of tobacco smoking to enable the passage of confiscatory and predatorial taxes on tobacco products – taxes which in an increasing number of places, now exceed the cost or value of the product itself!

Of course, it’s all “for the children” – as if the higher price of a proscribed product will prevent those who want it from doing what they need to in order to acquire it. High prices of illegal substances has done little to stop the trade in them – and in fact has done much to ramp up the violence and criminal activities surrounding it.

Strict laws against marijuana and other “natural” forms of narcotics (opium, etc) has led directly to much more addictive and dangerous substances, that can be cooked up in a kitchen using commonly available household products.

What finally broke the back of 1930’s Prohbition was not the sudden realization that individuals ought to have the inherent right to consume alcohol, but general public awareness that the “cure” of banning or severely proscribing alcohol consumption had led to unforeseen and unintended consequences in increased violence and crime.

We are already seeing this phenomena repeat itself with tobacco. Smuggling between low-tax states and high-tax states has become commonplace. Trucks hauling cigarettes (especially) are routinely hijacked by highly sophisticated and organized criminal gangs.

It should never have gotten to this point, but it has. It is more than high time to stop the insanity of this New Prohibition!

It is amazing that more and more people who will sit enveloped by barbeque smoke or the smoke of a campfire, sit in traffic behind gasoline exhaust, or who fill their houses with various burning incenses and air freshener chemicals, will go absolutely berserk at the slightest whiff of someone lighting up a cigarette, cigar, or pipe – accusing the poor sap of trying to kill them or their children with second-hand (and now third-hand) smoke!

Many of those who campaign hardest to prohibit smoking in bars and taverns seem deaf to the reality that they are far more likely to die (or kill someone) after imbibing three or four drinks and then stepping behind the wheel of their car, than they are to die from the wafting smoke of a nearby cigar or pipe.

Alcohol will kill in seconds (if it results in a crash or an act of drunken violence) yet smoking-related illnesses will take decades to appear, if they appear at all.

It is counter-productive however to point fingers at each other and to use as our defense the idea that the other fellow should be regulated first. The statists divide and conquer us with such arguments.

We need to return to the civic ideal that we protect the other person’s liberty, in the ultimate interest of protecting our own.

Like our brothers of the old world from which our forefathers fled, we have sadly re-learned the peasant quality of speaking softly in the presence of authority, bowing and smiling and filling out the printed forms with scarcely a whisper of dissent.

We’re better than that. Unlike our current perpetrator-in-chief, we ought bow to NO one! We are citizens, not subjects.

Freedom is hard, which is apparently why most people seem frequently so afraid of it.

Don’t wait until they come for you. They’re already at the door.

— Maximus