Amendment IV:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This is especially relevant to the Rights of people who smoke.

Government has no right to enter your home. None.

Unless, of course, you are suspected of a crime, with at least justifiable evidence. So, as long as you can continually expand the definition of what is considered to be a crime, the greater the threat against your guaranteed Rights under the Fourth Amendment.

Anti-smoking is pro-actively seeking to violate your Rights under the Fourth Amendment, under the twisted excuse that secondhand smoke has the magical ability to "seep through walls" and cause harm to your neighbors. The scientific evidence for such claims makes Bigfoot research and ESP look like nuclear physics. Not only can't secondhand smoke cause harm to a neighbor with beyond a wall, it can't cause harm to someone occupying the same room. Unless they've been brainwashed into having psychogenic symptoms, of course, and such people come by the barrell these days.

Also, such claims were never made during the decades of America's smoking era. Of course, people at that time lacked the "benefit" of modern anti-smoking propaganda. If you can rely on anything to be "dumb" and "uninformed", it's the people of the past, who lack the benefit of speaking for themselves in context.

You'll notice that the Fourth Amendment says "... the persons or things to be seized". Only now can we believe that one might face the time when a police officer will enter their home because a neighbor reports them for suspicion of smoking. The irony is that the smoker may be fined or carted off, while the cigarettes, the supposed "things to be seized" will be left behind on the table, and available at every corner store in America.

Authoritarians will say that this is because they know the failings of prohibition. In reality, it has nothing to do with prohibition or tobacco, accept that tobacco provides a convenient excuse to make a scapegoat of a certain minority of people. Such people are viewed as willing participants in their own discrimination, solely by their refusal to accept anything less than their own autonomy and individual integrity.

You're a slave to your demands for the Freedoms you are guaranteed in the first place.

How dare you?

In America, The Constitution guarantees your Rights as Natural Rights, meaning that your rights under The Constitution are no less valid than having skin or having hair.

We would rightfully object if we knew that a person's Fourth Amendment Rights were violated due to their skin color or their religion.

Why then, when the Founders recognized our Constitutional Rights to be as natural as our skin, do we not regard them as worthy of defense as a woman being beaten in the street?

In the end, the only one who can preserve your rights is you and others who are likeminded. Expect to pay a price no less than those who came before you and gave all.

Like Edmund Burke said; all that is required for Evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

WinstonSmith: "Only now can we believe that one might face the time when a police officer will enter their home because a neighbor reports them for suspicion of smoking."

Well, only now can most people believe it, the operative question here being, "Smoking what?"

The police have been able to enter a house on suspicion of smoking for my entire life, just not on the suspicion of smoking tobacco. Moreover, I'd wager that many tobacco smokers (and alcohol drinkers, and prescription pill poppers, and those with similar vices) have long applauded the ability of the police to enter people's homes on suspicion of the use of certain "drugs" (even when they are not drugs, but unprocessed plant materials, as in the case of pot and unrefined opium).

It's not surprising to me. I would have been able to predict this as early as 1920, when the 18th Amendment was passed, banning the use of alcoholic beverages. But, at least that was Constitutional, being enacted as a Constitutional Amendment, which then had to be repealed by ratifying the Twenty-first.

But by 1937, I would have been able to predict that excuses could be found for the authorities to enter private residences unConstitutionally, because that was the year the Marihuana (sic) Tax Stamp Act was passed: a backdoor ban, in which the government required that possessors of marijuana buy a tax stamp in order to legally possess it, then simply did not issue the stamps.

The authorities can enter your home for any reason or none, like it or not, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Many people who read this will be in denial of their culpability in supporting this sickening Police State reality. Surely he doesn't mean me, you might be thinking.

But ah, dear Sir or Madam, I just might.

It's called incrementalism, and most people are guilty of supporting it to one degree or another, whether they're comfortable admitting it or not.

quote:

because that was the year the Marihuana (sic) Tax Stamp Act was passed: a backdoor ban, in which the government required that possessors of marijuana buy a tax stamp in order to legally possess it, then simply did not issue the stamps.

Wow, I just turned 66 and I never knew about this or read about it anywhere. Thanks for the info.

dave clark: "Thanks for the info."

You're welcome. Tricky, huh?

They've got a million of 'em. Actually, marijuana possession was technically a tax crime with no provision for obeying the law--not a substance ban, which was a bald-faced end-run around the Constitution. If you're interested, Google "Hearst Anslinger" for the whole story. Those two names are enough. It'll make you sick.

By the time the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 was passed under Nixon, they weren't even hiding the fact that such laws were unconstitutional anymore. Government has no right to tell us what we may or may not consume, but they did it anyway, and by that time the public was too dumbed-down and pumped up with fear for most people to know the difference.

Everything we tobacco smokers are experiencing now has its roots in such shenanigans. Truth, health, and public safety had nothing to do with the banning of hemp, just as it has nothing to do with the incremental banning of tobacco now. The techniques are exactly the same, and so are the real reasons for applying them.

I've only learned recently that there is a broader, institutionalized effort to achieve Socialism through incrementalism.

It's called Fabianism.

The philosophy of Fabianism is embodied in the British Fabian Society of which both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are members.

The latest incarnation of Fabianism is called "The Third Way"; a socioeconomic policy openly embraced by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

What is Fabianism? Roughly, it is what we call "incrementalism". It is a socialist political strategy in which Marxist ideals are applied incrementally, rather than by violent revolution.

"The Third Way" is, roughly, a mix of socialism and capitalism. Essentially, rather than put a gun to your head to embrace Marxist ideas, they sell them to you. In this way, via the democratic process, it appears that the uninformed public has made the decision, rather than a ruling body of elitist technocrats. How do they do this? Essentially, by treating the public as if they are sheep to be led and feeding them ideas that will frighten them into behaving in accordance with Marxist ideals. Like, say, secondhand smoke or global warming.

When have you ever heard of "The Third Way" or "Fabianism"? I seem to have missed it in the news.

I will probably do a post on this after I learn a bit more.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-Fabianism.html

quote:

Fabians embraced a programme of ‘municipal socialism’ and state control of the conditions of labour, to be achieved by the Labour Party with trade-union backing. Political influence was mainly exerted indirectly through marshalling facts in policy-related publications and journalism.

http://www.workinfo.com/EconHist/thirdway.htm

http://thirdway.org/about_us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_%28centrism%29

http://fabians.org.uk/

http://faculty.goucher.edu/history231/blair.htm