Sometimes the slightest thing in the news, something you just glance at and go on your way, an unobtrusive fact that has absolutely no effect on your own personal life will stick it in your mind and you will muddle it around until it takes on a life of its own. Such was the case with something I noticed this week.
According to CNN, a policy that was announced two years ago by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that bans smoking in or near public housing went into effect yesterday. Now, anyone who lives in public housing will be unable to smoke in their own home or within 25 feet of any public housing building.
Why should this affect me? I don’t smoke, it was a terrible habit that I gave up over 30 years ago. I don’t know anyone who smokes any more. As the article suggests, this new rule may reduce the amount that the U.S. government spends on health related and other issues such as property damage related to smoking by $153 million.
Sounds good, doesn’t it unless you are a smoker. After all, why should people who are living in government housing, getting help from the government, living off of our tax dollars be able to determine how they want to live or live in such a way that creates an adverse effect on the lives of the rest of us?
My first thought was perhaps this will force people to get a job and take financial responsibility for themselves if they want to continue to have the freedom to smoke.
After a few minutes of feeling smug about the situation, I re-read the article and noticed something. This is not a law enacted by our elected officials. This is a policy, put in place by a government agency, one that is appointed not elected. This is not something that we as a nation voted on. It’s something that the government is telling us we have to do.
When did our government become so far reaching? This is not what the founders of our country, what the various states that made up the original thirteen colonies intended when they came together to form the union. Whether we act like it or not, that’s what we are, this United States, a union, much like the EU. The intent was never that the union would be greater than the parts. The intent was that this union of different states would provide a common defense and regulate commerce between various states.
It’s no wonder that the voters in Great Britain decided they did not want some overreaching government to have control over their lives. They may have looked at the U.S. and realized what can happen when the federal government takes control of the rights of the people. They may have realized how the United States is beginning to look more like the USSR than the land of the free.
I may not be a “states rights” person, but I think the federal government is reaching too far into our lives. They are already telling us how we have to eat, pretty soon they’ll be tearing down all the barriers, building chicken coops to house all of us in communal rows, telling us how we have to decorate our houses, what books we have to read, what media we have access to and what we have to think.
If anyone is going to do that, let it be the states. I can choose where I want to live. If I want to be around people who freely smoke marijuana, I’ll move to a state where that’s possible. If I want to be with the crazies I’ll move to California.
In the states, each of us is closer to those who are making the decisions that affect our daily lives. I do not want some bureaucrat in Washington DC deciding whether or not I can smoke in my own home, even if doing so is going to kill me.