Governmental Erosion of Personal Liberty -- Connecticut Town Institutes Smoking Ban on Public Street

As Reported in the Hartford Courant: Bristol, CT -- Bristol Considers Smoking Ban On Public Streets

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I'm not a smoker. I never have been and I never will be, so as far smoking goes, I have no horse in this race. However, I am a citizen that is concerned with governmental intrusion into our lives. Smoking is generally unpopular, so it's an easy target. When government over reaches it's bounds in any direction, it's dangerous for all of us. An attack on the freedoms of one group encroaches on the freedoms of all.

The town of Bristol, Connecticut has banned smoking on a small town road (Newell Road), and is considering implementing a smoking ban on all city streets that boarder parks, schools, libraries, and hospitals. Outside. A total ban. OUTSIDE folks!

Smoking generally does not bother me (as a non-smoker) as much as it tends to bother other non-smokers. I tend to agree that smoking bans in indoor public venues are generally a good idea. However, when is enough enough?! The nanny-state already "protects" us from ourselves with seat belt laws, transfat bans, indoor smoking bans, "unhealthy" snack bans in schools, and various blue laws. Now they are moving to smoking bans outside in public places?! We're not talking about an outdoor concert or the like where people are gathered outdoors in close proximity. We're talking about a general ban.

I've written about bans before on this blog. I don't like them. Bans are dangerous. My frustration is that the general public seems to willingly give up their personal liberties with nary a peep.

This smoking ban may be unconstitutional. What's worse is that it just makes no sense. Who is the mayor of Bristol trying to protect? With huge budget deficits facing the state of Connecticut, and perhaps the town of Bristol, perhaps the mayor should be concerned with real issues rather than attacking personal freedoms for political showmanship.

Why Newspapers Are Failing -- The Closing of The Bristol Press, New Britain Herald, and the Steady Decline of The Hartford Courant

It was announced last week that unless a buyer can be found, two local central Connecticut newspapers, The Bristol Press and New Britain Herald, will close within the month. This comes on the tail of a 25% newsroom reduction at the largest paper in Connecticut, The Hartford Courant. The Hartford Courant revamped (read: cut content) from their paper following this staff reduction. The paper is noticeably thinner. Despite this most recent big cut, the down slide of content and quality at the Hartford Courant is not a new trend. For years the paper has been going downhill. As a long time subscriber, I've witnessed the decline first hand. I can remember when the Sunday Courant used to be so think and so full of interesting information that I could hardly finish it in one day. Now I finish the Sunday paper before my first cup of coffee is done. Papers across the country are having a difficult time adjusting to the "new media" of 24 hour cable news and the internet. They are floundering to find a strategy in today's reality. Perhaps the most troubling trend for the newspaper business is an apathetic younger generation that seems to have no interest in serious news in any format.

This story is certainly not unique to Connecticut. All around, the newspaper business is in a bad place.

I am a dedicated newspaper reader. It's part of my routine and part of my life. I start every day with the Hartford Courant. However, these days even I'm having second thoughts. The content of the paper has never been thinner. Of the remaining content, much of it has fallen into a heavy bias. Perhaps the Hartford Cournat is simply playing to their market with Connecticut being one of the bluest of the blue states, but if that's the case it's not good journalism. Good journalism is supposed to be non-biased. I am not naive enough to believe that anything can be truly unbiased, but I do believe that a paper can at least strive to be impartial. The Hartford Courant has lost it's way. Out of the 5 significant regular columnists (Stan Simpson, Jim Shea, Susan Campbell, Helen Ubinas, Colin McEnroe) to the Courant, all 5 are unapologetic liberals. The paper has absolutely no conservative counterpoint to balance out the opinions. I wonder if I'm the only reader who's noticed this. Does the editorial staff notice? Do they care? They've sold their journalistic soul and become a shell of themselves. Intelligent readers, regardless of their political leanings, can tell the difference.

The Hartford Courant and the newspaper business in general needs to do what any business needs to do when they are losing out to competition. They need to improve the quality of their product. They can start by getting back to doing some real reporting and dropping the political agenda.

A Quick Truth About Corporate Taxes

President-Elect Obama has grand ideas to siphon tax revenue from the "greedy" corporations in the form of higher corporate tax rates, as well as a "windfall profits" tax. He has especially gone after the oil companies.

Remember and understand one thing: Corporations do not really pay taxes. Consumers pay taxes. Like any business, large or small, expenses such as taxes simply get passed onto the consumer.

Therefore, a "windfall profits" tax on the oil companies is nothing less than a tax on every single man and woman in this country that uses gasoline or home heating oil.
Not to be overlooked is that it's an extra tax on American oil companies that puts them at a competitive disadvantage against international companies, thereby threatening jobs.

Perhaps President-Elect Obama does not see a problem with higher gasoline prices. After all, he was quoted during his campaign to not be alarmed by this summer's gasoline prices. He was only concerned with the speed at which they got to the record high prices. I guess when you're busy chartering separate MD-80 airliners for you and your wife to separately fly to Washington DC from the same location on the same day for a 1 day trip you don't worry too much about how gasoline and heating oil prices (never mind the dreaded greenhouse gases!) might impact the "little guy" you claim to care so much about.

Temporary Hiatus

As the election season has come to an end, and the fall hunting season picks up, you can expect a slowdown (slowdown, not a full halt) to posts on Liberty Alert as I concentrate more on my other blog: connecticutoutdoors.blogspot.com.

I'm still stockpiling post ideas, so there should be plenty of material stored up once winter hits.

If you have any post suggestions, or interesting stories, leave a note. If someone manages to get me riled up enough, I'll surely leave a reply.

Understanding the Liberal Mind -- Part 2

In my on-going quest to understand the liberal mind, I again try to find some analogies to display the absurdness of liberal ideology.

Let's look at some examples of what the sports world would look like if the same principles liberals wish to apply to our government applied to sports.

1) The Windfall Bating Average Tax
Alex Rodriquez, Manny Ramirez, and Albert Pujols are 3 of the best hitters of all time. They have devoted their lives to being the best at what they do. From a very young age they have spent countless hours practicing and honing their craft. They have lifted thousands of pounds of weights, and participated in thousands of drills for hand-eye coordination improvement. They have worked themselves to exhaustion in the batting cage. They have studies video and reviewed scouting reports until their eyes glazed over. They have made sacrifices to be the best. When others were relaxing, they were working to get better. This tremendous amount of work, plus the good fortune of some level of God-given talent has paved the way for them to be listed with the greats of the game, and to eventually be enshrined into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. They are without a doubt amount the best at what they do.
However, according to liberal principles, their level of achievement is not fair to many of the other players who are not as good. Therefore, Major League Baseball will institute a Windfall Bating Average Tax. This is how the tax will work: Every player that has a batting average above .300 will be deducted 1 strike. This strike will be given to every player with a batting average below .250. Since the vast majority of player have a batting average that falls between .250 and .300, this tax will only impact a relatively small number of players. With this new tax, players batting under .250 will get 4 strikes per at bat, while players batting over .300 will only get 2 strikes per at bat.

2) The "Spread the Wealth" Act
This act is inspired by Barack Obama's "spread the wealth" quote in his conversation with "Joe the Plumber". The New York Yankees have 26 World Series championships. That's 16 more than the second place team (St. Louis Cardinals with 10)! The Yankees definitely need to spread the wealth. It's totally unfair that they have done all the things necessary to bring 26 championships to their fans, while teams like the Tampa Bay Rays have none.
In 2009, MLB will be awarding an honorary World Series Championship to the Tampa Bay Rays. Celebrate Tampa! Your team did not earn it, but we know deep down inside you really, really wanted a World Series championship.

3) From "Dream Ticket" To "Dream Team"
Even with the occasional stumble, USA basketball is recognized around the world as the standard for high quality play. It is not uncommon for Team USA to blow teams out by 30 or more points. This display of domination could cause angst in teams from other countries. It is not fair that the USA is blessed with so many resources while the rest of the world suffers. We need to understand the plight of these nations, and instead of demolishing these teams, we need to learn to be our brother's keepers. Therefore, Team USA will agree to face these teams on "equal terms". To make the terms equal, Team USA will hereby spot every team 15 points at the start of every game. This will hopefully appease the basketball extremists from other countries that may refuse to play Team USA, or worst, possibly engage in "dirty play" (hard fouls, grabbing, etc.) against team USA.

4) The Travis Knight Rule
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. However, since that time the pendulum in all major American sports has swung considerably in the other direction. Even though African Americans make up less than 15% of the population, the players that make up the NBA are approximately 83% African American. The whites that make up some of the remaining 17% are often from European countries. The NFL also has a high percentage of African American players, and MLB is filled with Latin players.

I understand that teams try to field the best players, regardless of background, in order to give them the best chance to win. However, where does that leave diversity? Diversity, not skill or qualifications, is much more critical to creating a team. Therefore, in the name of diversity, starting in 2009 the following requirements will be added to the lineups of the 3 major team sports in the USA:

NBA:
The NBA will be required to start 2 white players, 1 Asian player, and 1 Hispanic/Latin player. This leaves one remaining wildcard spot, which will likely go to an African American player. This line up will better reflect the make up of America, and will truly be a diverse team. After all, Democrats want a presidential cabinet that "looks like America". Shouldn't your starting line up look like America?

MLB:
Baseball has plenty of white players, and plenty of Latin players, and a growing number of Asian players coming over from Japan. However, MLB is still short on African American players. Additionally, with 9 positions per team instead of 5 as in basketball, baseball has a greater opportunity for diversity. Therefore, MLB needs to consider players of Indian origin (they can tap into the cricket leagues), and Middle Eastern origin. Therefore, MLB will be required to field a team with 2 white players, 2 black players, 2 Latin players, 1 Asian, 1 Indian player, and 1 Middle Eastern player.

NFL:
With 11 positions on offense, 11 positions on defense, and 11 positions on special teams, plus many bench positions, the NFL is a treasure chest of diversity opportunity. Sadly, today the NFL is disproportionally filled with players of African American origin, with many white American players. There are almost zero players of any other background. Since there are so many available positions in the NFL, the NFL can be the champion of diversity. Although the details have not been worked out yet, the NFL will definitely be required to increase the percentage of white players, as well as integrate players from dozens of different countries.

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Liberalism is the triumph of emotion over reason. Any logical person can see the absurdity of the above scenarios. However, all of these ideas are pushed upon our government by liberals, mostly in the name of fairness. Liberals are at war with unfairness. There is this warped feeling that there should be absolutely no hardships to be overcome in the world. Every hardship is labeled as unfair. Liberals scream "Unfair!" at every difficult situation like a kid on the school yard crying when they lose a kickball game.
Whenever liberal ideology is applied to something outside of government (parenting, sports, etc.) the illogical nature of it is clear. However, when it comes to government, emotion takes over the liberal mind and logic goes out the window.