"lets do that on all of Mcdonalds, Wendys, Buger King, etc, etc food because they are responsable for a huge % of our nations number one threat, obesity"

When someone eats a Big Mac next to you, is he/she automatically forcing the food down OTHER people's throats too?

"ban public pools"

When someone swims in a pool do YOU automatically get wet too if you're nearby? Not unless your ALSO in the pool or unless someone is ignorant enough to SPLASH you right?

"ban auto racing"

Again, when someone gets in a race car, does that automatically put everybody around him in the car with him?

LIKE SECOND HAND SMOKE DOES?

I have an idea, lets ban stupidity – [...]!

Next time, read the existing posts in a thread and maybe you'll get an idea of what the issue is you before you say something as asinine as what you just posted.

By the way, I'm sure Hillary will do just FINE without your vote.

She just lost my vote.

As I pointed out in my initial post, cigarette smoke affects everyone, smokers and non-smokers alike. So why are you defending something that harms YOU in the process? You cannot deny this, the health hazards of smoking (like lung CANCER) have been well-proven.

And Jon in Sacramento, it's not just a little "discomfort". Like I said, I can DIE from an asthma attack. People like myself are the reason for local smoking bans around the country. And it can be especially harmful to young children, expectant mothers, the elderly, and heck, anyone. Aside from asthma attacks, other immediate symptoms include stuffy or runny noses, watery or burning eyes, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, a feeling of suffocation, etc.

It's not my fault I have asthma. It certainly wasn't my choice to put up with a lifetime of pills and inhalers. But smoking those cancer-on-a-sticks definitely is.

You wrote, "What you’re saying is that Mary’s freedom to breath fresh air is less important than your freedom to blow smoke in her face."

David, what I don't support is the "victim" mentality. Personally – I don't smoke. My parents did and I understand the feeling of being "trapped" in the backseat of the car while both parents puffed away (windows cracked enough to blow the smoke to the backseat).

So not being a fan of cigarette smoke I make adjustments. If I'm walking behind someone smoking either I walk faster to pass them or I slow down letting them get farther ahead. If I'm standing outside and someone is smoking – I move to a smokeless area.

MOST people who smoke understand it can bother non-smokers and are pretty considerate. I've only ever asked a few people if they didnt mind waiting or not smoking in situations where I had my kids or unable to "adjust". They (smokers) were very respectable and agreed not to smoke in that moment.

Blowing smoke purposely into someone's face isn't acceptable. But heavens we have become such a fragile society that every little "discomfort" means restricting someone else's right?

for seven years, the fda did not release nicotine amounts for different brands of cigarettes, as they had been doing for previous years.

All the while, nicotine levels rose in all major cigs. At the same time this information was not being released, states across the country pushed for raises in federal cigarette taxes.

Raise taxes to lower smoking rates, while allowing big tobacco to raise nicotine levels, making them more addictive, and efectively cancelling out any lowering of cigarette smokers.

Freedoms are often in conflict. The freedom to blast music conflicts with other's freedom to sleep. Freedom to fire shots in the air conflicts with freedom to walk through the park. Freedom to go shopping in the nude conflicts with freedom to protect children from sexuality. We make laws to resolve these conflicts. That means limits on some freedoms, like it or not.

What you’re saying is that Mary’s freedom to breath fresh air is less important than your freedom to blow smoke in her face.

You wrote, "This is all about protecting those who DO NOT SMOKE. So get off your high horse."

- – - – - – -

Sorry you have asthma but should your "condition" restrict the rights and choices of others?

How about we restrict public consumption of alcohol? It would dramatically reduce DUIs, and the deaths/injuries associated, right?

How about we confiscate all the privately owned firearms? Then they wouldn't be available to rob or kill others, right?

Our fore fathers (some tobacco farmers) fought and designed a country of freedoms. Besides.. if you don't like the someone smoking in California – duck into a bar!

Hillary = No Public Smoking Allowed

"WHAAAA! They wont let me be ignorant and make others deal with MY ignorant habit that effects those around me!"

"Everyone ELSE is just too lazy to get up and MOVE so I don't blow smoke in their faces!"

LOL! Don't forget to sue Big Tobacco when you get cancer from your OWN STUPID DECISIONS too!

After all, it's certainly not YOUR fault right?

Now keep crying people!

When I think public places I think parks and other open places. Is anyone making you stand next to a smoker and inhale the fumes? People always seem to ignore the fact that the air isn't exactly clean to begin with and want to blame smoking for 100% of the respiratory problems.

Now if she was talking about smoking in your car when your children are present I would be all for banning it in this case because of the fact that someone else is being forced to put up with it.

So before you start talking about who is selfish and who isn't I suggest that you take a look in the mirror ma'am. I am sick of people who think that the Constitution allows for the banning everything under the sun. This is supposed to be a free country but some people seem to have forgotten that small detail that our founding fathers paid for in blood.

Why are you people defending a habit that not only kills you slowly, but harms non-smokers as well? You smokers are being incredibly insensitive and selfish. My right to breathe clean air and not DIE from an asthma attack trumps your supposed "right" to smoke in public.

And by the way, perhaps some of you should check your reading comprehension. No has said anything about banning smoking outright (i.e., in your own home). This is not about going after you smokers or discrimination or anything like that. This is all about protecting those who DO NOT SMOKE. So get off your high horse.

So go ahead, smoke. Just don't bring me down to the grave with you.

1) Voted FOR the war with Iraq
2) Voted FOR funding the war
3) Voted AGAINST funding the war
4) Says progress is being made in Iraq
5) Wants the democratically elected leader of Iraq removed
6) Criticizes Obama for engaging in hypotheticals
7) Says (hypothetically) a terrorist attack will help Republicans
Wants to ban smoking in all public areas of this country

WHY is she considered the "front-runner"??

No wonder all the states are pushing forward the democrat nomination... the longer Hillary campaigns the more she loses support!

I second Andy's post, what does Kim mean by Bush fooling people in regards to smoking? Another minor point, how could Abe Lincoln say something about the current President aprox 150 years ago. Yes, I am making a stupid point, but not near as stupid as Kim's post.

Since it's 'politically correct' to go after people that smoke...(because we all know they're such bad people) this type of stuff comes out. Why not ban cars, they contribute far more to 'global warming' than cigarettes.

Or, since it's in our "best interest" not to smoke, ban cigs or make them illegal.

It's time for politicians to put up or shut up! I'm a smoker, and since moving to Ohio from Florida, I notice the proce on my carton of smokes has gone from 28 dollars to about 40. On top of that, we have the ban in Ohio that prohibits smoking indoors at "public places" (read bars). The bar owner has no right to establish HIS/HER local policy and run their business the way they wish, the government tells them what to do.

I say that this is a perfect example of how freedoms in this country are being eroded. Does a non-smoker have the 'right to choose' when it comes to patronizing an establishment with such a policy? If you don't like it, don't go there. Likewise, a proprietor has the right to not allow smoking in their establishment.

But, you'll never see any politician on either side go for an all out ban on smokes. Why? Too much revenue for them to spend on pork-barrel projects.

I just wonder if she really feels this way or said that because the crowd was definitely and anti-smoking crowd.

Have a good day,

Chip

I really hope the Democrats will outlaw fast food as well and make it easier for me to sue the ones who marketed this fatty food and made me buy it against my own free will.

And while we're at it, let's put a $2.00 gallon tax on gasoline, so the poor won't be able to afford driving their cars and only the rich will have the option of private transportation.

Ban overweight citizens and tape their mouths shut.

Ban junk food so kids and teens can be healthy.

Ban guns so people can be safe.

Ban cars run by petro vs. hybrid models so people can breath cleaner air.

Ban violence on TV, in Video Games, in Theatres to save our children.

Ban Rap and like music to protect our children from lewd language.

Ban certain religions that do not meet the required scriptures of those in power.

Ban muslims as they are presumed to be terrorists.

Ban knives, sharp objects, aerosol containers from flights to provide paying flyers safety.

Ban racist comments from public airways to preserve our moral fibre.

Veto everything that is not productive to the Republican Party.

Ya gotta love our Democratic Society. Justice and Freedom for all!

But Alcoholic Beverages are alive and well!

Senseless Insanity.

No one is saying you CANT smoke, just don't make others who DON'T deal with it. Keep your ignorant behavior to yourselves. You guys are the same morons who increase the cost of everybody ELSE'S insurance and then turn around and sue tobacco companies for your own continuous stupidity when you get cancer or emphysema.

I think the next time some ignorant moron smokes in front of me (therefore making the decision FOR me that I should breathe in HIS cigarette smoke), I think I'll start picking my nose and wiping it on him.

Maybe then ignorant smokers will start getting the picture.

Van

I have a couple of suggestions for "liberal" Clinton:

1. If tobacco is so freaking bad - force tobacco companies to take it off the market. How many other industries are allowed to keep a product on the shelf where there is absolutely no safe level of usage and even non-users who happen to just be in the vicinity are exposed to harm? The fact is this will never happen. Not just because the tobacco lobby has bought enough politicians but the major reason is that all that tax revenue will have to be replaced with increased taxes in other areas and people hate politicians who raise their taxes.

2. Force the tobacco industry to at least clean up their product. Regulate them. Don't allow them to increase the level of nicotine to make it more addictive. A great deal of what is so dangerous in cigarettes isn't necessary to the product. The additives and pesticides are a major factor in the danger of smoking. While smoking itself still wouldn't be safe, it would be a whole lot safer if the product was regulated and since the industry can't be trusted to do it themselves, it means governmental regulation.

This is just political pandering on Clinton's part. Trying to appease some voters but sending a clear message to the lobby that they have nothing to fear - it will be business as usual. Clinton isn't even a real Democrat. The only priority Clinton has is getting herself elected and she'll sell out to anyone who can help her get there.

I'd love to see a woman president, but a REAL woman - not a woman who is trying to ooze more testosterone than the male candidates by being a war hawk and helping to usher in a police state in the US. I hope women won't feel pressured to vote for her just to try to break the glass ceiling. We need it broken - but the stakes are just too high right now to break it with the wrong woman. And Clinton is definitely the wrong woman.

A simple solution offers itself. Require all tobacco products to be nicotine free. This will separate the addicts from those who just like a good smoke. If cigarettes cost $50 or $100 a pack, smokers would be breaking into our houses and stealing our stereos to support their habit, just like other junkies.

Those individuals who speak of our right to damage our own health have a point though. The medical bill for all those fatsos out there will be enormous. The health of obese people deteriorates steadily. Should we outlaw fat? Round up all those chubbos and put them in boot camp environments until they are healthy again? Ditto for alcohol. We can predict that drinkers will cost the public a fortune in health care, car repairs, road repairs, etc. etc.

A lot of people do self-destructuve things that the public will end up paying for. Telling people to buck up and develop some will power has not worked for the last hundred years, but if we keep doing the same thing, maybe the problem will go away.

You can argue that no one would choose to die prematurely. Particularly since tobacco is an addictive substance and many people would have a hard time choosing to quit. It is as though tobacco takes away free will. But does banning smoking take away a right to choose? MY RIGHT to choose?

Clinton supports the right of a woman to choose an ABORTION (I put this in bold only to catch the eye of casual readers, it is not meant as an internet shout), so clearly the right to choose, even if others find the choice an unwise, even horrifying choice, can be defended. Why shouldn't I be able to have a choice? If a woman can choose to have her own unborn child terminated, why in the world can't I choose to smoke a cigarette! Which is more detrimental to health!

That one is rare in Politics, usually the same old smell.

I guess the Tobacco Money didn't sway her vote.

I agree with eliminating smoking from bars, restaurants, airplanes, hotels and other enclosed places, but get [...]off our backs for having one outside. Sanctimonious jerks.

And stop equating it to murder. If you think it's that dangerous, you shouldn't even leave the house considering your power probably comes from a coal plant belching far more smoke into the atmosphere daily than all the smokers combined.

A University of California economics study puts the combined health care costs of smoking in the U.S. at $72.7 billion per year. Here’s the story:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/0916/smoking.html

Sometimes less costs us a lot more.

Arizona passed a state wide law barring smoking inside any public building, including bars and restaurants. Many people likened the law to banning smoking. The reality is the smoker still has the luxury of smoking. They just can't do it in a public building.

It is unfortunate that people have to smoke outside when it's 115 degrees but the smoker also has the option of quitting. Imagine all the money they would save by doing so.

Hillary does sound like a tax and spend democrat with her proposed tax increase on cigarettes. Typical for a Democrat.

Banning everything until America is dead and buried will be a good day for Liberals only.

I can sum up Hillary Clinton's experience quite succinctly.

1980's = Board of Directors for WalMart.

1990's = Horribly botched an attempt at universal healthcare.

2003 = Voted to go to war in Iraq.
Versus Obama's experience.

2003 = Said Iraq was a "dumb war" when it was political suicide to say it.
2006 = co-sponsered and passed first ethics reform bill in 12 years of Republican congress.

1990's = State Senator that signed more bi-partisan bills than anyone else, 230 bills.

1980's First African American editor of Harvard Law Review, who turned down 17 job offers from corporations that would have paid at least 170,000 a year salary, to instead be a community organizer on behalf of the poor for 14,000 a year.

Which one of these two do you think is more qualified to represent the American People?

Obama 08.