“Smoking Ban vs. Property Rights”

Excellent LTE from David Holcberg.

Smoking Ban vs. Property Rights

By David Holcberg (Chicago Tribune, May 9, 2007; Kansas City Star, November 15, 2007; Cincinnati Post, November 30, 2007)

Smoking bans in private property are a blatant violation of property rights.

Business owners have the right to determine whether they want to offer their customers a smoke-free environment.

No one is forced to patronize a bar, club or restaurant that allows smoking. If some people don’t want to put up with cigarette smoke, they are free to stay away. They are also free to open their own non-smoking bars and restaurants. They have no right, however, to force business owners to adopt a non-smoking policy.

Copyright © by the Ayn Rand Institute. Used with permission.

A Few Updates

My review of Bosch Fawstin’s superb graphic novel, The Infidel has been published in my favorite magazine, The Objective Standard. Fawstin did a really good job of making a great story with great illustrations. I whole heartedly recommend you purchase his work, that is “if you appreciate an engaging story driven by fundamental ideas and full of politically incorrect humor.”

I also did a few pieces for the TOS Blog. One of them being “Kudos to Rick Perry for Vetoing an Internet Tax Bill.”  I was a bit hesitant at first about praising Gov. Perry since he’s an outspoken social conservative, but with the rising tide of American states trying to tax productive Internet enterprises, it was a must that I write about this very praise-worthy act. Excerpt from the blog:

The Star-Telegram reports that “Texas store owners have said Internet retailers have an unfair price advantage because they are not required to collect state sales tax.” This is true: The brick-and-mortar stores are at a disadvantage. But the solution is not to institute a sales tax on Internet businesses but to begin repealing the sales taxes on all businesses.

The other blog post I did was “AT&T and T Mobile Have a Moral Right to Merge.”

I had some posts published in the American Thinker as well. One was about an Iraq War veteran’s lawsuit against the individual mandate in Obamacare. I wrote about his lawyer Paul J Beard the 2nd’s excellent article in The Objective Standard laying out the legal arguments against ObamaCare. And hey, it was published in the 4th of July. The other post published in AT was about Craig Biddle’s excellent interview with Reza Kahlili, an ex-CIA spy. In an exciting development, Reza’s own website actually picked it up and posted the whole thing.

Things are going well. As always, if you want almost real-time updates on my writing go to the section in my site called “Published Works.”