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Freedom Outlawed in LEFT-ington, KY, Formerly Known as Lexington, KY  

by Jeff "Mario" Smith, Guerilla Reporter

Today, the local "liberal rag" we "Leftingtonians" are forced to accept as our newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, disrespectfully known as the Heraldo-Liberal by this reporter, and known by many others as the Marxist-Leader, proudly stated that our illustrious elected officials have voted to outlaw smoking in public places. Additionally, they voted to condemn a privately owned and well-run water company in order to steal it from its owners using the fear tactic of evil "foreign ownership" as the reason.

Our new Liberal Mayor, Teresa Isaac, has even taken it upon herself to extend health care benefits to domestic partners" and did this without consulting our elected council representatives who have placed a temporary hold on it. She promises to veto anything they do to stop this leftist attack on the family unit using our tax dollars. Any questions why our town named for the Revolutionary War embattled Lexington, MA has been renamed LEFTington by this guerilla reporter?

Of course, the Heraldo-Liberal endorses anything that expands the big brother powers of government over we sheep who are too stupid to take care of ourselves. Gee, thanks liberals. I don’t know how I survived so many years on my own!

It is a sad day for Fayette Countians who care about Freedom, Liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and our beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights, a sad day indeed!

Smoking in Public

Let me deal with the issue of smoking in a public place and let me preface that which I am about to say by admitting that I am a non-smoker and proud of it. That having been said, let me say that I do not like to come in contact with cigarette smoke, and I think that cigarette smoking is a repulsive, dirty, and very unhealthy habit. However, I am also an American who still believes in Freedom and the once popular, but now forgotten, notion that we are all responsible for ourselves and our own actions.

I do not wish to force my desire for smoke-free air upon smokers. They have made a decision to engage in a known unhealthy habit, that is proven to be addictive, and is not illegal. It is their business if they wish to engage in smoking in public places that allow for that, and it is my choice whether or not to join them in those places. I usually choose not to and my life is not diminished any because I make that choice for myself without big brother’s input. I can live without them and they can live without me.

I do not understand this mentality of forcing ones desires upon others and using "big brother" to do it, but then again, I already stated that I believe in personal responsibility. This is analogous to the "driving while talking on the cell phone" debate. Advocates of big brother government, aka leftists, want to outlaw talking on the cell phone while driving because, they say, there are many deaths due to traffic accidents caused by distracted drivers talking on cell phones. I say horse hockey!

Again, take responsibility for your own actions. If you can talk on the phone and maintain a safe driving style, then do it. If you can’t, then don’t. It is that simple. I don’t buy into this notion that we need big brother to protect us from ourselves. How ridiculous! I am beginning to see all this over regulation of our lives as something to keep the elected officials busy so they don’t have to tackle really important issues.

If we need to know if someone was distracted while talking on the phone when they "caused" an accident, we can easily obtain the billing records for that cell phone. There, the problem is solved without big brother’s overbearing attacks on our freedoms.

Now that our city council has outlawed smoking in public places, one must wonder what will be next. I mean, come on, we have a plethora of establishments whose sole reason for existence is to make a profit by having people DRIVE to their establishments to drink and then DRIVE home. Hmm. Of course, included in this group are restaurants also.

Now let’s see here. Smoking is addictive and consumption of alcohol is addictive. Smoking causes deaths and consumption of alcohol causes deaths. Smoking supposedly places innocent bystanders in danger and so does consuming alcohol. Smoking and alcohol consumption are both legal activities. Smoking and drinking are both unnecessary luxuries and both are expensive and both are taxed large by big brother. Hmm.

Alcohol consumption directly kills many Americans every year via driving while intoxicated, but cigarette smoking is much less dangerous and the second hand smoke issue is still being debated. We pay bunches of money to public safety workers whose job it is to find and arrest drunk drivers, or if after the fact, clean up their messes on the highways and byways.

Which would you rather have coming at you on a dark rainy road, a car that is driven by someone drinking or by someone smoking? I use this same question when considering marijuana prohibition and the answer is always the same. Give me the smoker please. It is only a matter of time before a group of freedom-hating leftists come up with the idea of prohibiting drinking in public. Mark my words.

An article from Reuters out of Chicago points out that LEFTington, KY is the least likely place for a smoking ban to occur because KY is a tobacco state and always has been. It says, "A smoking ban has been passed in the unlikely city of Lexington, Kentucky, the second-largest city in a leading tobacco-growing state that has the highest percentage of adult smokers in the United States."

Oops, wrong Mr. Reuters, you aren’t thinking about the LEFTist control that exists over LEFTington. With the LEFT in charge, we can expect only more of big government, high taxes, and ridiculous "feel good" policies that do nothing except infringe upon our freedoms and make government more powerful and more socialist in nature.

And another thing, where is Gatewood Galbraith, the local political personality who professes to be all about freedom and our Constitution on this issue? I have heard nothing from Gatewood on this latest attack on our liberties in LEFTington. In addition, Gatewood and I disagree on the issue of government ownership of our utility as he falls for the "foreign ownership" farce being used to scare the sheeple. Come on Gatewood, we expect better from you. I really enjoyed his participation on the legalization of hemp issue and unfortunately have heard nothing on this for along time either. I miss the old Gatewood.

Condemnation of a privately-owned utility

The same day the council voted to ban smoking in public, they also voted to pursue condemnation proceedings against the local water company that is privately owned by a German entity and is functioning well. The local water company is a valuable "corporate citizen", if you will, and always has been. The fear tactic that is employed by advocates for condemnation is the issue that the utility is foreign owned.

Folks, it is way too late to worry about foreign ownership of anything in this country, way, way too late. We lost our manufacturing base, our banks, many of our utilities, and even the exclusive access to our Congress years ago to foreign entities of many stripes and flavors. When I was growing up, my union boilermaker father preached often of the evils of foreign cars and other foreign products on our economy and on our sovereignty. Ross Perot told us about the "great sucking sound" caused by NAFTA, GATT, and other socialist, globalist agreements. They were both right!

To make foreign ownership an issue of importance in the Year of Our Lord 2003, is ludicrous at best. Additionally, when the utility becomes "municipal-owned", it will no longer fall under the watchful eye of the Public Service Commission (PSC). Hmm. And they tell us it will be better for taxpayers if the city owns our water utility. Hmm.

To make our elected officials blush even more, the utility has a near perfect service record and is a wonderful corporate citizen of our community. Our largest city park is owned by the Water Company, and we use it like it is city-owned and we always have as far as I know.

The issue about LEFTington owning its water utility has absolutely nothing to do with foreign ownership. This is merely a fear tactic used by leftists with lots of money who want government to own everything. Their idea of Utopia is the USA becoming a socialist part of the global one world government chaired by the United Nations. No thanks! It doesn’t take a mental heavyweight to see where all this is taking us.

As far as government ownership of anything goes, it is my position that government should own nothing, absolutely nothing. We the people do not exist to fund government expansion. On the contrary, we exist as free and sovereign individuals who want nothing more than to be responsible for our own destinies and to have the freedom of pursuit of happiness for our families. It really is that simple.

This well-run utility, if successfully stolen by the leftists in control of LEFTington, will go the way of all things the government touches. By that I mean, we will see the good service we now receive become a relic of the past. The cost will rise sharply to fund government inefficiency and for them to sneak in charges for God only knows what else. It will be riddled with inefficient government employees who get automatic raises, large pensions, benefits beyond what the private sector can afford, and cannot be fired, especially if they are black, female, homosexual, hispanic, or any other flavor of politically correct minority. Yep, mark my words, the price of a glass of water in LEFTington just went up!

Unfortunately, the sheeple who inhabit LEFTington will soon forget all of this while they pursue their University of Kentucky sports addiction and other entertainment oriented distractions. The water bill will rise sharply while the service quality degrades and we will all be paying a lot more for that dirty glass of water.

Do you want to know the most ironic thing in all of this to me? No? I am going to tell you anyway. When my son returns from freeing the sheeple of Iraq, he will be coming home to a town that has taken away some of his freedoms while he was risking life and limb to provide more freedoms to the people of Iraq. How ironic indeed! Where is that state that the Libertarian Party wants to take over? Count me in!

Note: Jeff "Mario" Smith is a "guerilla reporter" for Patriot Vocals (www.patriotvocals.info) and Free Kentucky (www.freekentucky.com). In addition, Mr. Smith is a POW MIA activist with Rolling Thunder KY and Task Force Omega KY (www.greasyonline.com). His son is serving in Iraq as a Sergeant with the 37^th Engineer Battalion, Combat, Airborne who are performing combat engineer operations for the 101^st Airborne in the Northern part of Iraq.

"Americans are a free people, who know that freedom
is the right of every person and the future of every nation.
The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is
God's gift to humanity."
George W. Bush, State of the Union address 1/2003 

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