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Greg Holmes letter to C-J on Dan Seum

Dear Editor:

     State Senator Dan Seum, hero of the successful fight to get rid of vehicle emissions testing, has a new bill to prohibit local governments in Kentucky from imposing smoking bans.  Your September 8 editorial, savaging Senator Seum for this courageous piece of legislation, is a clever but misguided attempt to twist Libertarian opposition to government controls into an endorsement of local tyranny. 

      Incomprehensible though it may be to your editorial board, laws that promote individual freedom are good; laws that restrict individual freedom are bad.  What if a local government tried to ban or regulate the content of the Courier-Journal? 

     In other words, the mere fact that a noisy cabal of Lexington busybodies managed to enact a politically correct superstition into law that bans smoking in private businesses—even in bars and cigar stores, for Heaven’s sake—does not mean that a local government in Kentucky should be permitted to oppress its citizens in that way.  After all, local governments are chartered under state law, and any ordinance that exceeds local authority under state law is and should be void. 

     Government should be carried out at the most local feasible level.  However, this is a principle designed to maximize individual freedom, not the power of government.  We are not the least bit interested in maximizing the power of local politicians to impose their petty wills on business owners and other citizens who disagree with them. 

     A good example is the federal Constitution, which the Supreme Court has interpreted to mean that states cannot establish tariffs to impede the flow of interstate commerce.  By your editorial’s logic, the State of Tennessee should be free to impose import duties on goods shipped from Kentucky. 

     Individual freedom works—not just for the press—but for everyone!

Sincerely,

Greg Holmes

Vice Chairman

Libertarian Party of Kentucky

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