Smoking is healthier than fascism

June 9, 2:06 PMBurlington Conservative ExaminerMike Smith

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If people needed to be forced to quit, Nicorette wouldn't be a bestseller.

A few days ago, WCAX filed a brief story whose title and contents summarize everything that is wrong with our society's current attitude toward smoking. I'll reproduce it here in full.

It turns out there is an upside to higher taxes; it may be the key to getting people to quit smoking.

A year after New York raised its cigarette tax to $2.75-per-pack, which is the highest in the nation, the number of adult smokers is at the lowest rate ever recorded.

The Health Department says the state saw the number of adult smokers drop 12 percent between 2007 and 2008.

And the title? “High Taxes are the New Nicorette.”

First off, let me say that that analogy alone is horrendously dishonest. Nicorette is a product; people choose whether or not to buy it. It's a successful product because many, many people want to cut down on smoking, or quit altogether. They choose to spend their money on bitter, foul-tasting gum because they believe in the benefits associated with it. So they voluntarily part with their money.

High taxes, on the other hand, are not a choice. If you refuse to pay them, you go to jail. Comparing a voluntary business transaction based on the promise of mutual benefit to a government-enforced act of coercion and theft is akin to comparing apples to razor blades. One is good for you; the other will cut you if abused.

Ah, but sales taxes are different, and can be avoided by choosing not to buy the taxed product in question! That, the social engineers say, is the “key” to forcing a lifestyle change upon free individuals. And that is why we need to look very skeptically and critically at the motives of these nanny statists, and at the constitutional ethics of their coercive actions.

It's time to back up a few steps and look at the big picture here.

Could high tobacco taxes “encourage” people to quit smoking, and decrease the number of overall smokers? Sure they could. Taking the New York figures at face value isn't difficult; making a product artificially more expensive will naturally decrease its usage. This basic truth alone is touted by nanny statists as the “proof” that higher taxes are the answer to creating a better, more healthy society.

Is it though?

I've read the United States Constitution. More than once. It's a beautiful document, and much more pleasurable to read than the current U.S. tax code. Unlike that mammoth, depressing document, Article I, Section 8 gets right to the point: “The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”

And no, the “general Welfare” does not mean “anything the governor of New York, the Congress, or Barack Obama thinks it should mean.” When the Constitution was being drafted, the anti-federalists were right to be concerned that this clause would be abused, and that it would serve as a loophole for unlimited and oppressive government. James Madison calmed their fears in Federalist No. 41:

It has been urged and echoed that [the power to collect taxes for the “general welfare”] amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the... general welfare... But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?... For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?

If forcing people to quit smoking had fallen under the purview of the “general welfare” clause, the Framers would have specifically included it. It doesn't, and they didn't.

That being the case, the near-rape of smokers with high tobacco taxes, federal or state, is unconstitutional. Any power not specifically afforded to the federal government by the Constitution is automatically reserved for the states, but not if that power happens to violate the Constitution. That's why federal intervention was necessary to overturn state segregation laws during the turbulent Civil Rights era.

The Constitution is not an obsolete or irrelevant document; it is the bedrock of liberty upon which this nation rests. Adherence to it, and observance of it, is critical to safeguarding that liberty. It's the main source of principles in politics.

Unfortunately, too many control freaks in all levels of government have abandoned those principles in favor of Pragmatism – the overrated “practical” doctrine that encourages the use of whatever approach “works," principles be damned. Well, as WCAX demonstrated, high tobacco taxes “work,” but are they constitutional? Are they ethical? Are they right?

The Framers say no.

Millions of people in this country choose to smoke, and millions choose to quit. People appreciate and value their freedom to choose, and nowhere in our founding documents is there a justification for abusing the tax code to micromanage their lives for the sake of some elusive common good.

It's time to cut down on Pragmatism and focus on principles again.

Plus, if using tobacco taxes to pay for socialized medicine is still “in,” then that's another reason the federal and state governments should think twice about forcing their unwilling benefactors to give up the habit that will supposedly help create a perfect, fair, government-run rationing scheme.