Friday, August 12, 2005
When criticizing opinion pieces from
The State, I usually stick to the dreck they manufacture themselves rather than what they import. (Although they do have a history as a
cut-and-paste operation.) But this
piece of work from the Boston Globe is both glaringly obnoxious and perfectly in line with
The State's Big Government paternalism that it deserves to be exposed.
On Monday Peter Jennings died from lung cancer. Since then has been much celebrated since as a consumate professional, a sort of "reporter's reporter." I'm agnostic on the matter.
But Derrick Z. Jackson of
The Boston Globe uses the occasion of Jennings's demise as a good time to riff on the evils of tobacco companies. I suppose Jackson thinks himself both enlightened and brave for daring to "speak truth to power" and seeing the bigger picture in the anchorman's death.
Jackson does all but indict tobacco company executives for murdering Jennings. But Jennings started smoking when he was 13, which is illegal. He continued for twenty years after the government started placing warnings on every box. After finally quitting in the 1980s, Jennings resumed smoking less than four years ago.
But to hear Jackson tell it, you would think that Jennings had no part in his own death.
Sure, cigarettes are unhealthy. But at what point do you say that adults in a free country have a
choice, and that
they are responsible for the consequences of their actions?
For
The State, that point never comes. For
The State, another law, lawsuit, or regulation is the answer to every problem.
Posted by Bill Smith at 9:07 AM |
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