Richard Disney

The money quote from this article about overturning a smoking ban in Germany is this one near the end, “Under the Nazis smoking was frowned upon. After 1945 smoking became a symbol of a post-war freedoms and broadmindedness.”

Looks like the Progressive Smoking Nazis are making a resurgence.

Article follows:

The ruling came after a case brought by the owner of two small bars, who claim that their business has been unfairly hit by the smoking ban.

Introduced in patchwork fashion across the country’s 16 federal states earlier this year, Germany’s smoking ban has been poorly received by often tobacco-friendly Germans, about a third of whom smoke.

The laws have often been ignored or barely enforced, with the owners of small bars and restaurants claiming that their businesses were threatened by the legislation.

Among them were the owners of two separate one-room pubs in Berlin and the south-western state Baden-Wuerttemberg.

They claimed that their bars small size prevented them cordoning off a smokers’ area, as other bars have been allowed to, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. The constitutional court agreed.

“I am satisfied all around,” said Sylvia Thimm, owner of ‘Doors’ in Berlin, one of the two bars involved in the case.

German tobacco lobbyists DVZ said the smoking ban was heavy handed.

“We are warning against a growing culture of bans and regulations in Germany,” said DVZ chief Wouda Kuipers.

In fact, Germany has long been notoriously heavily regulated, but smoking has established itself as a lone act of rebellion against the prevailing culture.

Under the Nazis smoking was frowned upon. After 1945 smoking became a symbol of a post-war freedoms and broadmindedness.

Now, all German states will have to review their smoking bans and come up with new legislation by 2009, either banning smoking outright or allowing it in one-room bars too.

German court overturns smoking ban - Telegraph

Tags: smokingban, germany, nazis, progressive nazis, fascist, cigarettes, tobacco, berlin, baden-wuerttemberg, liberal fascism

This is a concerning post as the enforcement of tolerance is trumping the protection of freedom of speech worldwide. The spirit and fact of speech as a right is to have the right to say or write things that offend others, including governments. When governments arrest or intimidate people who say or write what they think, it has a chilling effect on the entire society which weakens the people and strengthens government.

Post from Publius Forum follows:

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bloggers are being arrested more and more as the importance of the Internet is realized by governments across the world, at least so warns the BBC.

It seems an alarming report where community activists and democracy advocates are finding themselves being oppressed by government, arrested, and maybe even tortured because of their blogging.

But, one little fact of the story is never really focussed on in this alarming BBC report on the release of the WIA report from the University of Washington.

The fact that bloggers aren’t threatened much in democratic nations has been glossed over by this report.

Unfortunately, a cursory reading of this piece would leave the reader with the vague feeling that people all over the world are being arrested merely because they are blogging, but that isn’t quite the case.

The way this report is written serves as a perfect example of a PCism more concerned with upsetting the tender sensibilities of tyrannical, undemocratic governments, than in reporting the oppression of its citizens. It’s a PCism gone so far that it makes the report uninformative at least to the most important aspect of the reason these bloggers are being arrested.

Here is how the BEEB starts their almost whitewashed report:

“More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.

Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.”

The BBC also gravely informs us that, “Citizens have faced arrest and jail for blogging about many different topics,” and that “Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticized public policies and took political figures to task.”The report goes on to explain why this new threat to bloggers has arisen. The report said the rising number of arrests was testament to the “growing” political importance of blogging.

Click here to read entire post Jailed for Blogging « Publius’ Forum

Tags: PCism, bbc, bloggers arrested, blogging, political importance, warner todd huston, publius’ forum