[thecavemaster]

People should be free to spend their money as they please. Taxes should not be about punishing people and causing them pain, whether they choose to drink themselves to sleep every night of sail a yacht. Taxes should be levied to support essential government functions and they should not target any subset of people. As long as smoking and drinking are legal activities, then you should have no right to punish people for partaking. It is all about power and control for liberals. Punishment should be reserved for criminals in our society.

What about the societal "pain" caused by smoking? Is making sure black folks have access to corporately owned eating establishments an essential government function, Hoot? What say you? If only going to sleep were the real consequence of smoking and drinking oneself into a state of dis-health.... Shall we recite here the various maladies associated with too much smoke and drink? The exorbitant costs associated with treating same? Lost wages, lost productivity, lost consortiuum? What say you, Hoot?