Subject: Smoking and Marxism

My "Red-rant" comments in red at end. Greg Lang

Subject: Smoking and Marxism

Sheila,

I appreciate all that you are doing to organize, coordinate, inform and fight for the basic federal and state inalienable constitutional rights that are steadily being ignored and overridden.

Two years ago I invested the fruits of my life's work in a property and business that included a restaurant and lounge. Through the unrelenting anti-business, anti-individual and anti-property rights mindset of County and State Government and some elected representatives, I have been driven to the edge of bankruptcy. I first closed the restaurant. Then the smoking ban, which eliminated 90% of my customers, drove me to closing the facility completely.

This is particularly frustrating to me personally. In addition to working twice as hard and taking extraordinary risks as an entrepreneur for 40 years, I managed to donate over 20 years of public service to our society. I served our nation in war, I served our state and several communities in a variety of appointed and elected positions. I no longer recognize or understand the society in which we live. One cannot help but think the majority of Minnesota citizens, elected officials and governmental agencies have agreed that socialist Marxism is the preferable way of life. That the government is in fact "Our Mother" and we can just sit at home and be satisfied with what our "Mother" grants us. Life is so much easier that way, until all the producers are gone and the government has no one left to tax or control. Then what?

I reject that !

I do think the "Theater Performance" loophole is the wrong approach. Fighting the elimination of personal and property rights is the battle. Fight the war to the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court, demanding the clear and final acknowledgement that our constitutional right of personal choice and the right to allow legal conduct on our private property cannot be usurped.

I wish I could contribute financially, but am unable at the moment. I will continue to support the fight. As Jason Lewis states in his promo, "At what point do the citizens of Minnesota rise up and revolt ?" It is now!

David Gageby
Harbor Village
St. Paul Park, MN

Start of "Red Rant". The author has some good points. According to my googling he took a course to the MN Court of appeals in the late 1990's and won (an out state estate jurisdiction case) so he has knowledge of how the appeals process works. I also have this type of knowledge. I read both books on the landmark first amendment case Cowles versus Cohen (http://stillbornrevolution.com/ (scroll down) Cowles (Media) was the the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Elliot Rothenburg was the lawyer, working out of his basement who took the case to the US Supreme Court and won. Dan Cohen was the plaintiff. Both wrote books which I read well before this started this. The first lesson of the books is that the appeals process is long and difficult. The second is that grand philosophical points don't work well in appeals. Basically you have to "figuratively" catch them "with their pants down" and focus on this. In Cowles v Cohen our two daily newspapers "outed" Dan Cohen as a source of information that was negative to a democrat. It was done in a ham handed manner worthy of "Citizen Kane". When our two dailies had to do some "explaining" then then got in trouble. Same here. the "theater exemption" is horribly written in many ways. My humble website http://freedomtoact.com/ mainstream media news stories going back almost three months while the legislature was in session. (they have two weeks more) My editorial stance, which is mine is that, if the MN legislature wants to reopen the law and rewrite or eliminate the theater provision this is fine. I support obeying the "letter" of the law. As Clint Eastwood said "Go ahead, make my day!". Reopening the law opens it up for debate and a publicly recorded vote.

Minnpost.com recently had an article that seemed to disparage our chances in court (does anyone know if George Soros smokes?). In Cohen versus Cowles the two local dailies "just happened" to publish stories disparaging Dan Cohen's chances everytime the case came up for appeals court review. Hmm!, is Minnpost.com with it's many alumni from our two newspapers carrying on the tradition? Does George Soros have the appearance characteristics we tend to associate with a "smokers face"? Greg Lang