Moscow Knows What's Best For You

I’m not sure what business it is for the city of Moscow, or any other government entity for that matter, to dictate what legal activities are permissible on private property. But that instinctive respect for the appropriate limits of power rarely comes naturally to those who feel themselves called to rule over their fellow man. That’s why this nation’s founders gave us a constitution that imposes strict limits on the powers that government may exercise over its people. Thomas Jefferson and his brethren correctly anticipated that people who are so convinced of their own perfect wisdom would find the lure of government irresistible and would consider their natural place in the universe as dictating to everyone else the proper way to live.

The compassion fascists that have held so much sway over Moscow’s city council over the years are a perfect example of this human imperfection. Compassion fascists are not evil in the manner of Hitler or Stalin. But they are just so sure that they know what’s best for you that they believe that they should impose their enlightenment upon you, for your own sake.

Take the example of Moscow’s administrative committee. These kindhearted, well-meaning clerks have forwarded to the city council a recommendation asking that smoking be prohibited in taverns. Taverns are private property. Cigarettes are legal. It’s true, they’re also unhealthy, but so are pastries, bacon and promiscuous sex. As many people die prematurely in this country from diseases related to obesity as die of diseases linked to cigarettes. But Moscow would never try to govern what goes on in the dining room or the bedroom. So, why single out cigarettes?

As one would predict, Moscow’s tavern owners are no more pleased about this trickle of despotism than Starbuck’s or Denny’s would be if the nutrition Nazis, food fascists were as powerful as certain other lifestyle despots. And we know how excited people get when the bedroom police get involved in other peoples’ private lives.

The owner of CJ’s Bar, Phil Roderick, pointed out that the seasonal nature of the local economy already makes Moscow a hard place to do business: “Our economy here is only a six-month economy, and we can't afford any more erosion ..., and you want us to all go bankrupt?”

But what does Phil Roderick know about operating a tavern? His only qualification is that he’s the owner and manager of a tavern. As we have learned with government intervention into the auto industry, health care and the banking industry, desk bound clerks, bureaucrats, and career politicians who have never met payroll in their lives know far more about running a business than any businessman.

To wit: “I'm actually one who believes business will improve if there is a ban,” said Bill Lambert, one of the administrative committee members who recommended the ban. “But I'm not a bar owner.”

If Lambert’s understanding of the tavern business were true, then by now at least one tavern owner would have instituted a smoking ban on his own property and his establishment would have become a haven to all those who prefer quaffing their brews and playing pool in a smoke-free environment. And once the other taverns saw how successful this strategy was, then most would follow suit.

Smoking is now and will always be legal. Governments, especially state governments, can’t afford to ban it. Governments are far more addicted to tobacco taxes than any smoker is to nicotine. For all the sanctimonious demonization so fashionable among the governing classes, the various levels of governments are, by far, the biggest profiteers from smoking. And as we all well know, government can never have too much money. States are more likely to decriminalize and tax marijuana than ban cigarettes.

An interesting statistic I came across this last week was that, between 2002 and 2007, income to state treasuries increased by 86%. Even if their revenues have tailed off a bit in the last year, they would be awash in a sea of greenbacks had they followed the advice of Joseph and behaved responsibly during the fat years. And even so, nearly all states are pleading poverty. Do you really believe that such insatiably needy governments are going to sever one of their richest veins of income? Neither do I.

But this greed will not prevent individual politicians from engaging the sort of moral grandstanding Moscow is now considering.