When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be a ninja. Luckily for me, there was actually a school in Omaha that taught ninjutsu owned by Robert Bussey, one of the first Americans to study Ninjutsu in Japan. Oh sure, I was a natural. I had the mad ninja skills. My “hide in the shadows/dodge throwing stars/move silent like cat” skill set could not be beat and you better believe I made more than one opponent nearly wet themselves while sparring. But the way of the warrior was not for me. Oh, I was good at all the skills that involved not moving, but my opponents dread at facing me in the ring was not due to my deadly strikes so much as my ham-fistedness. C’est la vie. Sometimes in life, we must accept our limitations. Get ready for my other skill set “segeue like fox.” Now here we are a few years later and the people putting limitations on us are on the Ames City Council. I fully accept that smoking is bad for me, that’s why I am perpetually in a state of quitting. But bad luck, environment and alcohol usually conspire to keep me hooked on that brown devil weed. When I’m smoking, I’m a big fan of not bugging other people with my smoke. I don’t even like to smell smoke when I am in a restaurant trying to down the better part of some local restaurant’s idea of chicken fried steak. Those culinary experiments are hard enough to choke down with three days warning and a very empty stomach. For those who have never smoked, I completely understand their objection because, believe it or not, the objections of former smokers are almost always 10 times more stringent. So for me, the proposed ban on smoking is not and has never been an issue of smoker’s rights. I do not believe there is an inherent right to smoking unless you are an Indian and then the right to smoke is protected as a component of religion and believe me, I’d like to see that one contested in court some time. What the issue boils down to is one of freedom in general. There are enough laws telling us what we can and cannot do. While I find no objection to seat belt and helmet laws, speed limits or the prohibition on insider trading, I do take umbrage at the notion that just because we are at a point in our nation’s history in which smoking has become demonized that it is suddenly OK to ban it in all restaurants regardless of what the owner’s of those restaurants and the public think. Not everyone gives a damn about their health or the health of those around them to modify their lifestyle and while we should respect the air others breath, they need to respect the fact that most people who engage in behaviors we dislike or find objectionable for health/moral reasons still have a right to engage in those behaviors. What it boils down to is smoking is not illegal and nor should it be. Sometimes people need to learn to do things for the right reason and right now, I am firmly convinced that people have been quitting in droves over the last couple of decades precise because of the freedom to choose. People are informed. They know smoking sucks every time they wake up in the morning and start spewing lung cookies into the bathroom sink or get all wheezy from climbing one flight of stars. They need to look their mortality in the face and make the decision to quit on their own. I will also guarantee that nothing is more likely to encourage people to keep defiantly smoking as a smoking ban. Let’s remember that one of the greatest of all human traits is our desire to dig in and hold out against all odds. Do you think we would have beat the British twice if we just gave up? Or the Nazis? Hell no. Our stubbornness is a great quality, but it also leads us to make some of the stupidest mistakes, too. When you tell people they can’t do something, their natural instinct is to tell you to go to hell and keep on doing it to prove a point. In fact, that’s how I started smoking. I had a bastard of a roommate who told me I couldn’t because I was living in his apartment. I had no intention of smoking and probably wouldn’t to this day if he hadn’t been such a prick. Don’t force people to choose between their freedom to do whatever stupid thing they might want to do and being your whipping boy because 90 percent of the time, they will defy you – even if it means sticking their heads in an industrial-sized food processor to let you know who is in charge. As for setting a good example, my parents smoking KEPT me from starting for years. Forcing adults to set a good example with a ban will backfire. Let smoking die a natural death.