Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Doesn't Mitch know that 18-year-olds can vote?

In the Ace of Spades blog, Oregon Muse expresses his disagreement with the Senate Majority leader.
Mitch McConnell has just introduced a bill which would increase the minimum age to buy cigarettes and other tobacco products from 18 to 21 years. When I first heard about this, I smacked myself in the forehead so hard, the slope disappeared. I mean, is federal intervention is such matters really necessary? That's quite a silly display of nanny-statism. Apparently, the several states aren't competent enough to handle these things for themselves but require the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-benevolent FedGov to make these decisions for them. Sounding like quite the alarmist, Cocaine Mitch said, quote, the health of our children is literally at stake, unquote. The panic implied in this statement rivals AOC's claim that "the world is going to end in 12 years" if we don't immediately mandate buttplugs for cows and outlaw economic prosperity. Never mind the fact that 18-year-olds are scarcely children. Never mind the fact that these same 18-year-olds are eligible for military service, so even though they can be shipped off to foreign soil and die in combat, they can't buy their own cigarettes.

Soon, liquor stores all across America will be festooned with crowds of 18-21-year-old "children" asking adults to buy cigarettes for them. But bigger than any of that, though, does anybody really want this? Does anyone recall hearing any calls for legislation about this from normal Americans? I thought the purpose of the federal government was to maintain post roads and collect tariffs from surly foreigners, not to post inspectors in every lavoratory to make sure you wiped your butt good enough. C'mon, Mitch, it's time to focus on what's really important: confirming more of Presidents Trump judicial picks so that perhaps there will be a chance that this country can be restored to some semblance of sanity, and also doing whatever it takes to insure that our borders are not overrun by surly foreigners who don't want to pay tariffs. Let the states make their own laws about tobacco usage, and the federal government can just butt the hell out. After all, the 10th Amendment shouldn't be that hard to understand."

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