Whirlpool: Fired for Lying About Smoking Habit
I have written a number of articles in favor of smoking bans. My company will not hire smokers and I mean not just smoking on the job, I mean even if they smoke while on vacation in DisneyWorld (although smoking there is getting harder to do) or at home; see my Employment Manual. Just so you know, I believe the government has no right to interfere in your private life, except... if you abuse your wife, children, or even your own body or property if it harms others.
I know there are Muslims who say that Islam gives them permission to beat their wives and it is none of the government's business to interfere in a purely religious matter. I know there are Africans who mutilate the vaginas of their daughters and say it is none of the government's business to interfere in a purely cultural matter. I know there are Christian sects who allow old men to deflower prepubescent young girls and assert it is none of the government's business to interfere in a purely religious matter. I personally know a pyromaniac who would love to burn down his home, not for insurance, but for the sheer pleasure of seeing it in flames; and thinks it is none of the government's business to interfere in a purely personal matter.
But you may object to the last: his pleasure may in fact endanger others. But isn't that exactly the objection of non-smokers? As to the others, I'm sure there are many in this country who will defend the abuse of women and children on the grounds that if we let the government interfere in those matters then it's only a matter of time that we'll lose all of our freedoms. I don't buy that argument. The government interfered in the right to own slaves and the result of that interference was certainly not less freedom but more since that was the basis for extending suffrage to women. According to the slippery-slope crowd we should have experienced a curtailment of all of our freedoms after taking away the right to own slaves. Didn't happen, although at the time that was precisely the argument used.






