OPINION & EDITORIAL
City’s bans hurt our freedoms
Looking for a print version?
Simply choose ‘Print’ on your computer and a printer-friendly document will be generated.
Also by Susie Strzelec:
- Tipping over mopeds is not a victimless crime (November 14, 2002)
- City's bans hurt our freedoms (November 25, 2002)
- America desensitized to terrorist reports (October 16, 2002)
- Bikers should follow rules, too (September 16, 2002)
- Tantrums on Wisconsin's political playground (September 4, 2002)
Related Stories:
- Ban will hurt UW employees (October 12, 2006)
- Judicial activism continues to damage constitutional rights (September 4, 2003)
- First Amendment poll: Americans confused (September 10, 2002)
- Public apathy leads to abridgement (December 5, 2005)
- Ten Commandments removal sparks counterpoint (September 10, 2003)
by Susie Strzelec
Monday, November 25, 2002
One of the core principles of the United States is freedom. In fact, the First Amendment of the Constitution deals completely with this issue. We have freedom of the press and of religion, and yet our liberties are constantly being threatened through new laws and bans on everything we love and hold dear.
Recently, almost every student on this campus was shocked and dismayed with the new attempt to ban drink specials. To legally enter a bar (without your parents chaperoning), you must be 21.
The drinking age was increased to 21 years ago when it was decided that people aren’t responsible enough to handle the effects and consequences of alcohol until they are in their early 20s.
If being 21 makes us officially old enough to drink and handle the responsibilities of alcohol, then why are our freedoms being challenged by the chancellor and all the people who advocated along with him to ban drink specials on weekdays?
UW-Madison is one of the highest-ranked schools in the nation. We are obviously not dumb individuals on this campus. It’s the fact that we are so smart that should bother us the most about banning drink specials. Our ability to get into this institution shows that we made good choices in high school that made us ideal candidates for a university as good as ours.
People should be punished on an individual basis for making idiotic decisions regarding drinking. Binge-drinking ruins the life of no one except the person stupid enough to get so wasted that the cops haul them off to detox.
None of us should lose our favorite cheap-cocktail get-together with our friends just because the chancellor thinks we drink too much. I should get the right to choose when and how much I drink.
Next thing you know, the chancellor will want restaurants to ban happy hour because it encourages post-work intoxication. Our liberties were greatly limited by the rules this university has falsely forced on us. And by the articles I’ve seen regarding smoking bans, it looks like Madison is jumping on the bandwagon of curtailing our freedoms as well.
Just this past week, Madison’s City Council ruled to ban smoking in restaurants in which less than 50 percent of sales went to alcohol.
I am not a smoker. I hate the smell of smoke, I hate the way my clothes reek after leaving a bar, and most especially, I hate the way I always seem to get ashes all over me when people carelessly miss ashtrays and get my clothes instead.
However, I have grown up in a society in which the right to choose has been stressed as an important part of our lifestyle. Madison already has a law that allows smoking only in bar-designated areas of restaurants.
Smokers can choose to sit in the bar area of certain restaurants so that they can enjoy their meal and somehow enjoy a cigarette at the same time. As a non-smoker, I am ushered to a different part of the restaurant entirely, one in which I am surrounded by fellow non-smokers, and I can enjoy my meal without the smoky atmosphere.
I never come in contact with those who are smoking, so there is no problem of me being seated anywhere near someone who is puffing away.
Somehow, I think that the same routine goes for all of the members of the Madison City Council when they choose to go to restaurants as well. The non-smokers get to sit in one area, and the smokers have to sit in another.
The plan has worked out so well for so long that this new ban is simply nothing more than the council telling us what we can or cannot do.
The decision should be left up to the owner of a restaurant to decide if they want to allow a designated smoking area or not, and it also should be left up to the patrons of restaurants to decide if they want to eat in the smoke-filled portion of the restaurant or the clean-air section. Either way, the City Council should play no part in this decision.
Our rights are being greatly diminished by all the bans that are being placed on the daily activities of our lives. We need to start paying better attention to what kinds of infringements are being implemented, or you never know what will be taken away from us next.
Just remember, we elect these council members, and we have the right as citizens to go to their meetings and protest what they are doing to us. Let’s make sure that another ban isn’t created to take away any more of our freedoms.
Susie Strzelec (sstrzelec@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in psychology.
