Freedom ends where the rights of others begin

Your editorial on no-smoking law ends in a terrible fashion. Nonsmokers should never have to bear smelling the smoke of others. I agree that people should be able to smoke in their homes, residences and other areas where a relaxing smoke feels pretty good as long as nonsmokers do not have to breathe their smoke.

Your editorial takes a terrible turn. You then state if Americans have to rely upon their government to protect us from ourselves, we are in trouble for other rights. Your logic is illogical. Anti-smoking laws are not protecting ourselves from ourselves but protecting others from our smoke.

In recent years during the Bush administration we have heard our government should not interfere in our lives and we should let the free market determine everything.

This theory that free markets will solve all of our problems does not work. There is no free market when CEOs earn 1,000 times more than the direct labor. There is no free market when our representatives permit exclusions to fair trade and give benefits to corporations that provide almost all of their campaign financing. There's no free market when the oil companies earn billions of dollars and spend 40 percent of that to purchase their own stock and spend nothing on increasing refinery capacity, the major reason for the high oil prices.

What makes this country great is not the freedom to do what you want but the freedom to help others and to be considerate of others by not smoking in their presence.

Dennis Barry Calabasas

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