Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Liars Unite

There's a battle going on in the States of Ohio and Arizona that you may have not have ever even heard of. It's not a battle with guns. It's not a boxing match. You may have participated in it without even knowing it, yet this battle is sure to spread across this nation effecting every state in the near future.

The battle has to do with smoking, but just not any smoking. It's smoking in public places. Some people want there to be smoking in public places, while others do not want this to happen. The non-smoking groups have started petitions to let people know that they don't want there to be smoking in public places. They want to ban smoking in almost every place possible that is on public property. The smoking parties are totally against this so they have started their own petition to keep smokers rights protected and keep smoking in public places.

Here's the problem. Because it's a petition, the title of the petition does not have to go along with the text that it is imposing. For example, in Arizona the smokers group is passing around a petition that is being called the Non-Smokers Protection Act. While the title sounds like it is for non smoking Americans, the text that it is implying is to actually keep smoking in public places and almost anywhere that alcohol is served. That's right, it's not in favor of protecting non-smokers at all. So why does the title sound so appealing to non-smokers? Easy. 99.9% of Americans are not going to sit down and read every page of a petition. They think that the title is enough to tell them all they need to know about the cause for the petition therefore they just go ahead and sign it. The truth of the matter is that they are signing a petition that is totally a 180 degree turn from what the title says. The title, in this case, must sound like it's for non-smokers. They make it sound even better than the actual non-smoker petition to lure people into signing their petition. They even go as far as to lie to the general public to get signatures. So when people are thinking that they are doing a favor for the non-smokers, they are actually helping smokers keep smoking in public places.

This is a trend that is soon going to effect almost every state as the battle for smoking in public places gets underway. Therefore, if you are approached by someone with a petition that says they are trying to get smoking banned in public places, be real sure that you know what you are signing. This goes for any petition. Just remember that it's not against the law to make the title of a petition sound different from what you are actually signing. Make sure that you take the time to read about what the petition is actually for because it is the law for the petition to actually state what it's for.