Jump to full article: Eau Claire (WI) Leader-Telegram, 2009-08-02
Author: Julian Emerson Leader-Telegram staff
Intro: When I heard that an Eau Claire homeowners association had voted to outlaw smoking in the owner-occupied residential complex, I knew right away the topic had the potential to ignite local controversy. . .. Initially I wondered how so many people from California to Massachusetts and points in between had read my story. I discovered there was a good explanation.
The story made its way to The Associated Press, then to the Drudge Report, a conservative online news site, where it reached a nationwide audience. From there the story took on an even larger life as conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh discussed it. . . .
I didn't hear the segment in which he addressed the matter but found a transcript online where he likened the smoking ban to "a communist idea" from somewhere other than Washington, D.C. Limbaugh and people calling his show apparently bashed the ban and the man who proposed it, Dave Hanvelt, the Fairfax Park Homeowners Association president. . . .
Here's a little secret most of those criticizing Hanvelt's political leanings apparently don't know: He's a conservative. In fact, he's a staunch conservative. . . .
"We accept these restrictions when we choose to live here," Hanvelt said, noting the smoking ban is about public health, not politics.
That makes sense to me, or certainly more sense than the rantings of people demonizing the Fairfax Park ban as the end of freedom for all. When compared to logic, those arguments go up in smoke.
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