Bob Butterworth, Esq. The Miami Herald Op-Ed Section

March 9, 2010

Bob Butterworth, Esq.
The Miami Herald Op-Ed Section
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: “Let’s Clear the Air” – Some comments on your Op-Ed about Dosal Tobacco and the open bribery of the Florida legislature on “loopholes” granted to the cigarette cartel.

Mr. Butterworth,

I know it’s a non sequitur but the day I quit smoking – October 1, 1989 – was the same day I Heimliched a lawyer in his office in East Rutherford, NJ.

I mention that because your Op-Ed about the felonies committed in plain sight in the Florida legislature – bribing legislators is still a crime, isn’t it? – suggests that, your legal credentials not withstanding, you never read the Constitution. I don’t mean the parts about the letters of marque and reprisal or bills of attainder. I mean the part about the right of the people “to petition the government for a redress of grievances”. You’ll find it surprisingly enough in the First Amendment. That’s the Amendment modern American Liberals use when they try to convince us that a public display of interspecies copulation should be supported by taxpayer dollars.

On the other hand, you, as an officer of the Court, are obliged to report a crime to the proper authorities, should you have knowledge of same.

You say that if Dosal Tobacco had not bribed sufficient members of the Florida legislature we would live in smoke free state.

You caterwaul that since Dosal Tobacco was not a member of the original class action suit they have a competitive advantage over those companies who were. Further, they use this advantage to sell more of their cigarettes because their price is less. [There is a presumption there that the opposite is also true. Higher prices discourage sales. Lower prices encourage sales. You sound like a closeted supply sider.] Do you think Dosal tobacco should raise their prices to do away with this competitive advantage?

“I helped beat Big Tobacco to win justice for Florida taxpayers.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You

Justice?




You allowed a product known to be carcinogenically poisonous to continue to be sold in Florida. If you call that “justice” please give me an example of an “injustice”. You struck a Faustian bargain with tobacco companies. In return for them sending sacks of cash to the Legislature to devour like vixens in a chicken coop you have condemned thousands and thousands of Floridians to an agonizing death.

I suggest that the amount of blood money sent to the state Treasury is not coming from the tobacco companies. Corporations don’t pay taxes. Taxes are a cost of doing business much the same as wages, insurance, debt service, and charitable contributions. It is coming from the end users of the company’s products. No more; no less.

If you are really concerned about “justice” you would lead the drive to ban all tobacco in Florida. If that is too extreme you could lobby the Legislature, the same as Dosal does, to change the law.

The Founders did not limit the right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances” to tree huggers, fans of manatee suffrage, the NRA, the various Teachers’ unions, Unfair Play for Cuba, and Save the Python advocacy groups. You have it too. It was yours at birth. It was “a gift from beyond the stars”.

In the meantime quit belly aching about someone else exercising their rights.


Kevin Smith