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"Adam", the federal government first collected an excise tax on cigarettes in 1862. US Government officials tell the American people the tax is for a fund ...

As a non-smoking liberal, I hereby speak up for the rights of smokers and owners of bars and restaurants in Illinois.

Their inalienable rights to smoke or allow smoking on their private properties have been severely restricted or outright deprived by a tyrannical governor who recently signed a law prohibiting smoking indoors in nearly all ``public places.'' That includes bars and restaurants which are actually private places that serve the public.

In a free country where private properties are protected by law, proprietors ought to have the right to decide whether smoking is allowed in their private establishments without government interference.

Anyone sensitive to smoking is free to avoid those smoke-filled watering holes and eateries.

And workplaces must be permitted to set up an enclosed and ventilated area indoors for smokers - like my company, where smokers and non-smokers peacefully co-existed for years, used to do.

It's inhumane and uncivilized to kick smokers out of a building and force them to light up their cigars and cigarettes in smoldering heat and bone-chilling cold as if they were second-class citizens.

The smoking ban presumably attempts to protect us non-smokers from secondhand smoke. The overprotective governor wants us to live longer.

But there are a great many senior citizens who can't afford the high prices of gasoline, food, public transportation, electricity, medicine and hospitalization in the state. And our inept governor is at his wit's end to help them cope with the serious problems.

Why would he try to increase the population of old folks to aggravate the situation?

Wise up, Gov. Blagojevich. Rescind the bad law.

Give me liberty and secondhand smoke - whose danger is much exaggerated.